- Complex, critical systems require to apply modelbased system engineering (MBSE) practices and use standardized methodologies and frameworks that help define the system in a commonly recognized way. The enterprise architecture framework helps determine how information, business, and technology work together. It brings more discipline to the organization by standardizing and consolidating processes to ensure better consistency. This has become a necessity for companies seeking to organize various architectural perspectives into a holistic and unified view. There are several frameworks that help companies implement architecture efficiently. This opens up the question of what set of criteria based on a system of systems principles can be used for comparative analysis of enterprise architecture framework in order to select the best one. This paper proposes five criteria that include weights and presents the results of a comparison of six enterprise architecture frameworks.
In the age of innovation, people are surrounded by many systems designed to facilitate everyday life, accelerate processes, or even save human life. The growing complexity of the problems requires the problem-solving to be transferred to the systemic level. Nowadays, there are problems that need to be taken into account through a system thinking in order to address new challenges such as the internet of things, autonomous traffic management and so on.
Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is systems
engineering methodology which emphasizes the application
of rigorous visual modeling principles. Models are created to
deal with complexity, they allow to understand an area of
interest, encourage reuse and improve quality [
Any complex system can be viewed from several different angles, each of which can be depicted in various architectural perspectives. In order to organize these diverse architectural perspectives into a holistic and unified view, it is necessary to use an enterprise architecture framework that was originally designed by John Zachman. Fig. 1 provides the Zachman framework.
© 2019 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) According to the [3] “the framework successfully combines people, data and technology to show a comprehensive view of the inter-relationships within an information technology organization”. Framework helps to develop a complex, integrated, cohesive and comprehensive solution and can speed up the architecture development process.
The framework structure the architecture description into domains, layers or images, and suggests using views diagrams and matrices - to document each concept. The structured description of architecture allows to make systemic decisions on all system components and make long-term decisions about new design requirements, sustainability and support. Organization architecture framework (EAF) defines principles and practices how to design an enterprise or system of systems architecture.
In this paper, we focus on the criteria for comparing enterprise architecture frameworks. The question is how to evaluate different enterprise architecture frameworks: what set of criteria based on a system of systems principles to use in order to select the best framework.
In this paper, we propose a new set of criteria including weights and criteria rating which can be used for comparative analysis of enterprise architecture frameworks.
The rest of this paper is structured as follows: in Section 2, the related works are analyzed; in Section 3, the overview of enterprise architecture is provided; in Section 4, the set of criteria with weight are provided to perform a comparison; in Section 5, the achieved results, conclusions, and future work directions are indicated.
There is a large number of research papers on the comparison of enterprise architecture frameworks. Most of them are proposing are criteria how to compare EAF, other ones propose criteria on how to compare EAF in the specific area like SOA, EAF implementation etc.
A number of authors compare organization architecture frameworks to offer a more comprehensive and accurate EAFs comparison approach, these studies has been defined in [5], [6], [7], [8]. Paper [5] investigates the concept of architecture by examining six AF: ZF, 4+1 Views, FEAF, RM-ODP, TOGAF, DoDAF. Authors of this paper proposed to compare EAF by fundamental elements such as their goals, inputs and outcomes. The proposed criteria were evaluated on the basis of three estimates: „Y“ – explicitly supports an element, „N“ – does not support an element, „P“ – partially supports or eludes to support an element. In [6] article is compared and contrasted four distinct approaches to the representation and management of models relating to enterprise complexity, ZF, ISO 15704, ISO/CEN 19439 and ISO/IEC 15288. Approaches compare has been performed by archetype dimension, prototype models, purposive dimension, life history, populating with artifacts, profile of change and managing change. Paper [7] provides a guidance in the selection of an EAF that meets the needed criteria. In this paper is performed a comparison of five frameworks: ZF, DoDAF, FEAF, Treasury Enterprise Architecture Framework (TEAF) and TOGAF. The authors of this paper proposed to compare EAFs by tree criteria: (i) views/perspectives - planner, owner, designer, builder, subcontractor, user; (ii) abstractions - what, how, where, who, when, why; (iii) the systems development life cycle – planning, analysis, design, implementation, maintenance. In [8] article author compares following four leading EAF: ZF, TOGAF, FEAF and GEAF. A comparative analysis is performed by ten criteria: taxonomy completeness, process completeness, reference-model guidance, practice guidance, maturity model, business focus, governance guidance, partitioning guidance, prescriptive catalog, vendor neutrality, information availability, time to value. Each EAF is ranked in each of ten criteria and the rating from 1 (very poor) to 4 (very good) is assigned.
Comparative analysis of enterprise architecture
frameworks has been performed in other studies to compare
EAF in various areas than the framework definition, these
study has been defined in [
In conclusion, all the analyzed papers and articles to compare enterprise architecture frameworks encounter several common issues: (i) unified architecture framework (UAF) is not included in the comparison, (ii) unsupported weight of the comparison criteria, (iii) it is difficult to interpret the results of EAF comparison, there is not provided the formal result of a comparison.
Overall, researches carried out in this area mainly provide a set of criteria for a general EAF comparison, regardless of the area where that EAF will be applied. I am proposing a more specific, easy to apply set of EAF comparison criteria, applicable to the majority of EAF. The proposed approach in combination with SoS principles will provide a set of comparison criteria with weights to compare EAF. This will help to make a more accurate comparison that is specifically based on the SoS domain and will provide the appropriate EAF selection that will be applied to complex system modeling.
III. OVERVIEW OF ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE FRAMEWORKS
Below is provided a brief description of six enterprise
architecture frameworks that are used in this study.
Department of Defense Architecture Framework
(DoDAF). This framework is developed for the United States
Department of Defense (DoD) that provides visualization
infrastructure for specific stakeholders concerns through
viewpoints organized by different views. It helps to ensure
that architectural artefacts are defined and characterized
consistently according to the specific project or mission needs,
in order to be “fit-to-purpose”. DoDAF organization
framework assists managers to make critical decisions more
effectively by organizing information sharing across the
Department, Joint Capability Areas (JCAs), Mission,
Component, and Program boundaries [
Ministry of Defense Architecture Framework (MODAF).
This framework is developed for the British Ministry of
Defense to support defense planning and change management
activities. MODAF ensures accurate, comprehensive and
consistent collection and presentation of information, helping
to understand complex issues [
Unified Architecture Framework (UAF). UAF was initially
created as UPDM 3.0, responding to the needs of UML /
SysML and military communities to create a standardized and
consistent enterprise architecture based on the U.S.
Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF)
and the UK Ministry of Defense Architecture Framework
(MODAF) [
(iii) profile – SysML based implementation
of the metamodel to apply model-based systems engineering
principles and best practices while building the views. UAF
provides a set of rules to allow users to create a consistent
enterprise
architecture (as
models) based
on
common
enterprise and system concepts with rich semantics. These
models then become the repositories from which various
views can be extracted [
Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF).
[
The Open Group Architectural Framework (TOGAF). This framework is based on the Department of Defense’s
mission-critical business applications that use open systems building blocks. TOGAF provides and explains the rules, creating good principles for system architecture development. TOGAF includes three levels of principles: (i) support decisionmaking throughout the enterprise, (ii) provide guidance of IT resources; (iii) support architecture principles for development and implementation.
IV. COMPARISON OF ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE
FRAMEWORKS Currently there is a wide selection of enterprise architecture frameworks. Comparison analysis is required to select the most appropriate framework. In order to more accurately compare the
EAF, we suggest using the comparison criteria including ratings and weights. The criteria for the comparative analysis of the enterprise architecture frameworks are as follows:
Domain support (DS) – level of domain support by EAF. The criterion identifies the universality of the framework.
Modeling languages openness (MLO) – level of modeling languages openness. The criterion helps to evaluate whether the modeling language used by the EAF can be modified. Indicates whether the organization that manages the modeling language is open or private.
Tool support (TS) - level of framework support by modeling tools. The criterion identifies the availability to use the framework in practice through a modeling tool.
Prevalence by researchers (PR) - level of framework prevalence by the research’s community. The criterion helps to evaluate whether the framework is being investigated or elaborated in scientific works.
In order to more accurately compare EAF, the set of criteria which are provided above should be ranked. TABLE
When each criterion is ranked, it is necessary to calculate a weighted average that helps to show the best framework from the others. Below is provided the comparison formula (1).
̅ = ∑ =1 ∑ =1 (1) ̅- weighted average – weighted criteria – rate criteria architecture frameworks which are briefly introduced in section III. The comparison has been performed using the proposed set of criteria. EAF/ Criteria Domain support Modeling Language openness Information availability Tool support Prevalence by researchers TOTAL F A D o
D
According to the results of the comparison, the best frameworks according to the criteria are listed below. Domain support – UAF Modeling Language Openness – UAF Information Availability – TOGAF Tool Support – DoDAF, NAF, MoDAF,
TOGAF Prevalence by researchers - DoDAF, TOGAF However, the Unified Architecture Framework according to the comparison result has been identified as best framework from other.
In this paper, we have analyzed the set of criteria which are used to perform a comparative analysis of enterprise architecture framework. The analysis disclosed that a wide variety of different sets of criteria are used which help to select the best framework. However, most of the criteria do not include weights that help determine the priorities of the criteria. The lack of criteria weights and ratings make it difficult to interpret the results of the comparison. Also, none of the proposed set of criteria is used to compare the newest framework – unified architecture framework. We have determined the need for criteria with weights and ratings.
In this paper, we propose a new set of criteria including weights and criteria rating which can be used to carry out an accurate and detailed comparative analysis of enterprise architecture frameworks. The set of criteria includes five criteria: domain support, modeling language openness, information availability, tool support and prevalence by researchers. For each criterion is assigned a weight indicating the importance and priority. Also, the criteria have a rating that determines the framework support under certain criteria, a rating of 1 (very poor) to 4 (very good).
Currently, this paper is oriented to the set of criteria which helps to evaluate different enterprise architecture frameworks in order to select the best framework. In the near future, we are planning to expand our research on enterprise architecture frameworks, especially on Unified Architecture Framework, to explore the possibility of performing an engineering analysis and behavioral modeling using a standard-based method.