ABSTRACT
From a systems perspective, EA can be considered as the fundamental design of an organization as a whole, together with all of the relevant components, as well as the principles governing its design and evolution. The word “enterprise” here may refer to the context of extended enterprises. EA promises to help manage the ongoing enterprise processes in a consistent and systematic fashion, both intraand interorganizationally, achieving and maintaining enterprise integration in the meantime. Some researchers consider that EA has already become an established subject; however, other researchers consider EA itself as a rather new field, since it still lacks a consistent and agreed-upon definition. As mentioned earlier, from a systems perspective, EA can be considered a type of holistic thinking about the architecture of an enterprise. EA is an architectural description of the enterprise, at both system and subsystem levels, to guide its implementation. The architecture consists of the structure of the system, subsystems, and their interrelationships. Meanwhile, EA strives to be a coherent whole of principles, methods, and techniques that can
be used in the design and realization of various architectures. As such, EA’s target is to represent an enterprise holistically at both the system and subsystem levels with sound methodologies. The EA’s key subsystems include business architecture, information architecture, and other architectures. Business architecture addresses both business strategy and business processes. Information architecture addresses infrastructure, applications, and other aspects. Information architecture addresses the ontologies, taxonomies, data, and security associated with the enterprise. Some of these aspects interact across different architectures. EA aims to bring a coherent structure into key architectures for the system, subsystems, and then to align them systematically.
