ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the concept of enterprise architecture (EA) to support the analysis and design of enterprise systems. An architecture represents significant, broad design decisions for the enterprise, from which all other design decisions should be consistent. An architectural element is a fundamental piece from which a system can be considered to be constructed. A candidate architecture for a system is a particular arrangement of static and dynamic structures that have the potential to exhibit the system's required externally visible behaviors and quality properties. A view is a representation of one or more structural aspects of an architecture that illustrates how the architecture addresses one or more concerns held by one or more of its stakeholders. Zachman derived the framework from the world of classical architecture and, hence, the names of the views and the perspectives relate to the terminology of architecture.
