CoherentEA.com

Enterprise Architecture is the logical step in the information age evolution from stovepipe culture to interoperable culture. It is not be a "come and go" initiative as many other business improvement efforts in the past. Information age begins with stovepipe system where every develop their own system to satisfy their need and they keeps on reinvent wheel; The next stage is contain the stovepipe system with a large system approach, the problem is it requires significant time and resource; The third stage is to apply cross-cutting solution to deliver architecture service in tine of need by preparing common foundation base on the others experience as show in the following figure.



Follow the rule of civilization Every civilization period such as the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial evolves in the same maturity pattern from stovepipe system culture to sharing and reuse culture. The same pattern applies to the ancient civilization of housing development and also applies to the high-tech industry. For example : The once complicate electronic technology has evolve to IC chips and components to encapsulate the complication and enable simple, agile and cost efficient products for the entire community as shown in the following table.



The Coherent EA is an effort to orderly arrange the different parts of EA. As an emerging discipline, there are many EA directions and each one of them contribute significant value to EA. EA has also gone through the stage where every one insisted their righteousness. As a result, EA has not yet become practical. For EA to become mature, we must put EA together to see the big picture of EA in a constructive way rather than try to deny each other. CEA put together the big picture of EA. From it, the sum is much greater than the parts; we can recognize the power of EA. It is an emerging paradigm to make transition from stovepipe culture to interoperable culture in the information age. CEA illustrate the big picture of EA in the following figure:




CEA consist of the following area:

. The Enterprise Map
. Business Architecture
. The Alignment Architecture
. The Agility Architecture
. The Management Architecture.

Enterprise Map is analogy to Engineering Survey to see the whole; It enable a holistic strategic plannnging, business archtiecture, alignment architecture, agility architecture and management architecture as shown in the following :

Business Architecture leverage on Enterprise Map to structure the enterprise from the aspect of mission, function, processes, organization, location and demand;

Alignment Architecture take advantage of information evolution to plan for the notional target architecture, preserve the institutional knowledge and deliver the values of EA via segment architecture.

Agility Architecture is the capability to establish the value of architecture to the right people in the right area at the right time. Enterprise is not static, it change constantly with time dimension. EA must be agile to keep up business change. CEA suggest the Agility Architecture from the aspect of learning experience of others via reference model; establish standards, reuse and consolidation. The agility is achieved via governance and compliance. It enables service oriented enterprise architecture. As the agility architecture growing mature, Enterprise can leverage on reference architecture to achieve a simple and agile architecture solution.

Management Architecture is the capability to manage and deliver the value of the business architecture, the alignment architecture, the agility architecture via communication, investment management, services management, service delivery and service operation.

Recently I have studied the Book of Change and found very interesting coincidence between the book of change and CEA. It is an ancient Chinese classic philosophy.



For me, It is considered as generic model of change. The model illustrate the fundamental of change base the transition between Yin and Yang. The eight trigrams are symbols standing for changing transitional states; They are generic images that are constantly undergoging change with time. Therefore, Attention should centers not on things in their state of being but upon their movements in change. The eight trigrams therefore are not representation of things as such but of their tendencies in movement. The Chinese have applied this model to the change of every thing: From the major government policy to every one's daily life. Because it is a generic model of change which take the time dimension into account, the model is frequently used to project future. It has become better known as a popular fortune telling tool and lost its fundamental value as a tool to manage change.

I have created the Coherent Enterprise Architecture on the same principle in the Book of Change without knowing the ancient wisdom until my recent trip to Taiwan. CEA recognize that Enterprise is changing continuously rather provide a static solution as application development do. Therefore the attention centers should not on thing in their state of being as application development do - but upon the balance of continuous movement.

EA is not about to architect the enterprise and design the big blueprint in a large scale application system approach. Most of peopel will tell you that EA is the effort to design the target architecture, analyz the gap between target and as-is, and close the gap as shown in the initial Federal Enterprise Architectrure Framework (FEAF) by the Federal Enterprise Architecture Work Group (FEAWG).

EA is more the effort to enable the enterprise agility to manage the continuous change rather than to design the a static target enterprise architecture in a steady state. The steady state of target architecture become obsolete before the ink dry. EA and application development are very different in concept. The confusion of EA and Application development is because EA was evolved from application development and system engineering conccpt to address a set of specific requirements. The Federal Enterprise Architecrure Program Office (FEAPMO) have the vision that EA is much the effort to enable agility via diferent reference models to establish the PRM, BRM, SRM, DRM and TRM and promote Service Orineted Architeture.


CEA model incorporate not only on the business, technology but also the agility to manage change in time of need. The Coherent Enterprise Architecture keep the balance of enterprise during the continuous movement of change with the coherent interaction of business, technology and agility to keep it from fail.

Thanks to Akshaya Bhatia's introduction on CEA in the Toolbox for IT. It is truly a great recognition and encouragement:

Coherent Enterprise Architecture (CEA) is a pragmatic, innovative, light weight and fast track enterprise architecture model developed and documented by an eminent enterprise architect John Wu.

The CEA immaculately blends cohesive system modeling endeavors encapsulating study of business architecture and analysis of system architecture using appropriate system segmentation by way of an agile approach aiming at development of a business enterprise based on technology alignment with the business.

Although the CEA model borrows some concepts from other well known EA models such as Zachman Framework, TOGAF ( The Open Group Architecture Framework), PRISM (Partnership for Research in Information Systems Management) Architecture Framework, Gartner approach to EA, FEA (Federal Enterprise Architecture)-US etc. , it is, per-se, a pragmatic, innovative and unique approach in many ways owing to it’s emphasis on agility along with mapping technology solutions for maintaining a flexible and strategic thrust on business alignment in sight of continuously evolving business enterprise.

Just like most of the popular EA models in vogue, the CEA model also caters in extenuating the complexity involved in system design process so as to make an appropriate use of technology in implementation of business processes such that business goals of the enterprise are fulfilled, albeit with a relatively less emphasis on building from scratch and more emphasis on building upon the existing framework by application of agile approach and characteristically looking for a cross cutting approach based on loose coupling.

Key idea is to follow a structured approach by identifying commonality (patterns) amongst the attribute values of the sub-systems , deciphering the bottlenecks or business performance gaps among the business segments and plugging in the gaps by visualizing through business plus data plus application architectures.

Furthermore, the CEA encourages reuse and consolidation of application system architecture for enterprise application integration with service oriented loose coupling and appropriate built-in security, iteratively through the various layers of architectures (business,data,application) and thereby obliterating existence of the stove pipes systems.

Pragmatically speaking, if applied appropriately, the CEA model can bring in application of technology as an investment and value addition to a business.

Akshaya Bhatia has generously accepted my invitation as one of the Coherent EA advisors. They are my mentors to guide and encourage me in the development of Coherent EA.

Akshaya Bhatia is globally well known EA specialist, Business Analyst and business management consultant. He has nearly 22 years of comprehensive IT experience with expertise in Project Management, IT and Business Strategy, Enterprise Architecture, MIS, System Design and Development, Internet, Web and Telecom technologies, Network Security, Web services, SOA (Service Oriented Architecture), EDA (Event Driven Architecture), CEP (Complex Event Processing), SEO (Search Engine Optimization), ERP, distributed data processing, database strategy, plan and implementation, Master Data management, CRM, and Change Management.

He has thoroughly researched on various approaches to Enterprise Architecture and practically involved in implementing the optimized IT system in total alignment with the Business. He has thoroughly studied and experimented with the well known EA models such as Zachman Framework, TOGAF ( The Open Group Architecture Framework), PRISM (Partnership for Research in Information Systems Management) Architecture Framework, Capgemini Integrated Architecture Framework, AGATE (Atelier de Gestion de l'ArchiTEcture des systèmes d'information et de communication), DODAF (Department of Defense Architecture) Framework-US, FEA (Federal Enterprise Architecture)-US, Microsoft EA etc. He has reviewed and contributed to the course material used in training used in several Institutions for EA, MIS and Web and networking technologies.

He has participated in design, development and implementation of variety of information system packages such as Inventory control, Accounts Receivable system, Payroll, Marketing Survey Analysis, Order Processing and Project monitoring systems in variety of industries such as Hardware manufacturer/distributor, Software developer/testing, customer support, Manufacturing, Real Estate, Finance, Event Marketing, Hospitality and Services.


He has thorough acumen in implementation as well as management of the financial, marketing, HR systems and also has comprehensive knowledge of theoretical, practical and operational aspects of each sub-system.


He has authored many a books on MIS that are prescribed in well known universities and management institutes for the post graduate management degree courses. He have provided assistance to numerous research scholars doing path breaking research in the field of engineering, mathematics, computer sciences and management.

The website is hereby renamed to Coherent Enterprise Architecture (CEA) to realize that Enterprise Architecture is the coherent Effort of business architecture, system architecture and agility architecture rather than the toggling war on EA is about Business or Alignment or Agility. In addition, I have just discovered Lightweight Enterprise Architecture by Fenix Theuerkorn. I would like rename my work to show my respect.

The new URL of Coherent Enterprise Architecture is :

http://www.coherentEA.com

US OMB has lead EA in a segment architecture approach rather than the traditional big ban effort. It is a divide and conquers approach;

The challenge is how to keep the segment architecture logically together to avoid segmented stovepipes architecture. Segment architecture is an further detail EA effort to elaborate the enterprise target architecture whcih is a highlevel master plan.

The other challenge is how to define a segment? Segments are defined to closes business performance gaps rather than engineering convenience. It is an incremental enterprise architecture effort to address business need rather than the architect’s ideology. Many EA experts have suggested to define segment based on architecture category in a bird of the same feather approach.

Please review The segment architecture article for more detail.

John Chi-Zong Wu has been an Enterprise Architecture advocate since 1998. He has actively participated and witnessed the EA evolution occurred in the Washington DC area and around the world. To navigate in the jungle of EA definition and looks for the truth of EA, he has kept his EA thoughts in the web site of Light Enterprise Architecture (LEA). John has describe the light enterprise architecture approach in the LEA book and the LEA guidance . The Light Enterprise Architecture approach is developed with hands on and prototype effort in EA Maps , EA portal, EA framework, EA architecture drawings and the web technical reference manual .

John has initiated the e-cio organization. He suggest, in the notion of " eat your own dog food", the office of Chief Information Officer (OCIO) must demonstrate their transition from stove pipe solution to EA culture. It is difficult to convince and get buy-in from the stakeholders when the OCIO has yet making the transition.

John is also a contributing author of the Cutter Consortium and has actively contribute EA thought to the ITtoolbox blog He is also the membership chair of the Association of Enterprise Architects DC chapter which provide regularly present EA seminars in Washington DC area.

John has earned a M.S. in Civil engineering form Howard University in 1979 and M.S. in Computer Science from Florida Institute of Technology in 1984. He was a registered Professional Engineer in the state of Florida since 1981. The inter discipline of engineering and computer science enable him to develop the Light Enterprise Architecture approach

He has built his strength in Enterprise Architect via hands on experiences in broad areas of application development, system engineering, database administration, and system administration and computer support management.

EA is a coherent effort of business modeling, IT solution alignment and the ability to privide value in time and manageing ambiguity as shown in the following concept.

Architecture by definition is the Orderly arrangement of parts. Enterprise Architecture adopt architecture as the mean to the end of overcome the challenge of stovepipe system and island of information. The EA industry has applied business architecture to design the enterprise business and system architecture to align technology with business However, enterprise is not static as a building or an application system. The nature of ambiguity and continuous change has been the major challenge of Enterprise. EA must also enable the agility to manage ambiguity and continuous change in addition to system architecture and business architecture.

The capability of agility does not just happen; it is the result of architecture and engineering effort. The architecture of agility is the effort to analyze the structure of agility. It is a cross-cutting solution to looks for commonality via the engineering reuse and consolidation. EA is the coherent effort of the business architecture, system architecture and agility architecture as shown in the following.





A presentation is developed to elaborate what is a coherent.

EA is the relation between Technology and Business to align IT with business need. Mathematically speaking, it is more topology than geometry.

A topology (from Greek topos meaning place) is a description of any kind of locality in terms of its layout. It is:

A mathematical branch that deal with position. Topology is contrary to common geometry, which puts emphasis on how points, lines and planes are composed in order to create ideal solid forms. Topology does not deal with single object and it visual attributes, but pays attention to how an object may be connected to or situated in relation to another object. []

EA is the study of the relation between technologies and businesses rather than developing a large scale application system.

Under the understanding of EA as the topology rather than a geometry, the study of topology relies the set theory. The Light EA suggests to study the intersections set rather than the union set. It is an effort to establish the common foundation and building blocks to enable the agility and simplicity on taking advantage of technology evolution.

Topography (Greek topos, "place", and graphia, "writing") is the study to render topology in schematic presentation. EA topography is the effort to render a comprehensive EA topology between business, application, data and technology. For more information please read:

EA Maps

Light Enterprise Architecture (LEA) suggests that EA is the relation between technology and business which align technology solutions to enterprise business need. Enterprise Architecture is not all about technology, it is not all about business either.

EA is not only all about technology. In the early stage of information age, many automation efforts are technology driven because the way that technology has change how business doing business. However, gradually, the community realizes that the evolution of information age got carried away in the technology driven approach to departure from what business need. Under this concern, EA was initiated to align technology and business and resolve the challenge of stovepipe systems. Even so, the technical world still interprets EA as the enterprise scalable system which is technology oriented.

EA is not all about business either. In the last few years, the EA community have swing the definition of EA to the other extreme to suggest the EA is all about business by interpret EA as "Architecting the enterprise" and it is all about business. The notion of EA is all about business has totally missed the point of what EA was initiated. It interprets EA by the word of "Enterprise Architecture" rather than by the origin of EA in the information age. It is unfortunate that it only scratch the surface of the words rather go to the depth of the root. EA is not in cosmetic business. Under this on going movement, EA has become the new name for old paradigm of business transformation which can be accounted from the old days bloody revolution, industry engineering, information engineering, enterprise engineer , business process reengineering and continuous improvement.

Enterprise Architecture is an emerging paradigm rather than enterprise large scale system architecture or the new episode of business improvement and transformation effort. EA aligns technology with business need, see the enterprise big picture to know the enterprise environment, learn experience of the others and establish common foundation and building blocks to enable agile and simple business transformation. Enterprise Architects is an emerging discipline o map technology with business need, the enterprise architect have to know the technology side and the business side enough to establish the relationship.