Tool Support

Abstract

Enterprise architecture, by nature, requires the interconnection and accumulation of large amounts of information from various sources. An enterprise modelling language, such as the one introduced in Chap. 5, can only be successful if supported by adequate tooling. Visualisation and analysis of architectures, as described in Chaps. 7 and 8, respectively, can hardly be carried out by hand and require tools as well. In this chapter, we outline the current state of the art in enterprise architecture tools, outline our vision of future tool support, and describe the design and operation of a number of (prototype) tools that support the modelling language, visualisation, and analysis techniques described in previous chapters. Specifically, we will focus on the design of a general enterprise architecture workbench, the necessary infrastructure for viewpoint-based architecture modelling, and tools for functional and quantitative analysis of architectures. The next chapter, on practical applications, will describe the use of some of these tools in practice.