Track: Organizational Systems and Technology
Minitrack: Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise Architecting (EA) is the process of developing enterprise Information Technology architecture - both its description and its implementation. An EA description focuses on a holistic and integrated view of the why, where, and who uses IT systems and how and what they are used for within an organization. An enterprise architect (and his/her team) develops the strategy and enables the decisions for designing, developing, and deploying IT systems to support the business operations as well as to assess, select, and integrate the technology into the organization's infrastructure. Alignment between business and IT has remained one of the top three issues for CIOs and IS managers for several years as reported by CIO magazine. An EA implementation focuses on remediating, renovating, or replacing IT systems in compliance with the EA description to achieve the proposed benefits.

Topics and research areas include, but are not limited to:
Architectural frameworks and theory focus on methods of description of enterprise architectures. Several frameworks have been published notably the Zachman Framework, the TOGAF and the Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF). New frameworks, extensions or modifications to existing frameworks, or theoretical results relating to enterprise architectures are of interest. Also of interest are papers describing metrics and quality attributes for assessing the "goodness" of an enterprise architecture and how to assess the return on investment of enterprise architecting.

Architecting Methodologies and Practices focus on how to develop enterprise IT architectures. Several methodologies have been published. New methodologies or case studies of existing methodologies, lessons learned, and descriptions of best practices in EA are of interest. Also of interest are papers describing metrics for assessing and evaluating development methodologies, comparisons of methodologies, and the assessment of architecture development teams.

Tools and Techniques Supporting Architecting are limited. Software architecture tools do not readily scale to enterprise-wide systems. Descriptions of new tools supporting frameworks, description, and methodologies for developing enterprise architectures as well as assessments of existing tools and techniques are of interest. Also of interest are formal methods (such as specification languages) for describing an EA that makes it amenable to logical validation and verification.

Service-Oriented Architectures (including Web Services) focus on using web-enabled applications to provide services across distributed intranets and the Internet. The SOA model poses some difficult challenges in cost to user, reliability, accessibility, the -ilities. Papers addressing technical issues as well as successful implementations are also welcome.

EA Challenges : Challenges include modeling, maintaining, and managing the EA process and its deliverables. Papers are sought that address one or more of these challenges using innovative solutions. Process, performance, and economic metrics are a particularly thorny problem that need to be addressed. Papers focusing on the integration of one or more software architectures/frameworks into an enterprise architecture are solicited (particularly if they deal with resolution of interframework issues).

Surveys and Case Studies examine enterprise architecture development projects. Of particular interest are descriptions of how transitions from baseline to target architectures have been accomplished and an assessment of the results. Case studies describing EAs that have been implemented following the FEAF are of special interest, including both process and performance metrics.

Co-chairs:
Frank Armour (Primary Contact)
School of Information Technology and Engineering
George Mason University
22929 Golden Plover Place, Brambleton , VA 20148, USA
Email: farmour@gmu.edu

Stephen Kaisler
Logos Technologies, Inc.
3811 N. Fairfax DriveArlington, VA 22203, USA
Email: skaisler1@comcast.net

Edwin Huizinga
US Architect of the Capitol
Ford Office Building, 2nd and D Streets SW, Washington, DC 20515 , USA
Email: ehuizing@aoc.gov