What is Enterprise Architecture?

An Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a way of formalising stakeholder concerns and presenting them in the context of the enterprise. For example EA can encompass- business and technical concepts to emphasise the dependencies between them and this approach enables change to proceed with a clearer understanding of the touch- points and problem areas. EA takes a holistic approach in order to manage problems associated with the system-of-interest to show the interaction of technology and business processes.

The purpose of EA is to optimize across the enterprise, the often fragmented legacy of processes (both manual and automated) and systems, into an integrated environment that is responsive to change and supports the delivery of the business strategy.

Note it does not model the entire enterprise.

An EA should encompass the Architecture Definition process as described by ISO/IEC IEEE 15288-2015.

“The purpose of the Architecture Definition process is to generate system architecture alternatives, to select one or more alternative(s) that frame stakeholder concerns and meet system requirements, and to express this in a set of consistent views.

Iteration of the Architecture Definition process with the Business or Mission Analysis process, System Requirements Definition process, Design Definition process, and Stakeholder Needs and Requirements Definition process is often employed so that there is a negotiated understanding of the problem to be solved and a satisfactory solution is identified. The results of the Architecture Definition process are widely used across the life cycle processes. Architecture definition may be applied at many levels of abstraction, highlighting the relevant detail that is necessary for the decisions at that level.”