Enterprise Architect and ArchiMate for large-scale Enterprise Architecture
By Gillian Adens Sparx Services UK (Hippo Software)
This presentation considers the creation of organisation-wide enterprise architecture models for larger companies. We will explore the importance of a well-defined metamodel and set of operational guidelines, and reflect on the need to take an iterative approach to constructing essential viewpoints that can gradually be combined into a central model to create a holistic understanding of the company’s current and future architecture.
Session Recording
Questions and Answers
There are two main options 1. have the to-be model separate from the as-is model (deep copy to start or xml transfer to another database) and roll-back the chosen solution into the as-is when implemented, or 2. allow the architecture to gradually evolve with clearly tagged data to show the status of each element in the model - new, being updated, live, to be removed etc. Also perhaps look into some supporting technologies - baselines and time aware modelling built into EA, Portfolio Manager from Ability Engineering, Lemon Tree from Lieber Lieber.
Negin, a relationship to multiple other model elements might be an alternative approach, or create separate model elements to represent each Country and then use a RefGUIDList tagged value: Predefined tagged value types
I would recommend using a custom property (tagged value) to indicate the status of each application, data flow etc. and then you can use a diagram legend to auto-colour the elements and relationships to clearly reveal their status on the diagram. Add annotations with a Note or Change Element to further explain the reason behind each proposed change
No not all - I just wanted to keep the presentation today very focussed and not introduce too many use cases at once I have definitely used and would recommend using Value Streams and/or Capabilities to business architects and managers. We could also go down into the Technology space and model the Servers and system software, or over to the Motivation concepts and model the project justification. All extremely valuable for some projects... but my premise is always to build things up gradually ("walk before you run"), to start with the main, most important concepts and gradually extend into extra aspects of ArchiMate modelling as you gain confidence.
Predefined Structured Types | Enterprise Architect User Guidethen see ReGUID and RefGUIDList entries in the table. RefGUIDs and RefGUID Lists are really powerful modeling utilities, and thats why we've tried to add more significance to it by allowing users to click individual referenced items and navigate.Prolaborate also understands Connected elements and shows them as simple lists so that users can understand traceability easily Create Connectors in Prolaborate
I would recommend Prolaborate for collaborative working. It has great access control so you can choose what parts of your EA model to reveal to different audiences. You can also create a different dashboard for each set of stakeholders and take them straight to the information of interest. You can allow them read-only or edit access to the model information, as you prefer. And of course you can create dynamic graphs and charts out of the data you have collected in EA! Prolaborate is intended to engage non-EA users and less technical business teams to collaborate and make use of the model. If you would like to understand the usecases over a quick call, please drop a note to
Yes, that's an available feature. Link a Note to any element (right-click and choose New Child Element->Attach Note). Then right-click on the link relationship (dashed line) and choose "Link this Note to an Element Feature" from the popup context menu. Now you can use the drop-down list to extract whichever property is of interest into your Note on the diagram, including Tagged Values.
Speakers Bio
