Enterprise Architecture & Alignment

Abstract

As businesses enter to the twenty first century, they have to cope with an uncertainty, which is caused by dynamic environment. In one hand uncertainty might cause by the strategic role of IT and its significant effects within an enterprise and in another hand, it may threat organization by changing demands from customers. Based on whatever the sources of uncertainty are, organization in general and IT management specifically must deal with them and be prepared for future changes. In this sense, alignment between business and IT are crucial. For this reason, the alignment must be available as guidelines and help an organization transformation relatively. This possibility would be provided by using architectural frameworks within an enterprise. This report is based on comparative study of well-­‐known frameworks such as Zachman, TOGAF and FEAF with alignment patterns such as Infological alignment, Socio-­‐structural alignment, Functional alignment, Socio-­‐cultural alignment and Contextual alignment. The main idea of the research is to reflect those alignments patterns in architectural frameworks. Due to the fact that those enterprise architectural frameworks have the lack of commonality, reflecting alignment patterns may help organization to raise their knowledge about essential contributing factors, which would consequently lead them to choose an appropriate architectural framework, which suits them best.