A comparison enterprise architecture frameworks for critical IT infrastructure design

Abstract

This paper investigates the concept of architecture by examining 10 Enterprise Architecture Frameworks (EAF) for critical IT infrastructure (CITI) design such as Zachman’s, TOGAF, FEAF, DoDAF, BMDAF, NATOAF, TEAF, GEAF, RM-DOP, SOA. Architecture plays a major role in the development of information systems. The act of architecture design in the development cycle is generally understood to be systematic analysis and design of related information to provide a model for guiding the actual development of information systems.To date, there are more than 100 platforms for the development of architecture, which are divided for use in defense, government, open-source, proprietary. The platform helps to improve the understanding of the topic by providing systematic approaches to architectural design and development, but many aspects of architecture remain ambiguous. The uncertainty concerns the following: architecture (whether the architecture should cover only the software components or include other aspects of the development of critical IT infrastructure), the role of the architect (the role of the architect in the lifecycle of critical IT infrastructure development is often unclear), the results (which should be the result of architectural work – business function documents or a detailed project of critical IT infrastructure), architectural activities (includes design and modeling, but what level of detail is required use and when detailed design starts), architecture testing (how much we need to evaluate, check architecture design results), system requirements (size and complexity, whether systems of different sizes and complexity have the same system requirements for architectural design results), architecture level (which the relationship between the architecture of critical infrastructure enterprise and the stand-alone architecture of the critical IT infrastructure). For the architecture of a complex system such as critical IT infrastructure, there are provided considerations, which consist of several dimensions such as business requirements, technical requirements, criteria, current architecture and future architecture. We propose to analyze AF from different points of view. At first, we analyze AF in terms of their goals, inputs and outcomes. At second, each EAF was analyzed in the terms of Concepts, Modeling, and Process. As a third and fourth point of view, we use some qualitative and quantitative metrics for AF analysis.