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IFEAD

People -- Process -- Business -- Technology
IFEAD is an independent research and information exchange organization working on the future state of Enterprise Architecture.


Enterprise Architecture News

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News - May 2009

New Enterprise Architecture Tool Selection Guide version 5.0 - 2009

Due to important changes at products and suppliers of Architecture tools duringthe last year, IFEAD have produced a totally new version of their Enterprise Architecture Tool Selection Guide version 5.0.

The Institute For Enterprise Architecture Developments is proud to announce their totally renewed Enterprise Architecture / Systems Architecture Tools Overview version 5.0 2009, as well as the accompanied Enterprise Architecture Tool Selection Guidelines 2009 version 5.0.

In this guide there is a total renewed overview of current EA tool suppliers. A new column is added about support of Governance, Risk and Compliancy. Even so the Soluton Architecture column and SOA is combined, 2 new columns are added to show the TOGAF 9 support as well as the support of differnt standard modelling languages like, Archimate, BPMN and UML. So this vendor and tools overview is now covering the most important areas of architecture work.

The new Enterprise Architecture Tool Selection Guide version 5.0, 2009 can help you defining your organization specific architecture tool selection requirements and criteria.


Vision

To have a working environment where the Enterprise Architecture profession is widely recognized by likeminded individuals and the organizations they work for, and who all support the legitimacy of the profession and its practice.

Mission

To advocate consistent professional practice, to generate public awareness, and to bring together likeminded individuals who subscribe to the Hippocratic Oath for the Enterprise Architecture Profession.

Goals

1. To identify and establish a body of ethics, principles, and maturity measures which convey a consistent message about the Enterprise Architecture profession and its practice.

2. To develop and certify a body of knowledge that properly represents the Enterprise Architecture Profession and its practice.

3. To improve the practice of Enterprise Architecture such that its practitioners are widely recognized as professionals.

Core Values

1. Integrity,

2. Leadership,

3. Excellence, and

4. Ethical Behavior.

Membership

Membership is free.

To become a member, read and sign the Hippocratic Oath for the Enterprise Architecture Profession.


News - Juli 2008

Now Available for Ordering

Titled:

'Enterprise Architecture Good Practices Guide'

How to Manage the Enterprise Architecture Practice

Trafford Publishing, Canada

ISBN: 1-4251-5687-8

by Jaap Schekkerman

A 386 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #07-2553; ISBN 1-4251-5687-8; Price: US$73.12, C$73.12, EUR49.95, £37.75

This Enterprise Architecture Good Practices Guide is based on IFEAD's well known sets of EA guides that are published over the years and enhanced on feedback from users.

About the Book: Enterprise Architecture Good Practices Guide

The purpose of this guide is to provide guidance to organization's in initiating, developing, using, and maintaining their enterprise architecture (EA) practice. This guide offers a set of Enterprise Architecture Good Practices that have proven their benefits to organizations and that addresses an end-to-end process to initiate, implement, and sustain an EA program, and describes the necessary roles and associated responsibilities for a successful EA program.

Enterprise Architecture is a complete expression of the enterprise; a master plan which “acts as a collaboration force” between aspects of business planning such as goals, visions, strategies and governance principles; aspects of business operations such as business terms, organization structures, processes and data; aspects of automation such as information systems and databases; and the enabling technological infrastructure of the business such as computers, operating systems and networks.

While EA frameworks and models provide valuable guidance on the content of enterprise architectures, there is literally no guidance how to successfully manage the process of creating, changing, and using Enterprise Architecture.

This guidance is crucially important. Without it, it is highly unlikely that an organization can successfully produce a complete and enforceable EA for optimizing its business value and mission performance of its systems. For example, effective development of a complete EA needs a corporate commitment with senior management sponsorship. Enterprise Architecture development should be managed as a formal program by an Enterprise Architecture Department that is held accountable for success.

Since that EA facilitates change based upon the changing business environment of the organization, the enterprise architect is the organization’s primary change agent.

Effective implementation requires establishment of business and system compliance with the enterprise architecture, as well as continuous assessment and enforcement of compliance. Waiver of these requirements may occur only after careful, thorough, and documented business case analysis. Without these commitments, responsibilities, and tools, the risk is great that business changes or new systems will not meet organizations business needs, will be incompatible, will perform poorly, and will cost more to develop, integrate, and maintain than is warranted.

For more info about this go to the book webpage.

Download book index here: Book index

For ordering the book directly at the Publisher, go to: http://www.trafford.com/07-2553

Ordering this guide directly at the website of the Publisher is the easiest and fastest way of getting this guide.


News - April 2008

Enterprise Architecture: a journey, not a destination.

GCN Interview with Jan Popkin, founder of Popkin Software and a strategist at Telelogic.

GCN: What developments are we likely to see with enterprise architecture this year? Some experts talk about the need for more data management, business processes and security.

Popkin: Enterprise architecture continues to mature. There is an understanding of what it is, and people are saying, “Now that we are doing enterprise architecture, what benefits or actions do we want to result from that?” It’s less, “Should we or shouldn’t we do the program?” [and more] “We’re doing the program now; let’s tune it to our particular needs.”

Enterprise architecture is a mechanism to provide results — whether it’s agility, alignment, collaboration — and so…it is an enabler in itself. I see [users] looking for results, tuning programs. The other part of the enterprise architecture discussion is moving further out from an IT chief architect discussion to involving extended-team collaboration with other groups. And that opens up the questions of data management, business process and security.

For instance, “We have data we want to share — what are the rules for sharing it?” “We provide this process or business service — how can we share it?”

And security is an ongoing discussion. In the past, there has been discussion of laying in a security view. I think that’s always been balanced with having security intrinsic across everything you’re doing and having it especially called out.

GCN: We’re hearing a lot about service-oriented architecture and business process management. How can agencies apply these disciplines and associated technologies in an EA framework?

Popkin: When we talk about an EA framework, I’d like to map that into an EA program. An EA program is an ongoing mechanism to understand what your goals are and what an agency’s service goals are and align that with IT services and business processes. So the enterprise architecture program or framework provides a context to understand the implementation of such a thing as SOA or business process management.

But when we talk about SOA, there are multiple definitions of it. When I talk about SOA in this context, I’m talking about it as an architectural principle, which means supporting the agility of moving things around over time and [supporting] data sharing. I think in the federal space that is what people are talking about, which is having that agility and data sharing.

It’s not discussing SOA technology, it’s talking about the architecture around it. Having said that, you can see the alignment of an EA program — which involves understanding and defining services, an agency’s goals and what it needs to achieve — and then having the SOA architectural principle below supporting that in a high-level implementation.

As you do the services, you have to involve the business processes around it. When you’re talking about the SOA architectural principle, there are people and things around that and the processes which are very important to enable those SOA architectures.

Tying that all together, the EA program is a higher-level view of what’s going on, how that’s aligned to where you are and where you are going.


News - March 2008

Collaboration between IFEAD and Logica Management Consulting

Mr. Jaap Schekkerman, the President & Thought Leader of IFEAD, will by the 1st of April join Logica Management Consulting. On a part-time base his activities for Logica Management Consulting will be focused on enhancement of the EA practice and board room consulting to customers.


News - December 2007

Former U.S. Enterprise Architecture Chief Joins MEGA International Advisory Board

MEGA International made the announcement that Richard Burk, former chief architect for the U.S. government, has joined the Advisory Board of MEGA International.


Burk was the chief architect and manager of the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) Program at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for almost 3 years. He led the effort to develop a standard, government-wide business and technology framework to align federal IT investments as a means of improving government services.


MEGA International provides enterprise architecture (EA), business process analysis (BPA), and governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) solutions. The MEGA Modeling Suite business process analysis (BPA) and enterprise architecture (EA) modeling tools are used by corporations and a large number of government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Transportation, NASA, and USDA.


“Dick Burk is the recognized EA expert for the federal government. He will continue to help expand the adoption of enterprise architecture by government agencies through his position on our Advisory Board,” noted Lucio de Risi, president and CEO of MEGA International. “Dick will assist agencies working with MEGA International in optimizing the value from their EA initiatives to improve services to citizens.”


News - December 2007

 

Telelogic Announces Latest Release of System Architect with Enterprise Planning to Analyze and Manage Organizational Change

Telelogic has expanded its enterprise architecture and business analysis software, offering a more complete modeling environment that integrates business processes with information technology functions.

The company updated its flagship software, System Architect 11.0, with three features: a new enterprise planning capability for improved analysis and planning; the new System Architect/Process Integrator, which provides integration between System Architect and Microsoft Visio; and integration between System Architect and Telelogic’s Tau for implementing enterprise architecture-to-IT workflows.

The enhancements give organizations an integrated workflow framework to develop applications for service-oriented architecture and traditional environments.

In addition, the product updates offer a wider range of related user groups, including business analysts, executives, data architects and IT developers, and the ability to more fully participate in the process of establishing an enterprise architecture and moving to actual IT implementation, Telelogic officials said.

System Architect is the most widely used enterprise architecture product at government agencies surveyed recently by the Government Accountability Office. The Army Morale, Welfare and Recreation Agency; the Federal Emergency Management Agency; and the Air Force have all used the software.

IBM is in the process of acquiring Telelogic and is expected to add it to its Rational Software unit when the deal is completed by the end of the year.


News - November 2007

New Book Announcement from IFEAD

Expected December 2007 / January 2008

Titled:

'Enterprise Architecture Good Practices Guide'

A Comprehensive set of Proven EA methods, Tools & Technologies

Trafford Publishing, Canada

by Jaap Schekkerman

This Enterprise Architecture Good Practices Guide is based on IFEAD's well known sets of EA guides that are published over the years and enhanced on feedback from users.

Topics addressed in this guide.

Defining EA maturity; Initiating EA Program; Adoption of EA Frameworks; Developing EA Results; Selecting EA Tools; Explaining EA Deliverables; Doing EA Assessments; Showing EA Sets of Viewpoints; EA Governance, Etc.


News - August 2007

USA Federal Enterprise Architecture Consolidated Reference Model v2.2 - July 2007

This document contains the most current US FEA reference model information. This document replaces any versions of the reference models from previous years. It does not contain the most recent release of the Data Reference Model (Version 2.0). CRM Version 2.2 was released in July 2007.

The Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Office of E-Government (E-Gov) and Information Technology (IT), with the support of the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Federal Chief Information Officers (CIO) Council, established the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) Program which builds a comprehensive business-driven blueprint of the entire Federal government.

The FEA Program Management Office (PMO), located within OMB’s Office of E-Gov and IT, equips OMB and federal agencies with a common language and framework to describe and analyze IT investments, enhance collaboration and ultimately transform the Federal government into a citizen-centered, results-oriented, and market-based organization as set forth in the President’s Management Agenda (PMA).

Download FEA Consolidated Reference Model (CRM) Version 2.2


News - July 2007

Updated Enterprise Architecture Tools Selection Guide version 4.2 - 2007; Now Available.

Due to some changes at products and suppliers of EA tools, just after publishing version 4.0, IFEAD have produced a 4.2 update version.

The Institute For Enterprise Architecture Developments is proud to announce their updated and totally renewed Enterprise Architecture / Systems Architecture Tools Overview version 4.2 2007, as well as the accompanied Enterprise Architecture Tools Selection Guidelines 2007.

In this guide there is a total renewed overview of current EA tool suppliers. A new column is added about support of Governance, Risk and Compliancy. Even so the System Architecture column is expanded to Service Oriented Architecture support, so this vendor and tools overview is now covering the most importatnt areas of EA work.

The new Enterprise Architecture Tools Selection Guide version 4.2 can help you defining your organization specific EA tool selection requirements and criteria.

 


 

News - June 2007

IEEE 1471 has been adopted by ISO as ISO/IEC 42010:2007

IEEE 1471 has been adopted by ISO as ISO/IEC 42010:2007, Systems and software engineering -- Recommended practice for architectural description of software-intensive systems.


IEEE and ISO have begun joint revision of the standard which will become Systems and software engineering -- Architectural description. The revision will be undertaken by ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 7 Working Group 42*
___________
* "42" because it is said that, "Architecture is the answer to life, the universe, and everything." :-)
___________

The joint revision has several goals:
  • to widen the scope of application from software-intensive systems to general systems architecture (including enterprise architecture);
  • to harmonize with the ISO systems engineering (ISO 15288) and software engineering (ISO 12207) life cycle processes; and
  • to align terms and concepts with other ISO architecture efforts, including RM-ODP (ISO 10746) and GERAM (ISO 15704).


Interested parties may participate in the revision either through their ISO member bodies, or through IEEE.


For more information, see IEEE 1471 | ISO 42010 web site:

http://www.iso-architecture.org/ieee-1471/


The US CIO Council issued an ambitious strategic plan for 2007 to 2009 outlining four major goals, 19 milestones and key performance indicators for every goal.

This is the first revised strategic plan since 2004.

“The plan represents the council’s collective thinking on how best they will pursue and achieve their important goals,” said Karen Evans, the Office of Management and Budget’s administrator for e-government and IT and director of the CIO Council.

A working group developed the plan over the past five months to provide accountability and performance metrics to the council’s activities.

The council’s goals are to:

  • Improve the IT workforce through identifying, assessing and reporting on trends, strengthening project management skills, enhancing professional development programs and implementing compensation policies and flexibilities to attract top talent.
  • Provide information securely and reliably within agencies and to citizens by implementing best practices to improve government information, managing and sharing information by implementing the Data Reference Model and using best practices for knowledge management in providing services and products.
  • Ensure IT systems are interoperable and used effectively across the federal government by integrating the Federal Enterprise Architecture into the budget process to identify redundancies and opportunities to share systems, using the SmartBuy program better, continuing to use shared-services providers for cross-agency business processes, accelerating the adoption of e-government projects across agencies, better sharing of components through a service-oriented design, encouraging the adoption of standards across government and improving how information on emerging technologies is shared.
  • Improve the interoperability across federal, state, local and tribal governments, as well as industry and academia, by accelerating the use of the Federal Enterprise Architecture, coordinating EA alignment and standards with non-federal entities, assisting agencies move to IP Version 6, establishing a governmentwide database of standardized business service components and promoting 508 accessibility best practices.

Among the goals the CIO Council wants to accomplish this year include:
  • Improving the use of ET.gov, the portal to bring communities of practice focusing on emerging technologies together.
  • Ensuring the use of the Federal Transition Framework catalog to make sure systems are shared and included in architecture designs and IT acquisitions.
  • Developing IPv6 transition strategies.
  • Changing the General Schedule 2210 series for IT workers to identify specialties in the work force.
  • Encouraging IT exchange opportunities with the private sector.
  • Updating the DRM, and establishing implementation strategies and best practices for the reference model.

The Institute For Enterprise Architecture Developments is proud to announce that in Februari 2007 the updated and totally renewed Enterprise Architecture / Systems Architecture Tools Overview 2007 will be available.

 


News November 2006

Another View: EA Blueprints for collaboration

By Jan Popkin

 

In his book, The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman describes examples of forces that have “flattened the world” and the multiple forms and tools for collaboration that have been created. In particular, he asserts that collaboration is the new driving force in managing workflows today, resulting in a new paradigm where collaborators agree to “have your application talk to my application.”

Two trends are driving this collaboration. One is alignment—or the emphasis on improving organizational performance by aligning IT systems more closely with such business goals and strategies as e-government and net-centric operations. The second is integration—or the movement from building standalone systems to integrated system development, where applications no longer stand apart but must function as parts of a larger enterprise environment.

For IT folks in the government, this evolution is not news. Information technology and architecture have been evolving to support collaboration, with the ultimate goals of better service delivery and improved interoperability. This movement toward collaboration requires migration from discrete IT systems into an environment based on machine-to-machine communications that leverage the power of intranets or the Internet using Web services.

But creating a collaborative environment is a huge challenge for agencies. Many are looking at the commercial world for answers and, toward this end, are evaluating service-oriented architecture as one solution.

SOA works as a software architecture integration platform that supports coupling parts of software applications into a service layer, thus creating a composite application. In simple terms, a composite application may take information from some systems and deliver information to others, those using pieces of applications to create a new or composite application made up of a series of services.

SOA offers many benefits. First, it saves both the time and money necessary to build a new application; it simply repurposes what is already available. By enabling many applications to work together, agencies can easily reconfigure workflows over time to address changing regulations or new operating realities. Agility is a primary benefit; it is much easier to rework a spider web of services than to create a new application.

But SOA should be approached as a technology that enables architecture instead of just another new technology to move data. Agencies should watch for pitfalls, such as building applications that fail to provide for future opportunities offered by machine-to-machine or browserless communications. They should avoid arbitrarily selecting services that could expose internal data unnecessarily and instead evaluate services in the context of a technology issue and a security issue.

Many agencies are recognizing that their existing enterprise architecture programs can provide the intellectual component to make SOA and collaboration a reality. Enterprise architecture, with its road map showing relationships among the processes, data and IT infrastructures, provides a platform for implementing SOA with the ability to accommodate change instead of using new technology to do things the same old way.

Enterprise architecture offers organizations the flexibility to assemble and analyze applications in the context of processes and examine relationships, and do it at a higher level of complexity. Thus it gives agencies the tools to understand how SOA supports e-government, net-centric operations and cross-agency information sharing. Agencies that leave out the middle step of architecture will miss the value proposition offered by SOA—the agility offered in adapting to future change. Smart agencies recognize that enterprise architecture is the intellectual component that enables new ways of thinking and delivering the accompanying benefits.

Jan Popkin is chief strategist for Telelogic AB with U.S. headquaqrters in Irvine, Calif. He can be reached by e-mail at jan.popkin@telelogic.com.

Read More at GCN ......


News September 2006

Survey: Most EAs good for now, but not for future

USA Agencies’ enterprise architectures are good enough to support their mission needs for the time being but may not be adequate for the long term.

In a survey of 155 US federal IT and business executives, 61 percent said their modernization blueprints “are not optimal for growth,” and seven percent said their EA is not optimal for their agency’s current mission. Meanwhile, 33 percent said the plans are good enough for now and the future.

“The IT folks are concerned about the scale issue as well as the new technology coming,” said Gerald Charles, executive adviser for Cisco Systems’ Public Sector Internet Business Solutions Group. “They are not comfortable with how they will intergrate the new technology.”

Cisco and Market Connections Inc. of Fairfax, Va., conducted the telephone survey of IT decision-makers familiar with their agencies’ enterprise architecture, according to Aaron Heffron, Market Connections’ vice president for custom research services.

The survey found that the network security, disaster recovery and continuity of operations were the top issues for both business and IT managers.

Security could be impacted the most by using their EA correctly, according to 25 percent of the business managers and 29 percent of the IT managers. After that, shared services (21 percent) and cross-agency collaboration and information sharing (19 percent) also scored high. Among IT managers, 18 percent said enterprise management, cross-agency collaboration and information sharing, and real-time network management could benefit from using their EA correctly.

Charles said this seems to show that federal IT and business managers see security not just as a point solution to their security problem but a part of the broader scope of people, processes and tools, and EA is a part of that.

Funding (23 percent) remains the largest challenge for enterprise architecture, while maintaining security (15 percent) and internal staffing (14 percent) round out the top three obstacles for EA.

And the managers said if they had extra funding, 47 percent would spend it on internal staffing and training.

As agencies mature in using their EAs, 69 percent of the respondents said using their EA to consolidate IT infrastructure will become the biggest challenge. Cross-agency sharing and collaboration (62 percent) and expanding how much money they spend on e-records management (57 percent) followed as the next set of obstacles to using their EA effectively.

“A lot of these challenges are cultural or organizational, not technical,” Charles said. “They realize consolidation brings benefits of lower costs, but they must work through the other issues as well to get the consolidation done.”

Heffron added that the overall message from the survey was that agency IT and business managers have a lot of competing priorities and can’t move forward as fast as they would like. Read More .....


In the latest version of the Federal Enterprise Architecture Security and Privacy Profile, the CIO Council for the first time gives agencies a document that is built from reality.

Unlike many FEA profiles, two agencies tested the validity of Version 2 of the Security and Privacy document. The Justice and Housing and Urban Development departments undertook a four-month trial to see how the updated methodologies to add security and privacy to agency EAs worked.

“The current version was modified based on validation exercises and an assessment of related documents,” the profile states. “Validation consisted of abbreviated applications of the FEA SPP methodology.”

This is the third version of the profile the CIO Council released that complements the federal architecture methodology. The council issued the first one in August 2004 and again in July 2005.

This profile cuts across all five layers of the FEA— business, service component, performance, technical and data reference models.

The security and privacy profile moves the agencies toward addressing these issues from a “business-centric, enterprise perspective.” The profile, the CIO Council hopes, will integrate “disparate perspectives of program, security, privacy and capital planning into a coherent process, using an organization’s enterprise architecture efforts.”


News July 2006

Third Renewed and Updated Edition Now Available

Book is expended with an additional 40 pages including the European Interoperability Framework as well as new chapters about EA tool selection & support.

publication cover shot

ISBN 1-4120-1607-X

Trafford Publishing, Canada

By Jaap Schekkerman

Book is also available via AMAZON.COM, Barnes & Noble.com, All-Computer- books.co.uk, etc.


US Defense officials say the USA department is too big to push its Business Enterprise Architecture down to all the military services and agencies. So, they’re promoting a federated approach that focuses on the component agencies.

Defense components must adopt an organized structure that will align business rules and processes with the BEA. The Business Transformation Agency issued a draft of this structure, called the Business Mission Area Federation Strategy, last week. The strategy specifies how the smaller enterprise architectures will tie into the BEA.

“We realize that it’s physically impossible for us to build an architecture at the BEA level that can address all of the requirements and [standardize] all the way down to the program level,” explained Dave Scantling, director of information and federation strategy for the Business Transformation Agency. “Nonetheless, we have to have certain standards that are adhered to across the enterprise.”

The goal is to get to tiered accountability by mandating that the four services, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, Transportation Command and the Defense Logistics Agency align their business rules and processes to the overarching BEA. Scantling likened the set of interoperable rules with the multiple levels of government—federal, state and local—working in tandem to achieve a common goal.

To get the word out about the federation strategy, BTA officials will spend this month and next on the road, visiting CIOs and their architecture staffs at each of the services and agencies.

BTA will incorporate some of the feedback from the consultations into an updated federation strategy to be released publicly by Aug. 31 2006.

After the final version of the federation strategy is approved in late summer, federation pilots will be set up to provide proof of concept for architecture federation between the BEA, component enterprise and program architectures. BTA also will use incentives to ensure the federation is done properly.

As BEA and the Enterprise Transition Plan are updated every six months and presented to Congress, the federation strategy also will be reviewed after the release of the BEA and ETP to see if changes or modifications are in order.

How will the military organizations certify to BTA that they’re in compliance? The governance structure is still being determined, but officials say one thought is to use the investment review boards as EA police.

First, the service would be responsible for self-certifying that any system being developed and valued at more than $1 million is presented to business mission-specific review boards, which comprise the principal staff assistants of various business mission areas and service undersecretaries. The IRBs make recommendations to the Defense Business Systems Management Committee, chaired by Gordon England, deputy Defense secretary.

The federation strategy provides a governance model for the services and agencies to align their architectures to BEA. The methodology for achieving a federation of business operations across the department is known as the Business Operating Environment.


The USA National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO), which represents the chief information officers (CIOs) of the states, is pleased to announce the release of its research brief, Service Oriented Architecture: an Enabler of the Agile Enterprise. The brief identifies what state CIOs need to know now regarding Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), including its business value, the vision for SOA, SOA governance, SOA as a program and SOA security.

This research brief, an important resource for CIOs and state chief architects, also provides an excellent overview of SOA for non-technical government professionals at all levels of government. SOA promises to be a significant innovation for state government that will provide the ability to pick and choose business and technology services, and will allow the trade out of services based on organizational re-design, new strategic intent, legislative requirements, or business process modifications.

“SOA promises to bring significant business value out of existing IT assets through increased operational efficiencies, optimized business processes, and the ability to adapt and change quickly,” said Utah CIO Stephen Fletcher. "Providing flexible access to information across platforms and languages can be complex and resource intensive. Service Oriented Architecture simplifies this through standard protocols which treat all platforms equally. This allows us to offer data services to a wide variety of business partners with requests that can originate from anywhere."

Service Oriented Architecture: an Enabler of the Agile Enterprise is avaliable for download


News May 2006

Enterprise Architecture Consulting Services (EACS) is a proven source for research & best practices based EA measurement tools, EA development & implementation programs and strategic advisory services. Enterprise Architecture Consulting Services is working close together with the research people from the Institute For Enterprise Architecture Developments (IFEAD).

In just five years, IFEAD has developed a world wide position in the EA research & development arena with its EA frameworks, methods, opinions and approaches, etc.

EACS has leveraged this understanding of EA organizational and technological behavior to develop their surveys and consulting services to apply to a wide variety of organizations with one single purpose in mind: Enterprise Architecture is a complete expression of the enterprise; a master plan which “acts as a collaboration force” between aspects of business planning such as goals, visions, strategies and governance principles; aspects of business operations such as business terms, organisation structures, processes and data; aspects of automation such as information systems and databases; and the enabling technological infrastructure of the business such as computers, operating systems and networks.

Enterprise Architecture Consulting Services professionals deliver EA advisory services via the web, at client sites and at EA leadership conferences around the world.

EACS; EA Consulting Services:

Fore more info about EACS visit the website at http://www.ea-consulting.com


News - May 2006

Gartner has recently released their Magic Quadrant for business process analysis 2006 , and the first big news is that they've updated the style of the graphics.

This Business Process Analysis report is comparing the primary tools used for modelling and analyzing your business processes, whether or not you're going to automate some of those processes using BPM. However, it's the linkage between BPA and BPM that is really driving the BPA marketplace, including the whole round-tripping process that allows BAM results to be fed back into the BPA tool for further analysis and optimization.

It is interestingto see that Gartner has chosen the vendors for this MQ in such a way that they are only in the "leaders" or "niche players" quadrants: not a one in the "visionaries" or "challengers" quadrants. They give an explanation for why this happened in the full report, but the comparison chart is less useful for tracking future trends without the visionaries and challengers. It is interesting to see that Gartner have put Microsoft (Visio in the BPA product under review) in the upper right corner since it's not clear to the rest of the world the vision of Microsoft for making Visio a full BPA product.

Last month IFEAD published a new version of the EA tools Selection Guidelines v3.0 and our overview of EA tools and vendors.

The vendors in Gartner's Magic Quadrant paid to be part of the BPTrends report, so it's not exactly an indepedent analysis, but it includes some good background material on the market.


News - April 2006

IFEAD has started a New European Home Section on our website.

The Institute For Enterprise Architecture Developments (IFEAD) is proud to announce their New European Section.

www.enterprise-architecture.eu/index-eu.htm

IFEAD is celebrating in 2006 its 5 years existence with a series of Updated and New Enterprise Architecture Guides, supporting organisations at the implementation and professionalism of their Enterprise Architecture function. We are proud of our new publications and are overwhelmed with positive reactions on these publications.

See our EA Methods or E2A Approach section for these publications.


The Institute For Enterprise Architecture Developments is proud to announce their updated and totally renewed Enterprise Architecture / Systems Architecture Tools Overview 2006, as well as the accompanied Enterprise Architecture Tools Selection Guidelines 2006.

The new Enterprise Architecture Tools Selection Guidelines version 3.0 can help you defining your organization specific EA tool selection requirements and criteria.


To focus the research activities of the The Institute For Enterprise Architecture Developments a yearly survey is developed to get more information about the Enterprise Architecture progress in todays organizations.

EA Trends Survey 2005 Results

Please fill in this EA 2006 survey


News - March 2006

USA-OMB working with agencies on Earned Value Management

The Office of Management and Budget continues to work with federal agencies as they face a crucial deadline this month for implementing earned-value management principles for their major IT investments.

Some agencies are struggling to meet the upcoming March 31 deadline to begin independently verifying and validating the cost, schedule and performance baselines for all ongoing major IT projects, OMB is confident that the government has made great strides in adopting EVM and the end result will be a transformation in how agencies manage contracts.

EVM, a project management tool used by the Defense Department for years, lets project managers track money spent on a project almost in real time and measures that expense against timelines and deadlines.

OMB has been pushing civilian agencies to use EVM since last August when it issued a memo requiring agencies to develop an EVM model for major IT projects by the end of last year.


News - February 2006

USA-FEA terms glossary on hold

The USA Chief Architects Forum has put on hold their attempt to establish a common glossary for the Federal Enterprise Architecture after coming up with four or five definitions for 120 terms.

Richard Burk, the US Office of Management and Budget’s chief architect, said last week that the effort to harmonize terms and build consensus among agencies is on hiatus until the group can decide on the context of the terms.

“The term ‘transition plan’ may mean one thing for current-state architecture and another thing for ‘to-be’ architecture,” Burk said during a luncheon sponsored by the Industry Advisory Council in Washington. “There is a fair amount of loosey-goosey terminology floating around. This is the problem we are trying to solve.”

While the Chief Architects are working on a common set of terms, OMB is finalizing a service component-based architecture white paper—the first of nine volumes, according to a presentation given at the Chief Architects Forum meeting last week. The white paper is a guide for agencies to implement distributed and reusable services and components. The white paper also will integrate service-oriented architecture (SOA), reflect the evolution of the FEA and incorporate agency feedback, according to the presentation.

The other volumes will include capital planning and investment control and EA integration, SOA strategy, service-component governance and using governmentwide profiles and the Lines of Business.

OMB and the CIO Council’s Architecture and Infrastructure Committee also accepted suggestions to the FEA Reference Model Maintenance Framework through Jan. 30. Burk said OMB and the committee will update the framework by March 31 and again by Sept. 30. The General Services Administration’s Rick Murphy is leading this effort.

“The framework will frame existing policies so agencies can easily recognize and incorporate elements of the cross-agency initiatives into their future state architectures,” Burk said.


 

OMB releases EA Assessment

The Office of Management and Budget has the second version of its Enterprise Architecture Assessment Framework. Agencies have until Feb. 28 to submit their EA materials under this guideline, according to a memo issued by Richard Burk, director of the Federal Enterprise Architecture Program Management Office.

Last year, OMB announced it would evaluate how well agencies complete and utilize their EAs to save money, improve services and meet their missions overall. OMB will use this assessment to evaluate agency EAs as part of the second quarter 2006. President’s Management Agenda Scorecard.

Version 2.0 of the assessment framework supersedes Version 1.5, published last year. While Version 1.5 focused on gauging how well agencies completed their baseline EAs, Version 2 looks at how well an agency actually uses its EA, and what results the agency gets from the EA.

Download OMB EA Assessment Framework Version 2.0 here.


News - January 2006

IFEAD's New Sections on Services Orientation

What you all need to know about Services Orientation!!

Structuring the Enterprise around Services

The Differences between Hype, Hope and Reality?

"Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler." -- Albert Einstein

The terms Enterprise Architecture (EA), Services Oriented Enterprise (SOE), Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Service Oriented Computing (SOC) are being exposed to an ever wider and more influential audience. Unfortunately, as with many "new concepts" there is a common misunderstanding about prior ideas and practices from which they are derived. Accordingly, these terms will be bandied about as buzzwords and/or marketing hyperbole assaults.

This section is a preemptory effort to provide both a basic and somewhat advanced understanding of these terms: why they are important to us, where they come from and what this means for business & information technology (IT). As with most innovative concepts that seemingly come into vogue in a sudden and haphazard manner, there is both a history leading up to its short sojourn in the spotlight of popular perception and a predictable fade unless popular uptake makes it a structuring paradigm of the Enterprise. With reference to EA, SOE, SOA and SOC, it is fairly certain that they will have their role in this paradigm shift.

Frequently asked questions that revolve around this topic include: What is SPA? What is SOE? What is SOA? and what is SOC and how are they interrelated? To answer this multipart question, let us first try to gain the proper perspective for being able to see the overall Enterprise Architecture landscape. This is commonly called the Heliview. This view refers to the landscape from a chopper at a few thousands meter height and, that is an apt metaphor, since at that height and from that perspective we see a larger picture. We see the mountain ranges not just the mountain in front of us, or the trail we are hiking up through the trees in the foothills and lower slopes. We see the checkerboard layout of farmlands. We see the green meandering paths of the watershed streams and rivers, and this is appropriate to the level of Enterprise Architecture (EA). In this view an enterprise is seen simply as an organization or a part of an organization.


News - December 2005

Is proud to Announce the Report 'Trends in Enterprise Architecture' 2005

How are Organizations Progressing?

Results of the Third Measurement


This report presents the results of the third electronic survey, executed by the Institute For Enterprise Architecture Developments (IFEAD)©, 2005, on the progress of Enterprise Architecture (EA) usage & implementations in several organizations all over the world.

This third survey is part of a yearly recurrent survey to measure the progress and developments in Enterprise Architecture. The survey is based on a 25 questions survey, addressing geographical aspects, branch aspects, EA implementations aspects as well about tools and methodologies used in Enterprise Architecture programs and the role of architects in organizations.

Where possible an overview will be given of the results of 2005, 2004 and 2003 and an analysis and explanation of exceptions. All geographic areas are represented in the survey as well as different sizes of organizations. All the source information is copyrighted and based on the EA Survey's 2005, 2004 and 2003 executed by the Institute For Enterprise Architecture Developments (IFEAD) 2005.

This report 'Trends in Enterprise Architecture 2005' can be downloaded from this site (2.27Mb pdf).

© Copyright, Institute For Enterprise Architecture Developments (IFEAD), 2005 – All Rights Reserved. No part of this report may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder.


News - November 2005

Intelligence & Warning America

Read IFEAD's contribution to Intelligence & Warning America titled: Enterprise Architectures can improve intelligence.

Enterprise architectures can improve intelligence
Recent surveys of CEOs, CIOs and other executives provide evidence of the growing importance of enterprise architecture (EA) over the last few years.
IT and the FBI: are we there yet?
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the FBI was forced to rethink its mission.
Laying the foundations
The government’s IT chief Karen Evans discusses her work in transitioning a cumbersome collection of mismatched technologies into an integrated and efficient e-government – and the benefits this will provide to the intelligence community.
Enterprise Architecture Roundtable - Blueprint for success
IWA caught up with three leading industry experts to get their assessment of the challenges facing in the IC in terms of implementing enterprise architecture – and why it is critical that these challenges be addressed
.

Downlad IWA article here

 

Telelogic Announced System Architect v10.3

News - November 2005

Telelogic has announced the availability of System Architect version 10.3. This latest version integrates System Architect with Telelogic's solution for Application Lifecycle Managament (ALM) providing a complete solution for enterprises to define, design and deliver optimized business processes, software, products and services.

Key Advances:

  • Enhanced Integartion to Doors and TAU
  • Analytics
  • Oracle Backend Database
  • Instant level Access control
  • Extended Reporting Capability
  • Customer Comments

For more info visit www.telelogic.com


Every Program Manager and Enterprise Architect should act like a financial manager

News - October 2005

The USA Office of Management and Budget later this month will issue a list of best practices to help agencies implement internal controls for financial reporting information.

Financial reporting is not just for chief financial officers anymore. Management needs to get its arms around internal controls, said Linda Combs, OMB controller.

Circular A-123 is similar to management compliance requirements for private corporations under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed in the wake of corporate fraud at Enron and WorldCom.

“My dream is for every program manager and enterprise architect to be a financial manager, or act like one,” Internal controls enable managers to make good financial decisions on a daily basis, and that starts at the program level.

Internal controls are designed to help agencies produce their data more quickly and accurately.

The book 'The Economic Benefits of Enterprise Architecture' is addressing the issues of financial controls and collecting data in the EA domain.


Master of Enterprise Architecture

News - October 2005

RMIT University one of Australia’s leading educational institutions is proud to annouce their Enterprise Architecture Master program.

Following extensive consultation with companies represented on the school’s industry advisory committee and other Australian and international organisations, the school is pleased to announce that applications are now being accepted for this exciting new program commencing semester 1, 2006.

The Master of Technology (Enterprise Architecture) is a high-level IT postgraduate by coursework program, specifically designed for ICT professionals who wish to advance their career to the role of Enterprise Architect within an organisation.

Download here the RMIT Enterprise Architecture flyer.


Latest version of USA Defense business EA coming Sept. 30, 2005

News - September 2005

The Defense Department will unveil version 3.0 of its business enterprise architecture to Congress by Sept. 30. The BEA will come complete with a transition plan and new process for senior Defense officials to evaluate IT systems for compliance with the overarching architecture.

The new version will set data standards, financial accounting structures and business rules with corresponding implementation schedules that can be spread out over six, 12 or 18 months.

The Defense Department has 4,700 business systems, including databases that handle accounting, logistics and personnel functions. In a report earlier this year, the Government Accountability Office found redundant systems, little standardization and manual data entry into multiple systems.

In a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2005, Congress mandated that DOD provide its latest BEA version by Sept. 30.

Starting Oct. 1, senior Defense leaders could be held in violation of Title 31 of the Antideficiency Act and face jail time and fines if they fail to review all business projects worth more than $1 million to make sure agency initiatives are aligned with the BEA.


News - September 2005

The Institute For Enterprise Architecture Developments (IFEAD) has signed an exclusive co-operation agreement with Verdonck, Klooster & Associates (VKA), a high professional independent consulting firm, specialising in Enterprise Architecture.

IFEAD's president and Thought Leader, Mr. Jaap Schekkerman is delivering his EA expertise and knowledge to VKA and their customers as an Advisor and Opinion Leader in EA.

Verdonk, Klooster & Associates

Baron de Coubertinlaan 1

2719 EN, Zoetermeer

The Netherlands

Tel: +31793681000

Fax: +31793681001

www.vka.nl


NEW EA Book 2005

Now Available !!!!

Trafford Publishing

Trafford Publishing's Web Bookstore
and On-Demand Publishing Offices

The First Enterprise Architecture Book that addresses the issues of the Economic Benefits of Enterprise Architecture; Read more .....

This book is now available at Trafford's bookstore...........

'The Economic Benefits of Enterprise Architecture: How to Quantify and Manage the Economic Value of Enterprise Architecture'

by Jaap Schekkerman

First Edition;295 pages; Perfect bound; catalogue #05-1640; ISBN 1-4120-6729-4

This book is explaining, how to quantify and manage the economic value of enterprise architecture. Several methods, models and techniques are described to adopt an economic approach when dealing with Enterprise Architecture.

Go to Traffords website of this Book and order this book directly at the Publisher's website, the easiest and cheapest way to do.

ISBN 1-4120-6729-4

Trafford Publishing, Canada


News - July 2005

Most US agency Enterprise Architecture's effective, OMB says

Most of the 25 largest US federal agencies see benefits in their investment control processes from their enterprise architectures, according to the US Office of Management and Budget’s chief architect.

Richard Burk, speaking at an event sponsored by Computer Marketing Associates Inc. of Vienna, Va., said OMB finished assessing agency submissions and “the scores were pretty good.”

“Now that they have architectures in place, they need to use them to show results,” he said. “We are pressing agencies to do just that.”

Burk said most agencies’ enterprise architectures scored at least a three out of a five rating on OMB’s maturity model. OMB released its EA Assessment Framework in April 2004 and updated it last April. Burk said Version 2 should be finished by March 2006.

“We have spent a fair amount of time working and evaluating agency EAs to make sure they are useful,” Burk said. “That means we see a connection between the business cases and the EA so we know it is a legitimate investment.”

Burk would not comment on which agencies didn’t fare well but did say most of them had trouble organizing their data.

The departments of Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, Interior and Labor and the Environmental Protection Agency are among the agencies with solid enterprise architectures, Burk added.


News - June 2005

Characteristics of an Effective Enterprise Architect
By: Scott Bittler
Meta Group

What personal characteristics, knowledge, and skills are most commonly found in effective enterprise architects? Although not at all intuitive, several traits are even more important than knowledge of enterprise architecture.

META Trend: Enterprise architecture (EA) success will be determined by the extent to which corporate and line-of-business managers comprehend, support, and enforce the architecture. By 2006, 10% of EA core teams will move out from under the IT organization's management structure, with direct reporting relationships to either corporate strategy or corporate change management functions. By 2008, 40% of enterprise architects will have primary expertise in business strategy or process engineering.

To select the right people, hiring managers and EA team leaders must understand the most important competencies to seek in enterprise architect candidates. We have observed that the wrong people attempting to apply the right process will still struggle to make it work. It is critical to spend time engaging the right people for this important function. As the META Trend states, by 2008, 40% of enterprise architects will have primary expertise in business strategy or process engineering and may no longer be found within the IT organization. This reflects the rising importance of the enterprise business architecture and the need for a more balanced skill set (beyond technical architecture).

Read the whole story at


News - May 2005

The US Energy Department continues to struggle in implementing an Enterprise Architecture

The Energy Department continues to struggle in implementing an enterprise architecture, despite spending $14 million and 10 years addressing the issue, according to a report issued last month by the department’s Inspector General (IG).

The audit report, “Development and Implementation of the Department’s Enterprise Architecture,” released April 21, also estimates that “the lack of such an architecture contributed to more than $155 million in lost opportunities for information technology-related savings.”

According to the IG, DOE has not defined its current or future IT requirements, including desired applications and hardware needs. Nor has it set detailed requirements for elements of the architecture, such as its intended network and communication infrastructure.

Deeper in the organization, architecture development in program offices has not been integrated with the departmentwide effort. The “lack of common elements in program architectures, such as complete system inventories and planned future information technology requirements, made it difficult to identify and eliminate duplicative investments,” the report found.

The Office of the CIO, headed by Rosita Parkes, provided guidance documents and established an EA working group. But the IG found that the guidance “has generally not been mandatory, did not contain information regarding standardization of all information technology systems at field sites and contractors, and was not formally released. As a result, the programs are not required to follow the standards … when they develop their future technology requirements.”

The IG pointed out that the lack of an EA plan was one of the contributing factors to DOE’s failure to earn a “green” on the President’s Management Agenda scorecard at the end of 2004.


News - April 2005

NASCIO Releases PERSPECTIVES

USA-NASCIO is pleased to announce the release of PERSPECTIVES - Government Information Sharing: Calls to Action, its new publication from its Architecture Working Group (AWG). The publication is a compilation of interviews and articles from a variety of contributors including integrated justice, homeland security, environmental protection, transportation, public health and economic development. PERSPECTIVES includes discussions from federal, state and county governments.

The report is presented in two major sections. The first section is devoted to the justice community and the second section covers the broader topic of “government.” The publication highlights learning gained from the various experts interviewed who have explained in detail the barriers they encounter and their solutions for getting past those barriers.

“We believe this report is one of our major contributions to the NASCIO community. It will prove to be a valuable resource for describing similar situations in government and assist in initiating the pursuit of solutions. If we talk openly about the real problems, there’s good chance we’ll be able to resolve those problems,” said AWG Co-Chair and South Carolina CIO Larry Johnson.

NASCIO’s Architecture Working Group (AWG) is focused on providing materials and technical assistance to help support state enterprise architecture programs. The report and the NASCIO Enterprise Architecture Program are funded by a grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.

NASCIO represents the US chief information officers from the 50 states, six U.S. territories and the District of Columbia. Members include cabinet and senior level state officials responsible for information resource management. Other IT officials participate as associate members and private sector representatives may become corporate members.


Hot News April 18, 2005

Telelogic acquires Popkin, US based leader of enterprise architecture tools

MALMÖ, Sweden, April 18, 2005

Telelogic AB (Stockholm Exchange: TLOG), today an-nounced the acquisition of privately-held Popkin Software, the leading provider of enterprise architecture tools. Under the terms of the agreement, the consideration of USD 45 million will be paid in cash. Popkin´s revenue 2004 was USD 19.1 million, 28% growth over 2003, with USD 2.5 million in pre-tax profit. Popkin currently employs 108 people.

Background and Reasons for the Acquisition
Telelogic is offering a market leading ALM solution and is the global market leader in the area of requirements management with Telelogic DOORS. Telelogic has identified Popkin as a successful company with a global market leading product that complements Telelogic´s offering in the modeling space as well as extending its offering into the enterprise architecture arena.

Popkin develops and sells System Architect which is ranked the global market leader in the enterprise architecture tools market by both Gartner and Meta Group. It is a powerful modeling solution designed to provide all of the tools necessary for successful modeling of enterprise systems. By adding System Architect, Telelogic´s product offering is complemented with a product with a large proportion of its customers in non-engineering roles.

"We are acquiring the global market leader in the growing enterprise architecture tools market, said Anders Lidbeck, President and CEO of Telelogic. "This is a great match. Popkin is a well known company by us and by many of our largest customers and System Architect is often used in combination with Telelogic DOORS for understanding both the requirements and processes of organizations. By combining our two companies, we will be able to even better address the needs large companies have for managing their enterprise wide processes and applications.

Strategically, this acquisition will greatly extend market opportunities and resources and introduce new relationships in emerging markets for requirements management products and modeling solutions, said Jan Popkin, CEO and founder of Popkin. "By joining forces with Telelogic we can strengthen the sales channels and reach an even wider group of customers. Telelogic has a leading brand, the products, a global distribution network and most importantly, we share a common view of strategic product development. The combination of the two leading products - DOORS and System Architect - creates the most powerful solution on the market for CIOs, system engineers, chief architects and planning engineers.

Enterprise Architecture
Popkin is the leading supplier of enterprise architecture tools according to Gartner and Meta Group. An Enterprise Architecture is a fully integrated collection of models and documents across four key architecture domains (business, information, systems and technology). Popkin´s System Architect is used by organizations worldwide to design, visualize and analyze models and enter-prise architectures. These architectures become the blueprints of a company or agency´s business goals and processes and its underlying IT infrastructure.

With System Architect, Telelogic will be able to offer a solution that let the customer model the enterprise architecture in System Architect, thereafter to detail the model in Telelogic TAU. System Architecture is also a good companion to Telelogic DOORS where the user can link the business objectives with the product requirements. Companies can take advantage of these solutions regardless if they are developing internal financial systems or advanced products like cars, airplanes or telecom systems.


News April 2005

USA-OMB releases 2005 Federal Enterprise Architecture action plan

The USA Office of Management and Budget has released an outline detailing how agencies should plan to use their federal enterprise architectures for the budget planning process.

Released March 31, the "Enabling Citizen-Centered Electronic Government FEA PMO Action Plan" was written for agency architects, program managers, private-sector companies providing IT support and other federal system stakeholders.

By having agencies use federal enterprise architectures, OMB hopes that agencies can streamline services to the citizen, as well as save costs and increase cross-agency collaboration, according to the document.

The document outlines a number of goals that OMB has set for 2005 and 2006, including:

  • Agency use of OMB’s Program Assessment Rating Tool to assess programs in the perspective of the President’s Management Agenda
  • Complete the revised Data Reference Model of the FEA
  • Link the different reference models, in order to better identify redundancies
  • Launch the records management and geospatial profiles
  • Develop a glossary of terms.


“This year we must move from the drawing board and initial blueprints towards full implementation and delivering results,” wrote Richard Burk, chief architect for OMB’s Office of E-Government and Information Technology, in a memorandum accompanying the report.

Download the full 2005 FEA Action Plan


News April 2005 by GCN

USA Defense follows the EA leader

For once, the USA Defense Department has been playing catch-up with the rest of government.

Over the past year, USA Defense created a new IT architecture that mirrors the USA Federal Enterprise Architecture, said Roy Mabry, a senior architect in the department’s CIO office.

“Our reference models are not radically different from the Office of Management and Budget’s reference models,” Mabry said at a recent conference on enterprise architecture in Washington sponsored by the Digital Government Institute of Bethesda, Md. “We mapped our mission areas to OMB’s taxonomy.”

DOD previously had gone its own way on EA, with its Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Core Architecture. But DOD dumped that data model last year and developed one that aligns with the rest of the government.

“To have true information sharing and security, we have to be planning across all of government, which means normalizing justifications across civilian, Defense and intelligence,” said Norman Lorentz, former OMB chief technology officer, who helped DOD begin its shift to a more common model. “By using the FEA methodology, other agencies in theory could use DOD’s work. All the components should be plug-and-play.”

Lorentz, now managing director for Federal Solutions Group of Vienna, Va., added that DOD decided to mesh its EA with the federal model because OMB was making funding decisions based on how well agencies’ systems matched up against the FEA.


News March 2005

SAP is Jumping on the Enterprise Architecture train

SAP and its User Groups recently decided to jump on the Enterprise Architecture train by setting up special SAP Enterprise Architecture Communities all over the world. America's SAP User Group has started an EA community as well as similar initiatives are started in Europe. In the April 2005 Issue of SAP Info, you can find a special article about this SAP EA community. Having a look to the draft of this article, SAP is still defining Enterprise Architecture from an IT perspective and what is missing the holistic alignment of business & IT. Evenso the people in the steering committy for this SAP Enterprise Architecture Community up till know are from technological companies like TransAlta, Intel, SAP and TI.


News March 2005

The State of Enterprise Architecture


Welcome to InfoWorld’s crystallization of the ideal enterprise, a prism with seven architectural views: secure, process-driven, pervasive, service-oriented, data-centric, needs-based, and open.

Each of the seven articles tackles a key characteristic of emerging enterprise architectures, as perceived by InfoWorld contributors and editors. But in reality, we probably could have boiled them down to one: the business-driven architecture.

Remark from IFEAD; InfoWorld's views of Enterprise Architecture are very strong solution architecture oriented and less Enterprise Architecture in the sence of supporting management in decision making. Even so one of the major characteristics of EA: Alignment of Business & IT is not well addressed in these views. The described views of solution architecture are today very popular, however their goals are most of the time focused on delivering technological architectural solutions.

Download the full report from InfoWorld


News March 2005

New version 1.4 of the Extended Enterprise Architecture Framework (E2AF) Now Available

The Institute For Enterprise Architecture Developments is proud to Announce version 1.4 of its Extended Enterprise Architecture Framework (E2AF).

The Institute For Enterprise Architecture Developments has refined and enhanced the Extended Enterprise Architecture Framework with the latest best practices and developments in Extended Enterprise sets of ViewPoints.

Version 1.4 of the E2AF can be downloaded from this site in a A0 poster format and is part of IFEAD's open publication policy. Organisations can use this framework for their own purposes or with their customers with a reference notice to IFEAD's copyrights. Organizations that want to use the framework for commercial purposes can achieve a license from IFEAD.


News March 2005

Troux Technologies has Announced Metis 3.6 Enterprise Architecture Suite

Troux™ Technologies, the supplier in IT Governance software and solutions, has announced important enhancements to its Metis® Enterprise visual modeling toolset Version 3.6 which begins shipping on March 15th 2005.

Metis 3.6 will enable enterprise architects, business analysts, IT planners and other decisionmakers in Global 2000 companies and US government agencies to easily create Enterprise Architecture models that support Business Process Management, Capital Asset Planning and the UML 2.0 standard for object-oriented modeling.

“Metis 3.6 marks a major milestone in our visual modeling software, which we are now in the process of integrating with the Troux IT Governance System to create the industry’s most advanced Enterprise Architecture management solutions for IT governance and business process analysis,” said Hank Weghorst, CEO of Troux Technologies.

“Enterprise Architecture models built using Metis 3.6 will give executives, planners, and business technologists what the Office of Management and Budget calls a line of sight between their organization’s strategic goals, their business processes and the IT investments that support them.”


News February 2005

Another View at Extended Enterprise Architecture Viewpoints

This article from IFEAD's president Jaap Schekkerman is trying to explain the important role of Extended Enterprise Architecture Viewpoints in the context of today's social-economic circumstances. It describes and shows another view at Extended Enterprise Architecture Viewpoints and how to deal with the (extended) enterprise stakeholders concerns.

Based on the ideas described in IEEE 1471-2000 about views and viewpoints, a transformation of these concepts into the Enterprise architecture domain delivers another view at viewpoints and views.

Looking from the outside world to an Enterprise, several groups of (extended) enterprise stakeholders are influencing the goals, objectives and behaviour of the Enterprise. Even so these groups of Enterprise stakeholders have different concerns and therefore different sets of viewpoints when we analyse these extended enterprise stakeholders.

Clustering their concerns in four generic categories is showing the drivers of the Enterprise and delivers the understanding of what motivates your (extended) enterprise stakeholders. Read More....


News February 2005

The USA General Services Administration gets semantic with Architecture Reference Models

The USA General Services Administration is one agency making strides in trying to find a path to the semantic Web through a pilot to encode Federal Enterprise Architecture reference models.

Normally, USA FEA reference models are written in plain text. Agencies must compare their lines of business to the models and try to synchronize them as best as possible.

The reference models are functional hierarchies, they have modeled all the FEA models, except the data model, using Web Ontology Language (OWL).

An XML reference model would let agencies more accurately prove that they are compliant with the models than they can do today.

The advantage of the semantic Web is its ability to use the description logic to help carry out tasks, such as cross-checking and verifying consistency within a large project.

A measurement category in the Performance Reference Model, for instance, references a number of business lines from the Business Reference Model.

Read more at GCN Enterprise Architecture


News January 2005

Troux™ Technologies announces its acquisition of Computas Technology and its award-winning Metis® product suite. By linking the business architecture modeling capabilities of Computas Technology's Metis product line with Troux's IT Governance System, Global 2000 enterprise and government customers now have a complete information foundation for IT Governance, and a single, global provider for enterprise architecture management solutions.

In a recent split, Computas AS was formally divided into two separate entities; a technology entity responsible for developing and selling the Metis® product line and a solutions entity, focusing on providing knowledge solutions to the Norwegian Market. Continuing under the name Computas, the consulting business will keep focusing on the Norwegian market, under the management of newly hired Managing Director, Trond Eilertsen.
A leading European environment for innovative systems development, Computas provides administrative and technical IT solutions to the public and commercial sectors. Computas is renowned for delivering innovative solutions and the ability to implement large, complex projects. For more information on Computas - the knowledge solution provider.

The Metis product suite and Metis team joins forces with Troux™ Technologies, the leader in IT Governance software and solutions, through an all shares acquisition by Troux™ Technologies. Computas Technology AS will change its name to Troux Technologies AS.
By linking the business architecture modeling capabilities of Computas Technology's Metis product line with Troux's Enterprise Baseline, Global 2000 enterprise and federal government customers now have a complete information foundation for IT Governance, and a single, global provider for enterprise architecture management. This new IT Governance system will enable customers to drive cost reductions, increase productivity, shorten cycle times, and improve alignment between their business and IT.

What the Industry Says:

BusinessWeek

Troux Technologies, an Austin (Tex.)-based startup, is helping such businesses make sense of the clutter with a somewhat surprising solution -- more software. The four-year-old firm has developed a software tool that allows corporations to catalog, analyze, and manage their own IT albatrosses. "There are companies that spend $400 million to $500 million a year on information technology," says Hank Weghorst, Troux's founder and CEO, "and they don't even know where the money is going."

Troux has made its first acquisition, BusinessWeek Online has learned. It has bought Computas, a privately held software maker based in Oslo, in an all-stock deal worth an estimated $30 million. The move will expand Troux's product lineup and extend its reach into Europe -- allowing the outfit to grow more quickly than it could on its own. While Troux helps corporate clients manage what they already have, Computas makes software that allows companies to analyze and project their future IT needs.

Federal Computer Weekly

Troux Technologies is the new owner of Computas North America, the federal sector enterprise architecture software company.

Troux has previously focused on information technology architecture for the private sector. An initially integrated product of the two companies' software will become available by the end of the first quarter in 2005, said Pat Emerson, vice president of sales for Troux Technologies. Full integration should be complete by the off the second quarter.

Computas North America will assume the Troux name and no layoffs are planned, Emerson said. He declined to say how much Troux is paying for Computas. The privately-held, Texas-based company raised $16 million in C-series funding prior to the purchase, however.

Integrating Computas' Metis software with Troux's IT architecture products will allow federal agencies to do a comprehensive and automatic update of their "as is" status, rather than "do this in a tectonic project every year when it comes to budgeting," Emerson said. Automatic updating of the "as is" down to the level of IT architecture will, in turn, improve agency strategic management, Emerson said.

At least two factors are nudging agencies to push enterprise architecture deeper into IT governance, Troux managers say. Dick Burk, the recently-appointed federal chief architect, has emphasized the importance of using enterprise architecture to achieve company goals. Also, the Government Accountability Office is moving forward to study what metrics agencies should use to measure architecture's effectiveness


Gartner Group

On 14 January 2005, Troux said it would acquire the Metis product suite and North American operations of Computas of Norway. Troux did not disclose the financial details of the deal. Computas will now focus on providing knowledge solutions to the Norwegian market.

This deal brings together two vendors that serve the high end of the fast-growing enterprise architecture tools market. Troux and Computas complement each other. Troux's strengths include detecting and synthesizing IT architecture information from a wide range of operational sources. Computas has better visualization capabilities and can represent models in a broad range of notations. Computas also has more extensive support for the business and design aspects of the architecture. This deal could produce a highly visionary enterprise architecture tool.

Troux set an aggressive delivery schedule, even though the tools' internal architectures will aid the integration. Troux plans to merge the products in two phases. The first stage, which will deliver a common repository metamodel, is scheduled for release at the end of 1Q05. The second stage, scheduled for delivery at the end of 2Q05, will provide integrated graphical user interfaces, repository applications and engines. The combined metamodel, delivered in the first phase of the merged product, will give limited additional benefits to users. If the first phase is delivered smoothly and on time, however, it will bode well for the success of the fully merged product.

Troux also must carefully manage the skill levels of its merged sales and support organization, to ensure that it does not oversell its solution and to provide high-quality service to sophisticated large customers. Troux said it will keep the Metis development team in Norway. Since Troux's product development is in Austin, Texas, Troux will have to manage this geographic split carefully. This is particularly important for the coherence of the strategy and vision of the merged product.

 


News January 2005

What will be Hot in 2005?

No one has to tell business and IT managers that the challenges they face don’t suddenly change when one year passes into the next.

Enterprise architecture, security and IT management were hot in 2004 and will continue to be in 2005.

But the tools and technologies used to deal with these challenges will mature, evolve or simply gain better acceptance. Among the 2005 technology trends, experts tell that enterprise portfolio management, service-oriented architectures, network user authentication and managed IT services will be fertile ground for organizations in the coming year.


The Institute For Enterprise Architecture Developments (IFEAD) has setup a parent information exchange website focused on the topics of (Extended) Enterprise Portfolio Management.

URL of this site: http://www.e2pm.info The results of IFEAD's research activities in the area of Enterprise Portfolio Management (EPM) will be published at that site as well as generic information about EPM. If you want more info about this initiative please send an e-mail to: info[AT]e2pm.info [AT]=@


NEWS

US-NASCIO

Enterprise Architecture Assessment Tour Report (October 2004)


USA-NASCIO’s Architecture Working Group (AWG) conducted an assessment tour to facilitate the evaluation of government enterprise architecture programs and create opportunities for collaboration. The NASCIO Enterprise Architecture Maturity Model was used as the basis for evaluating the enterprise programs in ten states, one county, and one federal agency. This report summarizes the tour and presents some of the highlights from the presentations and discussions that took place during the assessment visits.

This report includes a list of lessons learned along with links to websites and NASCIO’s SMART resource library which contain most of the documentation shared during these visits.

Download the Enterprise Architecture Assessment Tour Report


NEWS

10-2004

US Federal Enterprise Architecture Program Management Office Announce the New

DATA REFERENCE MODEL (DRM)

The Data Reference Model (DRM) describes, at an aggregate level, the data and information that support government program and business line operations. This model enables agencies to describe the types of interaction and exchanges that occur between the Federal Government and citizens.

The DRM categorizes government information into greater levels of detail. It also establishes a classification for Federal data and identifies duplicative data resources. A common data model will streamline information exchange processes within the Federal government and between government and external stakeholders.

Volume One of the DRM provides a high-level overview of the structure, usage, and data-identification constructs. This document:

  • Provides an introduction and high-level overview of the contents that will be detailed in Volumes 2-4 of the model;
  • Encourages Community of Interest development of the remaining volumes; and
  • Provides the basic concepts, strategy, and structure to be used in future development.

The DRM is the starting point from which data architects should develop modeling standards and concepts. This volume establishes the foundation, which describes essential components, for subsequent DRM Volumes. These combined volumes support data classification - thus enabling horizontal and vertical information sharing.

Download here DRM Volume 1 (727Kb Pdf)


NEWS

10-2004

US-Intel community looks to Enterprise Architecture to build up information sharing

The USA intelligence community—the collection of federal agencies that gather, analyze and disseminate intelligence—needs to adopt an enterprise architecture to break down the barriers that have long prevented its members from sharing information.

The community comprises three distinct elements: agencies within the Defense Department, such as the Defense Intelligence Agency; those that are part of larger departments, such as State and Energy; and one standalone agency, the CIA.

“You have to start with almost a federal view of this, and even that’s not quite big enough,” Wade said in an interview, because even organizations outside the community, such as the Homeland Security Department and state and local law enforcement agencies, rely on the intelligence.

The intelligence community is still developing the architecture. The blueprint will be used to define and support all the purposes and missions for which the community needs to share information, including military intelligence. The Defense Department is working on its own plan, know as the ISR integration roadmap


NEWS

10-2004

MEGA Success Story

Renault Nissan Group Using MEGA International for IT Planning and Mapping of Data and Processes

The Renault Nissan Group is the first industrial and commercial alliance of this type between a French and Japanese company. It has made advances with strategic cooperative ventures in all areas, including engineering, manufacturing, sales, IT and purchasing.

When Renault and Nissan merged its two operations, it ended up with a large and complicated information system. The Group needed a way to map all of its data and processes to get an overview of the entire information systems environment.

To help analyze and map these two companies' newly merged systems, Renault chose MEGA International and its MEGA Process and MEGA Architecture solutions. MEGA Process provides powerful analysis and design capability for capturing, mapping and documenting business processes and organizational structures. MEGA Architecture delivers the reference maps to business and IT managers that they need to align and fully integrate business and IT.


NEWS

09-2004

Popkin Announces System Architect v10


Popkin proudly introduces System ArchitectTM v10, a release that offers major functionality enrichment. We invite you to browse the articles and product information describing this powerful release.

System Architect V10 brings some powerful new enterprise architecture tools to your fingertips -- an Enterprise Explorer diagram that enables you to visually see relationships between model elements in your repository, an Enterprise Direction diagram that enables you to model Row 1 of the Zachman Framework, and file referencing capability so that you can make the repository the central point of information capture.

At the design end, System Architect now provides generation for the Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS). Powerful new access control capabilities enable you to manage administration of the product to dissimilar users.


NEWS

09-2004

Computas Wins Elite Industry Award for Adding Value to Enterprise Architecture Customers


IDG’s Computerworld Honors Computas with An Annual Innovative Technology Award; Customers Commend Metis for Enterprise Architecture Decision Support


SEATTLE, September 21, 2004 – Computas announced today it is one of 30 recipients, out of 237 entries, of the Annual Innovative Technology Award from IDG’s Computerworld, the Voice of IT Management, for its Metis® 3.4 Enterprise Visual Modeling Toolset.

Widely used by global 1000 and government customers for enterprise architecture and knowledge management, Metis won the Computerworld distinction in the Enterprise Systems category for being “leading edge technology that provides measurable business value to end-user organizations.” Industry analysts call Metis a visionary tool and one of the most popular in the federal government

Another View at Extended Enterprise Architecture Viewpoints

09-2004

This article is trying to explain the important role of Extended Enterprise Architecture Viewpoints in the context of today's social-economic circumstances.

It describes and shows another view at Extended Enterprise Architecture Viewpoints and how to deal with the (extended) enterprise stakeholders concerns. Based on the ideas described in IEEE 1471-2000 about views and viewpoints, a transformation of these concepts into the Enterprise architecture domain delivers another view at viewpoints and views.

Looking from the outside world to an Enterprise, several groups of (extended) enterprise stakeholders are influencing the goals, objectives and behavior of the Enterprise. Even so these groups of Enterprise stakeholders have different concerns and therefore different sets of viewpoints when we analyze these extended enterprise stakeholders.

Clustering their concerns in four generic categories is showing the drivers of the Enterprise and delivers the understanding of what motivates your (extended) enterprise stakeholders.

Download this article 370KB PDF

 

09-2004

The USA National Association of State CIOs last week received a $500,000 grant from the Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs to continue the development of enterprise architecture to improve interoperability among state, local and federal government law enforcement agencies.

This is the sixth year in a row the Justice Department awarded NASCIO a grant.

NASCIO’s proposal described eight initiatives it will use to the grant to further:

  • EA business case development
  • Marketing and awareness of EA
  • EA maturity model assessment and validation site visits
  • EA maturity model expansion
  • Gaining a consensus on a national EA
  • EA facilitation guide for agencies
  • EA Implementation guide
  • EA repository investigation.

NASCIO’s EA program also will begin working with agencies outside the justice community, such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the departments of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and Transportation, to expand the architecture and improve integration.


09-2004

New profile adds Security & Privacy to the USA Federal Enterprise Architecture

The USA Office of Management and Budget is instructing agencies to make a direct connection between the lines of business in the Federal Enterprise Architecture and security and privacy.

The security and privacy profile released this month extends across all five FEA reference models.

That means agencies now have a common starting point to discuss how to make sure security and privacy issues fit across lines of business and throughout a system’s life-cycle, said Karen Evans, OMB administrator for e-government and IT.


08-2004

Book Review 'How to survive in the jungle of Enterprise Architecture Frameworks' by Mike Tarrani

When I received this book I quickly scanned it and dismissed it as a niche book for architects working in the US Government or contractors working in that environment.

After reading it, though, I believe that this is an invaluable book for enterprise architects in the commercial sector as well.

Read the whole story of Mike

Ranking by Amazon.com

Average Customer Rating:

Valuable compendium


IFEAD's New EA Book, Reviewed by Forrester Research

07-2004

06-2004, Enterprise architecture frameworks are conceptual models intended to communicate,at a high level, the complexity and interdependencies of EA to a broad audience,while,at a low level,conveying
requirements for complex system design.With such a broad array of goals,it can be very difficult to determine which framework is right for an organization.


Forrester’s recommendation is to keep it simple,borrow from the best,and customize for your own organization.To that end, Jaap Schekkerman’s compact book,“How to Survive in the Jungle of Enterprise Architecture Frameworks,” is a handy volume for reviewing the leading EA frameworks.

Download the full review report (86Kb pdf)


06-2004

A Review with dramatic results of the
US FBI’s Trilogy IT
Modernization Program

A report recently released by the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB), which is empowered by the National Research Council, points out planning flaws in the FBI's Trilogy program. It is a rare and deep look into a failed promise to quickly modernize. The report concludes that, after many improvements, the program is not yet on track to success.

'The number one problem is the FBI's enterprise architecture. They didn't have one,' said Mr. Orr a member of the CSTB , who noted problems with the project's data architecture as well. Naturally, this is expanded upon in the full report.

The report notes that management of enterprise architecture design cannot be farmed out of an organization, nor can it be entrusted solely to a CIO within an organization. True management buy-in is also needed. The senior leadership of the FBI needed to be directly involved in creating this strategic view and supporting its implementation.

Download here the full report 2079Kb PD


US-Government Agency EA documents collection

Now Avaliable

04-2004


GCN's EA Resource Center tracks development of federal agency systems blueprints using the Federal Enterprise Architecture as a template.
Links to each agency's key enterprise architecture documents and models now available
.

 

 

 


US-DOD to test Business Modernization Architecture

03-2004

The Defense Department later this month will release two requests for proposals for pilot programs using its Business Management Modernization Program architecture.

DOD will award contracts for a new accounting system based on the requirements identified last April by Defense employees and contractor IBM Corp. U.S. Transportation Command, Air Force Mobility will conduct one test and the Army Installation Management Agency will run the other one during fiscal 2005, said JoAnn Boutelle, DOD’s deputy chief finance officer.

“All the services are cooperating to work on the implementation of these new processes so we will end up with a common set of processes,” Boutelle said at the annual conference sponsored by the Joint Financial Management Improvement Program in Washington. “All the bases will eventually run the same system with some tweaking needed”

 

 

 


CORE.GOV, the Component Organization and Registration Environment--your government source for business process and technical components. CORE.GOV is the place to search for and locate a specific component that meet your needs, or to find components you can customize to meet your unique requirements.

CORE.GOV grew out of the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) Project Management Office, the goal of which is to support cross-agency collaboration, transformation and governmentwide improvement. CORE.GOV offers an environment where such collaboration takes place seamlessly and easily.

 


The 23 of February 2004, an Official Japanese Delegation from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), visited the Institute For Enterprise Architecture Developments (IFEAD) in The Netherlands.

This Japanese Delegation guided by the Deputy Director of Information Policy Division, Mr. K. Uryu has discussed with the President of IFEAD Mr. J. Schekkerman, B.Sc. and Prof. Dr. D. Rijsenbrij from the Radboud University, the Japanese Governmental initiative to implement Enterprise Architecture in all Ministries over the next years as part of their ambitious E-Government program.


publication cover shot

ISBN 1-4120-1607-X


New Version now Available!!

Enterprise Architecture Score Card SM

02-2004

Today the area of (enterprise) architecture in the virtual digital world will become more and more full-grown. So the focus is changing to the quality of the work of enterprise architects. How can we review the results of the work of enterprise architects and how can we review their processes. Can we define quality criteria to validate the products and results from other enterprise architects?

This article describes the main line of a methodology / approach in use by several organisation to assess the activities and results of enterprise architects.

The effect of knowing that the results will be reviewed is that enterprise architects are taking more time and effort to implement and manage their enterprise architecture processes effectively as well as the take more attention to the quality of their results and decision-making.

 


The Office of Management and Budget will do the General Accounting Office one better on enterprise architectures.

The administration later this year will release a guide and best practices that it and agencies can use to measure how ingrained the systems blueprints are in agencies.

The guide will differ from GAO’s EA Framework. “GAO’s [guide] is more process based and looks at the structure of the agency.

GAO in April 2003 released Version 1.1 of its EA Framework and in December 2003 a review of agencies’ progress in creating and using architectures was executed.

 


On Enterprise Architectures, White House is Leading

When it comes to enterprise architectures, the White House is leading by example.

In a recent report, the General Accounting Office rated the Executive Office of the President’s modernization blueprint as complete and at Stage 5 of GAO’s tiered EA framework.

GAO said the agency was the only one of 93 surveyed that was wholly using an enterprise architecture that met all the criteria of the audit agency’s Version 1.1 maturity model.

Overall, GAO found the government’s overall progress stagnant when it comes to the development and use of enterprise architectures. To help agencies, GAO has over the past three years issued two versions of an EA framework that defines the pertinent features of crafting a workable enterprisewide IT plan.

 


New TOGAF Enterprise Edition Version 8.1

December 2003

A major/minor Version numbering system has been introduced in 2003 for the new Version of TOGAF Enterprise Edition (from Version 8 to Version 8.1).

What's New in TOGAF Version 8.1

The following significant additions have been made in Version 8.1.

Part II:

1. A new section describing the Requirements Management process at the center of the ADM lifecycle.

Part IV:

2. A new structured section on Architecture Governance, comprising three subsections:
- Introduction to Architecture Governance
- Architecture Governance Framework
- Architecture Governance in Practice

3. A new section on Architecture Maturity Models.

4. A new section on TOGAF Architecture Skills Framework.


OMB Updating Architecture Reference Models for '06 budget process

November 2003

Agencies should expect to have updated versions of four of the five Federal Enterprise Architecture reference models before the fiscal 2006 budget process begins in February, an administration official said.

Bob Haycock, the Office of Management and Budget’s chief architect, today said his office is working with agencies to improve the four reference models—Business, Service, Technical and Performance—that his office has released. OMB also will send out a draft copy of the Data Reference Model in the next few months for agency comment.

“It was a good start, but we knew we would have a lot of work to do on the Service and Technical reference models because of how technology and service components are always changing,” Haycock said today at a Solutions Architecture Boot Camp sponsored by the Interoperability Clearinghouse of Alexandria, Va.


USA-OMB releases EA Performance Reference Model

The performance framework, defines four measurement areas that will apply to the fiscal 2005 budget formulation process:

Mission and business results, for the outcomes developed through the Government Performance and Results Act strategic-planning process

Customer results, for measuring the quality, accessibility and timeliness of the services agencies provide

Processes and activities, for rating the outcomes of IT initiatives in terms of finances, productivity, security, privacy and innovation

Technology, for gauging costs and savings, quality, efficiency, standardization, reliability and effectiveness of the IT projects themselves.

Ultimately, the Performance Reference Model will cover human capital and other fixed assets, but those two measurement areas will not be covered in the performance framework for the fiscal 2005 budget.

Each area contains measurement categories with generic measurement indicators that agencies can tailor to their own missions and IT projects.


Alliance between bITa Center & IFEAD

09-2003

An international alliance with bITa Center has been set up. bITa Center acts as the focal point and knowledge hub that highlights IT Alignment and Business IT Alignment as sets of relationships among strategies, frameworks and best practices.

So the research and knowledge exchange activities of bITa Center and the Institute For Enterprise Architecture Developments are complementary.

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Extended Enterprise Architecture Framework / E2AF & Extended Enterprise Architecture Maturity Model / E2AM are Service Marks (SM) registered by IFEAD