Blueprint of a semantic business process-aware enterprise information architecture: The EIAOnt ontology

Abstract

A robust design of enterprise information resources and their optimal usage can significantly enhance the information management (IM) capability of an enterprise. Enterprise Information Architecture (EIA) is a critical success factor for this objective and needs to be business process-aware in order to add value to the firm’s IM capability and to obtain dynamic views of information through extended knowledge of business processes. We present the generic Enterprise Information Architecture Ontology (EIAOnt) that lays the foundation for the EIA design activity to use additional business information by incorporating the business process knowledge. We also present an approach that semantically derives EIA from Enterprise business process architecture (BPA) using Riva BPA methodology. A semantic representation of EIA through EIAOnt Ontology suggests a step forward to bridge the gap between business process architecture and enterprise information architecture.