The goal of the Essential Project is to promote the value that enterprise ...
organisations manage and analyse the knowledge needed to make decisions
that ...
The goal of the Essential Project is to promote the value that enterprise architecture can bring to organisations of all sizes and experience by lowering barriers to entry with a free, simple, productive and, most importantly, effective set of supporting tools.
The free, open-source EA solution
What is the Essential Project? The Essential Project contains:
The Essential Project is the collective name for a set of open source, Enterprise Architecture support tools that have been developed for use in conjunction with a variety of Enterprise Architecture approaches and frameworks (e.g. TOGAF, DoDAF, Zachman). These tools are focused solely on providing only those capabilities that are
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The Essential Meta-Model is a framework-independent language (i.e. set of semantic definitions) for capturing knowledge related to the building blocks and relationships of an enterprise
"essential" to maximising the value of enterprise architecture; helping organisations manage and analyse the knowledge needed to make decisions that impact or are impacted by their enterprise architecture. Designed for simplicity and ease of use, with no up-front or on-going fees, it is hoped that the Essential Project will encourage people to adopt Enterprise Architecture. The Essential Project is not only about the tools. It provides a useful, active forum for sharing ideas and experiences of applying Enterprise Architecture
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Essential Architecture Manager is a knowledge
practices to real world business problems; what works and what doesn't, best practices, hints and tips etc. Our aim is to move Enterprise Architecture
repository and reporting tool
away from its often-perceived ivory tower - of benefit only to large,
for capturing and then
complex organisations - to a necessary and valuable capability in any
querying information based
organisation.
on the Essential Meta-Model
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Essential Meta Model
Ontology for Enterprise Architecture
Developed from over ten years of applying enterprise architecture practices
The Essential Meta-Model is, in effect, an ontology for the domain of Enterprise Architecture that has been developed from over ten years of applying enterprise architecture practices with a variety of EA frameworks and tools.
The abstraction views defined are: Importantly, it does not represent an attempt to supersede or conflict with well-established EA frameworks and their associated
o
Conceptual View - the capabilities and
meta-models. Rather, the intention is to provide a comprehensive
concepts that represent the
and extensible set of concepts and relationships, with clear
fundamental elements needed to
semantics that can be easily mapped to the concepts, activities
meet the objectives of an enterprise
and tools of the industry standard frameworks.
(Strategic Agenda)
The Core Meta-Model concepts and relationships are based on
o
Logical View - the approaches taken
what is fast-becoming a standard twelve-box grid; with layers
to realise the capabilities and
representing the areas of architecture to be understood and rows
concepts of the Conceptual View
representing the levels of abstraction from which this
(Tactical Agenda)
understanding is to be viewed. More specifically, the architecture layers defined are:
o
Physical View - the implementation of the approaches described in the Logical View (Operational Agenda).
o
Business - the objectives, capabilities, people and processes of an enterprise
In addition, there are a number of Support Meta-Model concepts and relationships
o
o
Application - the functional behaviour provided by
provided that enable management and
technology systems in support of business processes
governance processes that make use of
Information - the structured and unstructured information that support business processes, is managed by applications and is transmitted/stored using technology
o
the knowledge captured in the Core MetaModel, as can be seen in the diagram above.
Technology - the software and hardware technology used to implement applications and transmit/store information.
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Essential Architecture Manager
Essential Meta Model Reference implementation
Easy to learn, capable of yielding results in days rather than months
Essential Architecture Manager is a toolset that is focused solely on supporting enterprise architecture practices, applied in the context of a variety of business and IT management processes (e.g. strategy management, IT governance, solution delivery, service delivery). In addition, particular emphasis has been placed on creating a toolset that is: o
Low maintenance, in terms of both the architecture model and the underlying tool platform Fundamentally, these features can be
o
Easy to learn, flexible and intuitive to non-technical users
o
Capable of yielding results in days or weeks, rather than
functions that support users in the modelling
months.
of an enterprise, and functions that provide
grouped into two areas of functionality;
users with discrete views of this model in The toolset offers all the required features of an enterprise
support of reporting and analysis. This
architecture tool as defined by the Gartner Group*:
grouping is reflected in the underlying design
o
A repository
of the toolset in that it comprises two main components, which separate the capture of
o
A meta model that supports business, information and
information from the analysis:
technology viewpoints as well as the solution architecture o o
Essential Modeller, providing support for
Provides support within the repository for relationships
capturing and maintaining the enterprise
among and between the objects in the above viewpoints
architecture model
and solution architecture o o
The ability to create or import models and artifacts
o
The ability to extract repository information to support various stakeholder needs.
Essential Viewer, responsible for generating reports that allow users to view and analyse the enterprise architecture model.
* Enterprise Architecture Tool definition source: Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Architecture Tools, 1Q06
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Essential Modeller The Essential Modeller provides a simple, primarily form-based means of capturing, managing and sharing an enterprise architecture model.
Essential Viewer The Essential Viewer provides a flexible and extensible means of generating views on the model captured using the Essential Modeller. A number of standard reports are provided by default, however, the Essential Viewer is explicitly designed to allow organisations to define and publish custom views and reports to meet their individual needs.
Open Source Software In the best traditions of open source, the components of the Essential Architecture Manager have been created using a number of wellestablished and proven open source technologies.
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Professional Support and Consulting Support and consulting services work with your organisation to help you support your Enterprise Architecture initiatives with the best use of the Essential Project tools. Examples of the consulting and support services offered include: o
Platform installation and configuration
o
Practical application of the Essential Project tools to meet specific objectives, such as
Licensing The Essential Project toolset is open source and has been used and tested extensively in a production environment. These tools are available for use by any individual or organisation free of charge, with no initial or on-going support or maintenance charges, under the GNU General Public License.
o
o
Business and IT strategy development and management
o
Solution architecture design
o
Project / programme management
o
Application/technology rationalisation and cost reduction
o
Strategic application and technology selection
o
Legacy transitioning and decommissioning
o
Outsourcing / "rightsourcing" strategy development
o
IT governance
Enterprise architecture process and organisation design (including ongoing mentoring and support).
Find out more about The Essential Project For more information visit the website at www.enterprise-architecture.org or contact the project via email at
[email protected].
The Essential Project - created and sponsored by Enterprise Architecture Solutions Ltd. www.enterprise-architecture.com Enterprise Architecture Solutions Ltd is registered in England and Wales: 04097721. Registered Office: 76 High Street, Newport Pagnell, Milton Keynes, MK16 8AQ.
Copyright ©2010 Enterprise Architecture Solutions Ltd.
