CEN Workshop Berlin 2000
Enterprise Architecture Frameworks (Working group report) , Ed. Robertson
Our work explores the formalism inherent in the structure and semantics of Enterprise Architecture Frameworks. We have chosen to begin our formalisation with the Zachman approach because of its world-wide use as an underlying conceptual framework for enterprise architecture development. However, the structure we formalize is more general than Zachman's.
The significant principles that govern our formalisation are:
- abstraction-concreteness and generality-detail are distinct dimensions; the framework should provide mechanism, not policy
- recursion is decomposition and successive refinement, not reoccurrence
- multiple views are inherent and essential in system analysis and design; roles are ordered, interrogatives are not;
- and entire preceding role is relevant for each cell of a frame.
A top-down analysis induces a recursive structure. In our formalisation a framework is a recursive artifact defined as a structure composed of multiple frames. These frames are labelled in a top-down manner, but the semantics reflected by the framework are revealed from the bottom up. In particular, we examine recursion with respect to framework structure and not to the application of frameworks.
We show that a rather simple, recursive structure, when augmented with constraint and viewing mechanisms, provides the foundation for significant artifact repositories spanning a wide range of enterprise needs.
Contact : Robertson@cs.indiana.edu