What is Enterprise Architecture Practice?


As name suggest it is the Architecture of an Enterprise but the niche of the topic is not isolated within Information Technology Architecture. EA in principle is the practice of aligning Business Strategy and Goals with IT Strategy and Goals to ensure the IT investment is utilised in the overall growth of the Business.

EA requires high level commitments from CxOs to ensure that the alignment is not only on the papers but in practice as well. EA practice is divided into two categories i.e.

1) Strategic Alignment
2) Implementation Cycle

Strategic Alignment

Strategic Alignment is the crust of overall EA practice and it starts from identifying the Vision and Mission of Business. Vision states the goals of the business in coming years and Mission outlines the key drivers to achieve the goals. Job of EA is to create and IT understanding of the business goals and come up with IT strategy which outlines the high-level goals to meet the business vision. If we see the Togaf topology the alignment of Business and IT goals are outlined in Architecture Vision phase. Architecture Vision phase is needed to outline the goals and principles required to achieve the business goals. Principles are divided into two types i.e. Business Principles and IT Principles.

Implementation Cycle

Once we have the strategic details structured and outlined, the second and foremost phase is to make a tactical plan to showcase how the implementation of the strategic goals will take place. To achieve this Togaf states list of processes to be applied starting from Business Architecture till EA Governance Cycle. Business Architecture is use for describing business goal in tactical terms with pragmatic views of different stakeholders. EA use different  techniques and diagrams to display the key requirements and documents them in Business Target Architecture. Business Target Architecture is used as an inputs for upcoming phases i.e. Data Architecture, Application Architecture and lastly Technology Architecture. Once the Target Architectures are defined in each aforementioned phase, EA generates a Transition Architecture to outline the implementation cycle, which is then be executed by Project Management Office and Governed by Architecture Review Board headed by CIO and accounted by EA.

Below diagram illustrates the each phase of Togaf which is called as ADM (Architecture Development Method) in Togaf terminology.


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