Extracting archimate views from custom ontological ea models

EXTRACTING ARCHIMATE® VIEWS FROM CUSTOM ONTOLOGICAL EA MODELS

Enterprise Architecture Standard Representation

Author: Matteo Busanelli

From our experience

Extracting Archimate® views from custom ontological EA models 2

Dealing with EA means to deal with: Different knowledge domains (Business, IT, Infrastracture,

PM etc…) Several specialized frameworks/methodologies (COBIT, TOGAF,

ITIL, PMBOK etc…) Many Organizational units and people Several domain specific Tools and information silos Many information formats

Frequently EA needs to reconciliate heterogeneous informations to govern and drive change management and improve Business-IT alignment

Context overview (1/2)

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Infrastructure

formalized

IT Governance

Business

Architectures

IT Archiectures

StrategiesBest Practices &

Guidelines

ITPM

Business

Existing sources & Different formats

Company EA Ontological

Model

EA Domain

to support

Business- ITLinkage

produces

feeds

Reporting / EA

Representation

Overview of the context (2/2)

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EA Standard representation

model

The GOAL is to

generate

the necessary

base EA

views from the

model

already adopte

d by the

enterprise

proprietary solution

standard solution

Compliant tool #1

Compliant tool #2

Compliant tool #n

. . .

EA tool

Reporting / EA Representation

Infrastructure

formalized

ITPM

Business

Company EA Ontological

Model

EA Domain

produces

feeds

The Open Group Standard ArchiMate 2.0 ®

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ArchiMate 2.0®

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From the official Open Group definition document:

"To provide a uniform representation for diagrams that describe enterprise architectures, the ArchiMate enterprise architecture modeling language has been developed. It offers an integrated architectural approach that describes and visualizes the different architecture domains and their underlying relations and dependencies."

"The role of the ArchiMate standard is to provide a graphical language for the

representation of enterprise architectures over time (i.e., including transformation and migration planning), as well as their motivation and rationale. The evolution of the standard is closely linked to the developments of the TOGAF standard and the emerging results from The Open Group forums and work groups active in this area. As a consequence, the ArchiMate standard does not provide its own set of defined terms, but rather follows those provided by the TOGAF standard."

Extracting Archimate® views from custom ontological EA models

ArchiMate 2.0®

Is an abstract model for representing EA from different viewpoints

A standard for exchanging and sharing EA diagrams aligned with TOGAF

Performs cost analysis and business case calculations

Implemented by different commercial and open EA tools

Used by Bank of Italy as a language for describing IT Architectures (from “Enterprise Architecture – La prospettiva di Banca d’Italia” speech part of 2012 ABI Lab

workshop on EA 1)

Extracting Archimate® views from custom ontological EA models

1. http://www.abilab.it/eventi/workshop-architetture-it-2012

7

ArchiMate 2.0 - Business Layer concepts

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ArchiMate 2.0 - Application Layer concepts

9Extracting Archimate® views from custom ontological EA models

ArchiMate 2.0 - Technology Layer concepts

10Extracting Archimate® views from custom ontological EA models

ArchiMate 2.0 - Relationships

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ArchiMate 2.0 - Motivation Extension

12Extracting Archimate® views from custom ontological EA models

ArchiMate 2.0 – Some examples of EA views

Vista Business Strategic EA

EA Transition

Extracting Archimate® views from custom ontological EA models 13

Technical viewpoint

Applicative viewpoint

An ArchiMate 2.0 modelling tool: Archi

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Archi – Summary of features

Free open source tool developed and maintained by the

Institute of Educational Cybernetics of University of Bolton

(latest release of November, 2012)

Creation of diagrams (views) by using the complete

ArchiMate 2.0 components palette

All graphical components are classified according to the Business, Applicative and Technology Layers.

Allows new model template definition

Allows EA components to be customized (i.e. custom attributes)

All diagram exportable in different output formats

Extendable by plug-ins

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Archi: some screenshots

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Automatic generation of ArchiMate diagrams from EA ontological models:

AOI Plugin

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An approach starting from a custom company model of EA

ArchiMate Ontology Import

Plug-in

ON TIMEMAPPING (SPARQL)

Company EA Ontological Model

(OWL/RDF)

ArchiMate 2.0 ®Ontological Model

(OWL/RDF)IMPORT

application

FlowIT service

Device

Businessprocess App Component

Data

Business Service

Device

App Interface

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ArchiMate Ontology Importer Plug-in

ArchiMate Ontology Importer (AOI) is an ARCHI PLUG-IN developed and mantained by Imola Informatica that can import ArchiMate 2.0 compliant ontologies (in OWL/RDF/N3 format) into Archi diagrams.

Developed plug-in features: Import of all Business Layer Components Import of all Application Layer Components Import of all Technology Layer Components Import of all Motivation Layer Components Generation of different kind of relationship views Generation of predefined base diagrams (i.e Applications Flow View) Generation of several hierarchical grouping views (i.e Application for Functional Domains ) Some advanced automatic layout functionality

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AOI Plug-in: Post import example

Application organized for Functional Area and Company

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AOI Plug-in: current applications & future works

• AOI Plug-in is a BETA version and still under development/testing• the plugin was tested on Archi release 2.2.2 and 2.3• the exploited Archimate Model (ontology) is compliant to Archimate 2.0

model.

• Application on real domains:• tested on IT Architecture assets of a big Italian insurance group• tested on Business and IT architecture assets of a Bank from northern Italy

• Future work: optimization of automatic layout algorithm update of already imported models import of all the custom property defined for the components …

Extracting Archimate® views from custom ontological EA models

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References

OpenGroup Archimate

http://www.opengroup.org/subjectareas/enterprise/archimate

http://www.opengroup.org/archimate/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArchiMate

TOGAF http://www.opengroup.org/togaf/

https://www2.opengroup.org/ogsys/catalog/w118

ARCHI http://archi.cetis.ac.uk/

http://archi.cetis.ac.uk/download.html

ABI Lab - EA Workshop 2012 http://www.abilab.it/eventi/workshop-architetture-it-2012

Extracting Archimate® views from custom ontological EA models

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Matteo Busanelli Semantic Web Architect and IT Consultant at Imola Informatica

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