Enterprise Architecture – Reality Bites 1

Let's discuss some of the key components of Enterprise Architecture. Pick any business you like and try to open it into pieces like a puzzle. We will see some of the common building blocks:

1. Business – includes business strategy, vision, mission, support services, HR, payroll, finance, products, services and much more..
   
2. Information – At each stage of communication between key business entities, some sort of information is shared or transferred between them. This information is critical and form the basis of Information architecture
   
3. Applications – To support key business process and information exchange, most organisations have LOB (Line of business) applications. These applications are imprtant part of day-to-day operations and management
   
4. Technologies (Infrastructure) - All applications or systems in an organisation are built on a technology platform or bundle of technologies. In simple terms, we can try to understand technology as Infrastructure to support business processes
   

There are other key artefacts in any business to support above 4 critical horizontals like – shared services, policies, procedures, program management and change management.

If we amalgamate all of the above to create a model, then the Enterprise Architecture should look like the following:

I have based my model on TOGAF Framework . I will use it as our base for further explanations on key aspects of Enterprise Architecture. I am closing tonight on this reference model. From tomorrow onward, I will use above model to explain various aspects of Enterprise Architecture.

Good night!!