Modeling Interactive Enterprise Architecture Visualizations: An Extended Architecture Description

Enterprise Architectures consist of a multitude of architecture elements, which relate in manifold ways to each other. Due to the high number of relationships between these elements, architectural analysis mechanisms are essential for all stakeholders to keep track and to work out relevant model characteristics. In practice EAs are often analyzed using visualizations by hand. However, the visualizations are often static and there are only few interaction possibilities. As a result, new visualizations have to be created or configured by experts if information demands change. In addition, hardly any tools are used for analysis of complex model characteristics. In this article we introduce an extended conceptualization of the architecture description that defines the structure of interactive visualizations and the integration of further tools to flexibly respond to the information demands of stakeholders. In addition, we develop a so-called Architecture Cockpit that realizes the extended conceptualization in a prototype. At the end we demonstrate and evaluate our approach through a practical test in a company in the finance and insurance industry

Managing Change: Business/ IT Alignment and Adaptability of Information Systems

The ability to adapt to frequent changes has emerged as a new paradigm for successful business operations. The paper outlines an approach for business/ IT alignment taking organizational transformation into account. A framework for enterprise architecture is introduced which links business - , application -, and infrastructure architecture. Key element of architecture design is to account for interdependencies among the building blocks of architecture. Blueprints give a comprehensive view on the building blocks and how the interact. The criteria and process how to analyse the adaptability of information systems are described. Based on the assessment principal strategies for information system deployment are pointed out. Finally the architecture development process and the main stakeholders and their respective usage of the design techniques are sketched. Keywords: business/ IT alignment, organizational change, adaptability of information systems, enterprise architecture, architecture management, blue prints, architecture development process, stakeholder

A Fuzzy Logic Based Approach For Enterprise Application Evaluations

This contribution presents an approach to use fuzzy logic and fuzzy rule systems for enterprise application evaluations (enterprise architecture dependent application evaluations). Such evaluations regard all relations to enterprise architecture artifacts in order to evaluate an application. There may be a large number of criteria to be considered and some of them have to be assessed by humans, which may introduce vagueness to the results. We present a method to assign the results of criteria to linguistic terms that have semantics like “good” or “poor”. Since it is often relevant to have exactly one characteristic to compare applications to each other, a fuzzy rule system approach is presented that aggregates those linguistic terms for each criterion of an application to an overall indicator of an application’s quality

An Exploration of Enterprise Architecture Research

Management of the enterprise architecture has become increasingly recognized as a crucial part of both business and IT management. Still, a common understanding and methodological consistency seems far from being developed. Acknowledging the significant role of research in moving the development process along, this article employs different bibliometric methods, complemented by an extensive qualitative interpretation of the research field, to provide a unique overview of the enterprise architecture literature. After answering our research questions about the collaboration via co-authorships, the intellectual structure of the research field and its most influential works, and the principal themes of research, we propose an agenda for future research based on the findings from the above analyses and their comparison to empirical insights from the literature. In particular, our study finds a considerable degree of co-authorship clustering and a positive impact of the extent of co-authorship on the diffusion of works on enterprise architecture. In addition, this article identifies three major research streams and shows that research to date has revolved around specific themes, while some of high practical relevance receive minor attention. Hence, the contribution of our study is manifold and offers support for researchers and practitioners alike

Framework and Reference for Architecture Design

The paper outlines the design of enterprise architectures. The architecture design is based on a comprehensive architecture framework which classifies the basic domains of enterprise architecture and lays the ground for architecture description. The description of enterprise architecture is based on three basic views. The component view describes the elements of architecture and their relationships. The communication view shows how the elements interact with one another. The distribution view describes how the elements are distributed in terms of location or organisational assignment. Key element of architecture design is to account for interdependencies among the building blocks of architecture. Blueprints are introduced as a means in planning the deployment of architecture on a large scale. Blueprints give a comprehensive view on the building blocks and how the interact. They show the effects of architecture design between business, application, and infrastructure architecture. The main stakeholders and their respective usage of the design techniques are explained

DECISION SUPPORT FOR SELECTING AN APPLICATION LANDSCAPE INTEGRATION STRATEGY IN MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) represent a powerful strategic instrument increasingly applied in today\u27s business environment. Besides juridical, financial, and organizational challenges, it is crucial to rapidly integrate the existing application landscapes in order to capitalize the aspired synergies. Literature documents four commonly agreed strategies: \u27best-of-breed\u27, \u27absorption\u27, \u27co-existence\u27, and \u27new-build\u27. However, no consolidated set of criteria exists to ease the selection of an integration strategy most suitable for the merger or the acquisition. Based on the results of a literature study, this paper proposes four integration profiles enabling a structured decision support for selecting the appropriate application landscape strategy during M&A. Each profile comprises relevant driving factors and resulting consequences as selection criteria. The identified literature statements regarding the criteria are validated by means of 12 confirmatory interviews with M&A experts. Furthermore, collected findings from an additional exploratory interview part with the practitioners complement the devised strategy profiles

Foundations for the Integration of Enterprise Wikis and Specialized Tools for Enterprise Architecture Management

Organizations are challenged with rapidly changing business requirements and an ever-increasing volume respectively variety of information. Enterprise Architecture (EA) and its respective management function are considered as means to overcome these challenges. Appropriate tool support to this end is an elementary success factor to guide the EA management (EAM) initiative. Nevertheless, practitioners perceive currently available tools specialized for EAM as not sufficient in their organizations. Major reasons are inflexible data models as well as missing integration with processes and their focus on expert users. Regarding these limitations Enterprise Wikis provide practice proven solutions already exploited by organizations. These Enterprise Wikis are able to extend the capabilities of existing EA tools to cope with unstructured information and leverage a better utilization of structured EA information. In this paper we present the foundations for an integration of specialized EAM tools and Enterprise Wikis. We elaborate scenarios for both tool species using a practitioner survey and differentiate four integration cases