A Language for Enterprise Modelling

Abstract

Architecture provides a means to handle the complexity of modern information-intensive enterprises. To this end, architects need ways to express architectures as clearly as possible: both for their own understanding and for communication with other stakeholders, such as system developers, end users, and managers. Unfortunately, the current situation is that architects in different domains, even within the same organisation, often use their own description techniques and conventions. To date, there is no standard language for describing enterprise architectures in a precise way across domain borders. They are often described either in informal pictures that lack a well-defined meaning, or in detailed design languages (such as UML) that are difficult to understand for non-experts. This frequently leads to misunderstandings that hinder the collaboration of architects and other stakeholders. Also, it makes it very difficult to provide tools for visualisation and analysis of these architectures.