The Zachman Institute for Framework Advancement (ZIFA) is a network of information professionals who understand the critical role of Enterprise Architecture in the ability of the enterprise to successfully participate in the global economy of the 21st century. To this end, the mission of ZIFA is to promote the exchange of knowledge and experience in the use, implementation, and advancement of the Zachman Framework for Enterprise Architecture.

 In 1987, John Zachman, author of the Zachman Framework for Enterprise Architecture, wrote “To keep the business from disintegrating, the concept of information systems architecture is becoming less of an option and more of a necessity.” From that assertion over 15 years ago, the Zachman Framework for Enterprise Architecture has evolved and become the model around which major organizations view and communicate their enterprise information infrastructure. The Zachman Framework draws upon the discipline of classical architecture to establish a common vocabulary and set of perspectives, a framework, for defining and describing today’s complex enterprise systems. Enterprise Architecture provides the blueprint, or architecture, for the organization’s information infrastructure.

TOGAF has been developed and continuously evolved since the mid-90’s by representatives of some of the world’s leading IT customer and vendor organizations, working in The Open Group’s Architecture Forum. Details of the Forum, and its plans for evolving TOGAF in the current year, are given on the Architecture Forum web site.

TOGAF Version 8 Enterprise Edition (“TOGAF 8″ for short) is a detailed method and set of supporting resources for developing an Enterprise Architecture. Developed and endorsed by the membership of The Open Group’s Architecture Forum, TOGAF 8 represents an industry consensus framework and method for Enterprise Architecture that is available for use internally by any organization around the world – members and non-members of The Open Group alike – subject to license conditions – see Downloading TOGAF 8.1

As a comprehensive, open method for Enterprise Architecture, TOGAF 8 complements, and can be used in conjunction with, other frameworks that are more focused on specific aspects of architecture or for vertical sectors such as Government, Defense, and Finance.

The Technical Architectural Framework for Information Management (TAFIM) reference model was developed by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to guide the evolution of Department of Defense (DoD) systems, including sustaining base, strategic, and tactical systems, as well as interfaces to weapon systems. Application of the TAFIM reference model is required on most DoD systems [Paige 93]. TAFIM is a set of services, standards, design components, and configurations that are used in design, implementation, and enhancement of information management system architectures. The intent is that the DoD infrastructure will have a common architecture that will, over time, be a fully flexible and interoperable enterprise. Details on the TAFIM model are available in a seven volume TAFIM document, but are primarily in Volume 3 [TAFIM 94].

Public administrations have been very much concerned since the 1980s about the need of avoiding vendor lock-in when procuring themselves with information technology (IT) infrastructure. The boost of e-government that has taken place in recent years has put this concern again in the agenda of public administrations. Interoperability has shown up as a principle in the conception and deployment of the e-government initiatives, and the interoperability frameworks have been the tool for implementing the principle. In this paper, the use of the interoperability frameworks and of the enterprise architectures within the e-government initiatives is. surveyed. The scope of the survey is Europe and the United States. As far as the author is aware, all trends in interoperability policy fall within the scope of the survey. The survey is focused on the methodological tools that e-government agencies have devised for achieving the interoperability at the public administrations. The tools are interoperability frameworks and enterprise architectures.

Capgemini has been developing its own architecture approach that covers business, information and technology since 1993. This approach, or framework, which is called the Integrated Architecture Framework (IAF), has been developed from the experience of practicing architects on projects for clients across the group. IAF is:

• A comprehensive framework that enables Capgemini to deliver market-leading solutions
• 100% adaptable to the specific needs of our customers
• Scalable from individual projects to enterprise-wide transformation
• Recognized as leading the market by both analysts (Forrester, Gartner, IDC) and major market players (Microsoft, HP, Cisco, SAP, etc.)
• A recognized architecture method in the Open Group’s IT Architecture Certification (ITAC) program

The cross-Governement Enterprise Architecture (xGEA) is a fundamental element of the governement’s “Transformational Governement – Enabled by Technology” strategy which was published in November 2005. In that strategy the first priority of the CTO Council was identified as being to agree and publish a standard Enterprise Architecture reference model which would help align existing and emerging technical architectures across governement with the xGEA. Governement like most enterprises is extremely complex and subject to an ever increasing rate of change. Accommodating change is costly, time-consuming and can be an obstacle to success. Information Technology is a complex and fundamental enabler, but difficult to change quickly. Against this background we have created a practical, pragmatic approach to developing our xGEA.   

Many parts of the public sector are already in the process of creating or are maintaining an enterprise architecture. The xGEA is intended to supplement not replace the architecture capabilities of specific public sector bodies. 

The xGEA will define a set of views to allow decision makers to make the right choices to best transform governement enabled by IT. The focus of Release 1 is to create views that will facilitate both the production and consumption of reusable assets. 

In order to rapidly achieve value an ‘exemplars approach’ has been adopted. Exemplars are tested and proven processes, methods, tools, techniques, systems or services nominated for collective use by their business leader, CTO or CIO. It will enable public sector bodies to submit the good practice assets for consumption from other organisations and will facilitate the consumption of those assets. 

This process has been designed by contributions from Departments, Agencies, Local Governement and the Devolved Administrations. In order to communicate across the organisations a common language will be required. To facilitate this, a Reference Model has been built, and is being populated with exemplars’ details. 

It is envisaged that the process to capture and assign exemplars will continue to develop over time.  As this work evolves the models will change to reflect the language being used. Our iterative approach will allow us to develop this work in a pragmatic and achievable way. 

The Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF) defines a standard way to organize an enterprise architecture (EA) or systems architecture into complementary and consistent views. All major U.S. Government Department of Defense (DoD) weapons and information technology system procurements are required to develop and document an EA using the views prescribed in the DoDAF. While it is clearly aimed at military systems, DoDAF has broad applicability across the private, public and voluntary sectors around the world, and represents only one of a large number of systems architecture frameworks.^[1] It is especially suited to large systems with complex integration and interoperability challenges, and is apparently unique in its use of “operational views” detailing the external customer’s operating domain in which the developing system will operate.

The semiconductor industry has historically been an extremely dynamic, high-growth industry, with new device technologies being brought to market every day. That environment has prompted the rapid emergence and maturation of many application-specific processing tools and software solutions to meet manufacturing and time-to-market requirements. This paper describes the underlying architecture of the Semiconductor Computer-Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) Framework, its application to MESs, several implementation approaches with legacy MESs, and TRW’s Integrated Manufacturing Solutions’ approach to a CIM Framework-compliant MES.

The acronym C4ISR stands for Command, Control, Computers, Communications (C4), Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR). The C4ISR Architecture Framework Version 2.0 is a framework giving comprehensive architectural guidance for all of these related US Department of Defense (DoD) domains, in order to ensure interoperable and cost-effective military systems. It has emerged in recent years as a successor to the Technical Architecture Framework for Information Management (TAFIM), which was officially withdrawn in January 2000.The C4ISR Architecture Framework is under revision to generalize it to apply to all functional areas of the DoD. It is already being used in government areas beyond the Defense sector.

This article Provides a comparison of the major EA frameworks. Enterprises can use different EA frameworks based on their needs and available resources. EA frameworks can be very complex to have different views as demonstrated in the Zachman framework, the TOGAF framework, the FEAF framework and the DODAF.