What is Enterprise Architecture (EA )?

The Analects of Confucius Zi Lu said: "The name is not regular words, but not words. "

Although the term enterprise architecture (EA) originated in the West, its English expression is not so accurate. For example, the "What's XXX" we are used to has two different translation methods. One is "What is XXX", which reflects the definition of connotation; the other is "What is XXX", which reflects the description of extension. As the cloud in Mozi Sutra: "That's why the name is also true. The so-called, also ."

Slave1987YearsZachmanSince the beginning of framework, enterprise architecture has been developing for more than 20 years. Many organizations have tried to define the connotation of EA:

 
Zachman: "EA is a comprehensive description of all key elements and relationships in an organization. The enterprise architecture framework (EAF) is a blueprint for describing the EA method ." Clinger-Cohen: "EA is an integrated framework used to evolve or maintain existing information technologies and introduce new information technologies to achieve the Organization's strategic objectives and information resource management goals. "The open group:" EA is about understanding all the different enterprise elements that make up an enterprise and how these elements are correlated ." OMB: "EA is the display description and record of the current and future relationships between business and management processes and information technology ." Metagroup: "EA is a system process that expresses the enterprise's key business, information, applications and technology strategies, and their impact on business functions and processes. EA provides a consistent and holistic perspective on how information technology is and how it should be implemented within the enterprise to align it with business and market strategies. "Microsoft:" EA is the organizational logic of a company's core business processes and IT capabilities. It is achieved through a set of principles, policies, and technical options, to meet business standardization and integration requirements of the company's operation model. "IBM:" EA is a blueprint for recording all the information systems in the enterprise, their relationships, and how they fulfill their mission "IBM Technology Research Institute: "EA procedures define and maintain architecture models, governance and transition activities to help effectively coordinate semi-autonomous teams to achieve common business and/or it goals."
 

However, there is no fair definition of EA. Fortunately, some key features of the EA can be derived from the above description:

1. Ea aims to coordinate the relationship between business and IT, drive business it, and it supports business;

2. Ea should include static and dynamic content;

3. from the static aspect, EA defines and maintains the business, application, information, and technology aspects of enterprise informatization, which are divided into the framework (Architecture) and blueprint; the Framework defines and divides the components of EA in dimensions to help capture business needs and business expectations, and regulate the reuse of existing IT services and infrastructure; the blueprint depicts the existing business, it key elements, and the relationship between elements under the constraints of the Framework;

4. in terms of dynamics, EA also defines its own evolving routes and strategies, this includes IT standards, specifications, processes, evolution and development principles, as well as IT governance policies and principles. Because it development usually lags behind business development, these routes, strategies, and principles help to maintain the dynamic consistency between it and business, so that it development is planned and forward-looking, the ability to predict the future business development requirements for it, so as to ensure that information construction is in place in a timely manner.

It can be said that the architecture content that meets the above characteristics should belong to the scope of EA.