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Welcome to the Softstar Research Enterprise Architecture Wiki.
So what is Enterprise Architecture?
The General Accountability Office (GAO) defines Enterprise Architecture (EA) as "an organizations operations and systems as a set of blueprints to a building". The general idea here is to give decision makers a single, end-to-end framework for the business and the technologies that support that business.
Whether you agree or disagree with this definition; or prefer an alternative definition; this one is as good as any for a place to start. In fact, not actually starting is probably the single most important factor contributing to a failed Enterprise Architecture. The second common factor after not starting is not having a common place to start from.
On a small scale, the comparison above of EA as a set of building blueprints is pretty accurate. It’s also an example of a type of abstraction. On a larger scale though, these blueprints would be more analogous to a set of blueprints for an entire city, composed of many buildings. Each building itself will have its own architecture (a.k.a. Application Architecture), while still participating in the overall Enterprise strategy.
Where the rubber meets the road though, or in this case where the business meets the technology, is that level of abstraction that can make or break the successes of the whole EA. It’s at this level of abstraction where the foundation of the EA gets set in the overall vision and mission for the Enterprise. Without this, everything else is just built on shaky ground.
Current sections under development: Enterprise Architecture Glossary and TLA Glossary
Service Orientated Architecture (SOA)
