For any organisation to be successful in an increasingly competitive and global working environment, it is essential that there is a clear understanding of all aspects of the business. Given that no two organisations are exactly alike, there is no definitive understanding of exactly what these aspects are as they will depend on the organisation's nature, size and so on. Some of the aspects of the business that must be considered include: process models, process descriptions, competencies, standards, methodologies, infrastructure, people and business goals. It is important that these different aspects of the business are not only understood, but also that they are consistent and congruent with one another. The creation of an effective Enterprise Architecture (EA) provides a means by which an organisation can obtain such an understanding. This book looks at the practical needs of creating and maintaining an effective EA within a twenty-first-century business through the use of pragmatic modelling. The book introduces the concepts behind enterprise architectures, teaches the modelling notation needed to effectively realise an enterprise architecture and explores the concepts more fully through a real-life enterprise architecture.
Inspec keywords: corporate modelling; Unified Modeling Language
Other keywords: UML diagram; defence-based architectural framework; Zachman framework; enterprise architecture modelling; requirements modelling
Subjects: Formal methods; Business and administrative computing; Management topics; High level languages
The world of business and commerce is changing. As technology advances at a rate of knots and the geography of global working becomes less and less relevant, so the need to run an effective business becomes more and more important. Businesses grow at an alarming rate, often overnight. Interest in particular field can explode resulting in massive, instantaneous business expansion or, rather sadly, the reverse can often happen. New technologies, the increase in power and performance of existing technologies and even legislation can result in businesses going broke at an equally alarming rate. Even when business expansion is more measured, this is often through acquisition of other businesses which brings a whole new swathe of problems with it. It is essential, therefore, that a business can be managed and controlled in way that makes its behaviour as predictable as practically possible and which allows for the flexibility of an uncertain future. To manage and control the change associated with any business, there is a need for enterprise architecture (EA).
This chapter introduces the concept of modelling and includes a discussion on why modelling is so important and why we need to model. It also introduces a number of basic concepts that will be referred to constantly throughout the rest of the book.
Modelling is fundamental to everything that is presented in this book. A brief introduction to modelling has been discussed in Chapter 2, along with a set of requirements for any modelling language. To produce any sort of real model of an enterprise architecture (EA), it is essential that the model is looked at in terms of two aspects: both the structural and the behavioural aspects of the enterprise must be considered to generate a complete EA. This chapter looks at both structural and behavioural modelling in turn and introduces the Unified Modelling Language (UML) syntax along with the main concepts that must be understood to model effectively. Only the briefest of syntax will be looked at in this chapter.
This chapter introduces the 13 types of diagram that may be used in the Unified Modelling Language (UML). The information in this chapter is kept, very deliberately, at a high level. There are several reasons for this: the main focus of this book is to provide practical guidelines and examples of how to use the UML efficiently and successfully for an enterprise architecture (EA). It is, therefore, a deliberate move to show only a small subset of the UML language in this chapter. In reality, it is possible to model a large percentage of any problem with a small percentage of the UML language; experience has shown that the most efficient way to learn, and hence master, the UML is to learn just enough to get going and then to start modelling with it. This chapter aims to give just enough information to allow readers to start using the UML. As readers progress and find that they want to express some thing beyond their present understanding, they are referred to the many books that are devoted entirely to the UML and its very rich syntax.
This chapter discusses the basic elements that are essential for developing enterprise architecture. The three themes that emerge when considering EAs are: requirements (that must be considered at all levels of the EA), process (which allows the EA to be generated and also forms a part of it), and structure (which considers the ontology of the EA - ontology is the set of knowledge that defines all the key elements and the relationship between them).
This chapter provides a simple overview of the world of requirements engineering with a specific focus on enterprise architecture (EA). A simple process for identifying and analysing requirements is provided for guidance. This chapter has introduced the concept of requirements modelling at a very high level. The reason why requirements are being emphasised so much is that they are so important to an effective EA. To model effectively, it is crucial to have a standardised modelling notation. In this book, the preferred notation is the UML with some extensions using SysML. Both UML and SysML have diagram for modelling requirements, each of which will be discussed in this section.
The following sections are included: introduction; the meta-model; the ontology; initial viewpoints; generating views; the complete architecture view quagmire; and conclusions.
The following sections are included: introduction; the Zachman framework; defence-based architectural frameworks; and conclusions.
Appendix A provides a summary of the key enterprise architecture (EA) concepts: enterprise architecture meta-model; enterprise architecture business requirements set; generic EA ontology; and an example EA View quagmire.
This chapter provides a summary of the meta model and notation diagrams for Unified Modelling Language (UML) and SysML.