Architecture Frameworks While the above definition s may seem fairly cut and dried, there is a lot in common between the concepts of reference architectures and architecture frameworks.
For some, this is where things get dicey and definitions get blurry. If a particular architecture is a cookbook that provides guidance on how to go about solving a particular set of problems with a particular approach, an architecture framework is a book about how to write cookbooks.
So, architecture frameworks give enterprise architects the tools they need to adequately describe and collect requirements, without mandating any specific architecture type.
To continue our analogy with cookbooks, if an architecture framework is a book on how to write cookbooks, then a reference architecture is a book that provides guidance and best practices on how to write cookbooks focused on weight loss, for example. This would then mean that the particular architecture you develop for your organization would be a specific cookbook that provides weight-loss recipes targeted to your organization.
Both frameworks and RAs provide best practices, and while it might be argued that RAs provide more of a methodology than a framework does, RAs are still not really characterized by their methodology component. Most can be characterized by their template component, however. From this perspective, patterns are instances of templates in this context. In fact, multiple reference architectures for the same domain are allowable and quite useful.
Reference architectures can be complementary providing guidance for a single architecture, such as SOA, from multiple viewpoints. ZapThink sees a high degree of variability in SOA projects. Some flourish and succeed while others flounder and fail. Many times the reason for failure can be traced to bad architectural practices, premature infrastructure purchasing, and inadequate governance and management. Get to know everything about what Reference Architecture means, what the benefits are and more about 5 drivers for Reference Architecture.
Reference architecture or model provides a common vocabulary, reusable designs, and industry best practices that are used as a constraint for more concrete architectures. Typically, reference architecture includes common architecture principles, patterns, building blocks, and standards. They are not solution architectures i.
A reference architecture in the field of software architecture provides a template solution for an architecture for a domain. The structures and respective elements and relations provide templates for concrete architectures in a domain. A common vocabulary is used to discuss implementations, often with the aim to stress commonality.
Enterprise Reference Architectures are standardized architectures that provide a frame of reference for a vertical domain or sector. Many domains have their reference architecture definitions. The key reference architecture examples include:. Most of these reference architectures include common business building blocks, business capabilities, and business processes for a specific vertical domain.
They may include, for example, common data models, communication standards and exchange formats, and sometimes even common software building blocks and mostly reusable assets and models. A reference architecture provides a template, often based on the generalization of a set of solutions.
These solutions may have been generalized and structured for the depiction of one or more architecture structures based on the harvesting of a set of patterns that have been observed in a number of successful implementations.
Further, it shows how to compose these parts together into a solution. Enterprise Reference Architectures will be instantiated for a particular domain or for specific projects. There are several factors in favor of using Reference Architecture.
To be successful, the framework conditions for Reference Architecture must be right. Reference architectures provide a frame of reference that helps one get an overview of a domain while they provide a starting point for your own enterprise architecture effort. They provide you with basic structures so you do not have to reinvent the wheel. Enterprise Reference Architectures are most valuable for those aspects and elements of your organization on which you do not compete with others.
In our increasingly networked world, organizations need to connect and cooperate with all manner of other parties.
The standards and building blocks provided by reference architectures facilitate these connections. A related benefit is that using standards improves flexibility because it is easier to exchange building blocks that connect via standardized interfaces; vice versa, it is much easier to develop standards if the building blocks themselves are standardized. Using reference architectures facilitates benchmarking within your industry.
Often, the differences between companies are not in the design of, say, their business processes, but in their execution. Using reference designs makes it much easier to compare those execution results.
Often, reference architectures are prescribed or at least strongly recommended by regulators. Accounting principles, practices, and processes, for example, are increasingly standardized and mandated.
This leads to business reporting standards, even down to the level of exchange standards such as XBRL. Download our poster to see how LeanIX helps enterprise architecture teams accelerate IT workstreams following a merger or acquisition.
Enterprise Architects of tomorrow must acquire five key traits to guide companies to success. Practical insights on how to become data-driven, agile-minded, and forward thinking. Learn how a legacy enterprise architecture tool might be holding you back from driving value through business outcomes.
See what modern EA looks like. Adopting a reference architecture within an organization accelerates delivery through the re-use of an effective solution and provides a basis for governance to ensure the consistency and applicability of technology use within an organization.
In the field of software architecture, many empirical studies have shown the following common benefits and drawbacks from adopting a software reference architecture within organizations:. An Architecture Framework is defined as an encapsulation of a minimum set of practices and requirements for artifacts that describe a system's architecture.
So, architecture frameworks give enterprise architects the tools they need to adequately describe and collect requirements, without mandating any specific architecture type. Both frameworks and RAs provide best practices, and while it might be argued that RAs provide more of a methodology than a framework does, RAs are still not really characterized by their methodology component. Nor did it convey useful information to those stakeholders unfamiliar with the IT domain.
The BIT cube represents architectural artifacts as bricks or components on specific topics that make up the cube.
These artifacts are difficult to integrate as a continuous thread through the business, information and technology architecture views. This difficulty has made the BIT as separate architectural steps a less-favored approach.
With the emergence of e-Business, separation of technology, information, and business architectures no longer makes sense.
The architect's framework must enable the integration of these separate steps, automatically reconciling and aligning the requirements of various stakeholders perspectives across more natural partitions of the problem space domains. You will learn more about architecture frameworks and the approach prescribed in this course.
Namely, the module entitled the building blocks of architecture will introduce you to the concepts and approach prescribed by the authors of this course.
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