Enterprise architecture has had a resurgence of interest in the IT community in the past ten year; in part because of a mandate for federal agencies of the United States government and in part because of the complexity of managing today’s information systems environments. It has become a critical component of an overall IT governance program to provide structure and documentation to describe the business processes, information flows, technical infrastructure and organizational management of an information technology organization. Many different enterprise architecture frameworks have emerged over the past ten years. Two of the most widely used enterprise architecture frameworks (the Zachman Framework and the Federal enterprise architecture framework) are described and their ability to meet the security and privacy needs of an organization is discussed. These frameworks represent a contrast of industry and government perspectives in addressing issues of key importance to senior IT leadership.
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Bernard (2004) defines enterprise architecture as a management program and a documentation method that is combined to perform an actionable and coordinated view of the enterprise strategy, business processes, and resource utilization and information flow.
Schekkerman (2005) defines enterprise architecture as “a complete expression of the enterprise; a master plan which ‘acts as a collaboration force’ between aspects of business planning such as goals, visions, strategies and governance principles, aspects of business operations such as business terms, organization structures, processes and data, aspects of automation such as information systems and databases; and the enabling technological infrastructure of the business such as computers, operating systems and networks.”
Rico (2006, p.1) defines enterprise architecture as “a comprehensive framework or taxonomy of systems analysis models for aligning organizational strategy with information technology. Strategies are plans to satisfy organizational goals and objectives by competing, based upon size, cost, variety, speed, quality, uniqueness or innovation. Information technology refers to the computers, software and networks used for safely storing, processing, retrieving, and transmitting data and information. There is an expectation that organizations can satisfy their goals and objectives by aligning their strategy with their information technology. Enterprise architecture consists of defining an organization’s (a) scope, (b) business model, (c) system model, (d) technology model, and (e) components.”