About 60% of companies are expected to rely on enterprise architecture to drive innovation within large companies.
What is enterprise architecture? It’s a marriage of business goals, strategy, and building a technology framework to support it.
When these factors are aligned, companies reduce redundancies, costs, and they grow revenue. They’re able to achieve more at a fast pace and stay agile enough to implement changes quickly.
An enterprise architecture framework is a template to design, plan, and implement enterprise architecture. Choosing the right framework can make or break your company.
Read on to learn the four main enterprise architecture types you can implement in your organization.
1. TOGAF
Enterprise organizations are complex, with locations spread across a region or the globe. This can create silos in organizations that lead to communication breakdowns and projects falling behind.
One of the benefits of enterprise architecture is that you take a proactive approach to simplify and focus on outcomes.
The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) is a modular approach to enterprise architecture. Each module can function on its own or as part of the greater system.
This is a high-level framework that operates on several levels: business strategy, application, data, and technology.
2. Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework
You can only imagine the level of complexity that federal agencies have. These are monstrous organizations and without a common framework, government agencies wouldn’t be able to function.
The Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework was created in 1996 to give federal agencies a common structure and language.
Within the framework are several models that address different aspects of the enterprise. For instance, the Performance Reference Model outlines the strategy, investments, and how to measure the outcomes of the investments.
The Security Reference Model gives agencies a common language to implement security and data privacy measures.
3. Zachman Framework
This enterprise architecture framework was developed by John Zachman, a former IBM employee. He was one of the early developers of enterprise architecture.
The Zachman Framework takes six rows of categories for your current systems. These rows are the Planner’s View, Owner’s View, Designer’s View, Implementer’s View, Sub-Constructor’s View, and User’s View.
You then go through the 5W’s for each row: Who, what, where, when, why, and how. This gives you a basic understanding of your existing architecture so you can implement change.
4. Gartner Enterprise Architecture
Gartner is well-known as a research and consulting company. The company also developed an enterprise architecture framework.
The theme of the framework isn’t structure. It’s adaptability. It sees managers, IT architects, and technology specialists as a single unit, allowing them to work together easily.
Types of Enterprise Architecture
Enterprise architecture is the backbone of any business that wants to align business strategies with technology systems. It’s necessary for large businesses to be as nimble as a small business.
What’s the right enterprise architecture framework for your business? It depends on your business needs. The four types of enterprise architecture in this article give your business a lot of flexibility.
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