Modeling Interactive Enterprise Architecture Visualizations: An Extended Architecture Description

Abstract

Enterprise Architectures consist of a multitude of architecture elements, which relate in manifold ways to each other. Due to the high number of relationships between these elements, architectural analysis mechanisms are essential for all stakeholders to keep track and to work out relevant model characteristics. In practice EAs are often analyzed using visualizations by hand. However, the visualizations are often static and there are only few interaction possibilities. As a result, new visualizations have to be created or configured by experts if information demands change. In addition, hardly any tools are used for analysis of complex model characteristics. In this article we introduce an extended conceptualization of the architecture description that defines the structure of interactive visualizations and the integration of further tools to flexibly respond to the information demands of stakeholders. In addition, we develop a so-called Architecture Cockpit that realizes the extended conceptualization in a prototype. At the end we demonstrate and evaluate our approach through a practical test in a company in the finance and insurance industry.

Discussing Hierarchic Viewpoints Theoretical Considerations and a Practical Example

“…For this reason, the standard is increasingly being used and adapted in enterprise architecture management [7], [8]. A weakness of the standard is the very abstract description of the individual concepts, which opens up a wide range of interpretation and leaves some questions unanswered [10].…”

“…Like Lankes et al [11], Jugel [10], [12] also aims to concretize the ISO standard. For this purpose he presents an extended conceptualization and details the modeling language of a viewpoint, which is the counterpart to layers introduced by Lankes et al [11] on the view side.…”

“…Lankes et al [11] leave open the question of how the individual layers are constructed by a viewpoint. According to Jugel [10], a viewpoint consists of a base language which describes the basic structure of a view corresponding to the base map from [11]. The base language of a view defined by a viewpoint can be extended by using so-called techniques.…”

“…Each AssessmentTechnique also defines a way of representing the corresponding Measurements in a viewpoint. We employ the approach outlined in [10] according to which a technique can be applied to a viewpoint in terms of an additional layer adding/changing visual variables of existing symbols. For the Control Compliance Cockpit, we employ color-coding on the different layers.…”