ABSTRACT

The integration of the enterprise in terms of its data, processes, and organization is a priority throughout all phases of an enterprise engineering project. A prerequisite to enterprise integration is the existence of an enterprise architecture. The big picture provided by the enterprise architecture provides the guidance necessary to ensure that each project will work within not only the existing system infrastructure, but also in the future system infrastructure. The importance of an enterprise architecture to integration cannot be under-emphasized. The enterprise architecture shows how the enterprise is decomposed into subsystems and how all those subsystems work together. The architecture includes a design of the information technology infrastructure that connects all the subsystems. This vision guides all other integration efforts.