Terminology
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Explanation
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API Management
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API management is the set of people, processes and technology that enables an organization to safely and securely publish APIs, either internally or externally. Common components include an API gateway, developer portal, and administrative UI with reporting and analytics capabilities. Some API management solutions include monetization capabilities.
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Application
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A system for collecting, saving, processing, and presenting data by means of a computer. The term application is generally used when referring to a component of software that can be executed. The terms application and software application are often used synonymous. An application can consist of more parts (application components) in backend, middleware and frontend.
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Assessment | An assessment represents the result of an analysis of the state of affairs of the enterprise with respect to some driver. |
Asset
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An asset is an item, thing or entity that has potential or actual value to an organization. The value will vary between different organizations and their stakeholders, and can be tangible or intangible, financial or non-financial.
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Asset Management (AM) | Asset management is all coordinated activity of an organization to realize value from assets. |
Asset Management system | An asset management system is a management system for asset management whose function is to establish the management policy and asset management objectives. |
Back-End
| Back-end is defined as the server side of a client/server system. |
Business function
| A business function represents a collection of business behaviour based on a chosen set of criteria such as required business resources and/or competencies and is managed or performed as a whole. |
Business Information Modelling (BIM) |
BIM is the use of a shared digital representation of a built asset to facilitate design, construction and operation processes to form a reliable basis for decisions
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Business object | A business object represents a concept used within a particular business domain. |
Capability | A capability represents an ability that (an active structure element, such as) an organization, person, or system, possesses. |
Cloud Computing | Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. |
Common
| Differs from general in implying participation, use, or a sharing by all members of the class, group, or community of persons or, less often, of things under consideration. Used to differentiate between this quite similar terms... |
Common Data Environment (CDE) | A CDE is an agreed source of information for any given project or asset, for collecting, managing and disseminating each information container through a managed process. An information container is a named persistent set of information retrievable from within a file, system or application storage hierarchy. |
Common (IT) Platform
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A computer or hardware device and/or associated operating system, or a virtual environment, on which software can be installed or run and must be, used by more stakeholders. See definition common platform below …
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Common platform
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A platform that is, so must be, used by more stakeholders.
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Constraint
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A constraint represents a limitation on aspects of the architecture, its implementation process, or its realization.In contrast to a requirement, a constraint does not prescribe some intended functionality of the system to be realized but imposes a restriction on the way it operates or may be realized.
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Data Fabric
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A data fabric is an emerging data management design for attaining flexible, reusable and augmented data integration pipelines, services and semantics. A data fabric supports both operational and analytics use cases delivered across multiple deployment and orchestration platforms and processes. Data fabrics support a combination of different data integration styles and leverage active metadata, knowledge graphs, semantics and ML to augment data integration design and delivery.
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Data Governance
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Data governance is the specification of decision rights and an accountability framework to ensure the appropriate behavior in the valuation, creation, consumption and control of data and analytics.
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Data Integration
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The discipline of data integration comprises the practices, architectural techniques and tools for achieving the consistent access and delivery of data across the spectrum of data subject areas and data structure types in the enterprise to meet the data consumption requirements of all applications and business processes.
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Data Lake
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A data lake is a concept consisting of a collection of storage instances of various data assets. These assets are stored in a near-exact, or even exact, copy of the source format and are in addition to the originating data stores.
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Data Mesh
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Data mesh is a cultural and organizational shift for data management focusing on federation technology that emphasizes the authority of localized data management. Data mesh is intended to enable easily accessible data by the business. Data assets are analyzed for usage patterns by subject matter experts, who determine data affinity, and then the data assets are organized as data domains. Domains are contextualized with business context descriptors. Subject matter experts use the patterns and domains to define and create data products. Data products are registered and made available for reuse relative to business needs.
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Data Warehouse
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A data warehouse is a storage architecture designed to hold data extracted from transaction systems, operational data stores and external sources. The warehouse then combines that data in an aggregate, summary form suitable for enterprise wide data analysis and reporting for predefined business needs.
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Digital Platform
| A digital platform is a foundation of self-service APIs, tools, services, knowledge and support which are arranged as a compelling internal product. Autonomous delivery teams can make use of the platform to deliver product features at a higher pace, with reduced co-ordination. |
Digital Twin
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Driver
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A driver represents an external or internal condition that motivates an organization to define its goals and implement the changes necessary to achieve them.
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Eco-system
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A (digital) ecosystem is an interdependent group of actors (enterprises, people, things) sharing standardized digital platforms to achieve a mutually beneficial purpose.
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Edge
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The edge is the physical location where things and people connect with the networked, digital world.
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Edge Computing
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Edge computing is part of a distributed computing topology where information processing is located close to the edge, where things and people produce or consume that information.
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Enterprise
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Enterprise architecture is the conceptualization of the form, function, and fitness-for-purpose of an enterprise in its environment, as embodied in the elements of the enterprise, the relationships between those elements, the relationship of the enterprise to its environment and the principles guiding the design and evolution of the enterprise.
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Enterprise Architecture
| The fundamental concepts or properties of a system in its environment embodied in its elements, relationships, and in the principles of its design and evolution. |
Epic | An Epic is a significant solution development initiative. An epic can be an enabling or business epic and has about a one year dimension. |
Equipment
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Equipment represents one or more physical machines, tools, or instruments that can create, use, store, move, or transform materials.
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Feature | A Feature represents solution functionality that delivers business value, fulfils a stakeholder need. A feature is sized to be delivered by an Agile Release Train within a PI. So, this is mostly quarterly based. |
Foundation
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A basis upon which something stands or is supported.
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Framework (enterprise) | A framework is a structure expressed in diagrams, text and formal rules which relates the elements of an enterprise architecture to each other. |
Goal | A goal represents a high-level statement of intent, direction, or desired end state for an organization and its stakeholders. |
Infrastructure as a Service
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The capability provided to the consumer as where the consumer is able to deploy and run arbitrary software, which can include operating systems and applications. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage, and deployed applications; and possibly limited control of select networking components (e.g., host firewalls).A accepted picture is used by everyone (also Microsoft) to describe On premise, IaaS, PaaS and SaaS.
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Intangible asset
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An intangible asset is a nonphysical asset or resource whose value to a business cannot always be simply recorded on a balance sheet. Examples include business reputation, branding, intellectual property, computer software and unique business processes. Unlike tangible assets – material objects like machinery, equipment, vehicles and inventory – the monetary value of intangible assets can be longer term and can increase a company’s value over time.
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iPaaS
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Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) is a suite of cloud services enabling development, execution and governance of integration flows connecting any combination of on premises and cloud-based processes, services, applications and data within individual or across multiple organizations.
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IT platform
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A computer or hardware device and/or associated operating system, or a virtual environment, on which software can be installed or run.
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Metamodel (architecture)
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A model that describes how and with what the architecture will be described in a structured way.
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Method | A defined, repeatable approach to address a particular type of problem. A defined, repeatable series of steps to address a particular type of problem, which typically centres on a defined process, but may also include definition of content. |
Middleware
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Middleware is the software “glue” that helps programs and databases (which may be on different computers) work together. Its most basic function is to enable communication between different pieces of software.
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Model
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A representation of a subject of interest. A model provides a smaller scale, simplified, and/or abstract representation of the subject matter. A model is constructed as a ‘‘means to an end’’. In the context of enterprise architecture, the subject matter is a whole or part of the enterprise and the end is the ability to construct ‘views’’ that address the concerns of particular stakeholders; i.e., their ‘‘viewpoints’’ in relation to the subject matter.
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Motivation | Motivation elements are used to model the motivations, or reasons, that guide the design or change of an Enterprise Architecture and therefor of the enterprise. |
Motivation stack
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A structured framework to get clear the requirements and constraints for a system; starting from stakeholder's drivers via assessments (pain and gains) and goals to outcomes complying to the generic principles of the company.
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Model Based System Engineering (MBSE) | Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is an approach that uses models to support the systems engineering process. It integrates modelling throughout the lifecycle of a system, allowing for better visualization, analysis, and communication among stakeholders. |
Ontology
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An ontology, creates a formal framework that describes anything (not just a taxonomy) by establishing the classes, relationships and constraints that act on the concepts and entities within a given system. In effect, an ontology is the system of classes and relationships that describe the structure of data and the rules that prescribe how a new category or entity is created, how attributes are defined, and how constraints are established. In effect, an ontology is the system of classes and relationships that describe the structure of data, the rules, if you will, that prescribe how a new category or entity is created, how attributes are defined, and how constraints are established. In DB terminology: the ontology is not the data itself, but rather the system that defines the columns and tables (classes, loosely) that each row and each primary key/foreign key relationship uses.
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Ontology | An ontology is a representational artefact that describes universals and certain relations among them in a domain of interest. Ontologies generally do not specify data structures or data types used to represent particular entities. |
Ontology
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Collection of terms, relational expressions and associated natural-language definitions together with one or more formal theories designed to capture the intended interpretations of these definitions. Outcomes are high-level, business-oriented results produced by capabilities of an organization, and by inference by the core elements of its architecture that realize these capabilities. Outcomes are tangible, possibly quantitative, and time-related, and can be associated with assessments. An outcome may have a different value for different stakeholders.
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Outcome
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An outcome represents an end result, effect, or consequence of a certain state of affairs. Outcomes are tangible, possibly quantitative, and time-related, and can be associated with assessments. The distinction between goals and outcomes is important. Simply put, a goal is what you want, and an outcome is what you get.
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Platform | A platform is a group of technologies that are used as a base upon which other applications, processes or technologies are developed. In personal computing, a platform is the basic hardware (computer) and software (operating system) on which software applications can be run. From a technology point of view. |
Platform (digital business)
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The capability provided to the consumer is to deploy onto the cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquired applications created using programming languages, libraries, services, and tools supported by the provider. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, or storage, but has control over the deployed applications and possibly configuration settings for the application-hosting environment. PaaS refers to cloud platforms that provide runtime environments for developing, testing, and managing applications. PaaS vendors supply a complete infrastructure for application development, while developers are in charge of the code.
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Platform as a Service (PaaS) |
A platform is a product that serves or enables other products or services.Platforms (in the context of digital business) exist at many levels. They range from high-level platforms that enable a platform business model to low-level platforms that provide a collection of business and/or technology capabilities that other products or services consume to deliver their own business capabilities. Platforms that enable a platform business model have associated business ecosystems. They typically expose their capabilities to members of those ecosystems via APIs.Internal platforms also typically expose their capabilities via APIs. But they may offer other mechanisms, such as direct data access, as required by the products that consume them.
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Policy
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A policy represents a definite course or method of action selected from among alternatives and in light of given conditions to guide and determine present and future decisions.
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Principle
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A principle represents a statement of intent defining a general property that applies to any system in a certain context in the architecture. Similar to requirements, principles define intended properties of systems. However, in contrast to requirements, principles are broader in scope and more abstract than requirements.
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Process
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A process is set of interrelated or interacting activities that use inputs to deliver an intended result.
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Process (Business) |
A business process represents a sequence of business behaviours that achieves a specific result such as a defined set of products or business services.
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Product
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A product represents a coherent collection of services and/or passive structure elements, accompanied by a contract/set of agreements, which is offered as a whole to (internal or external) customers.
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Reference architecture
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Reference architectures are standardized architectures that provide a frame of reference for a particular domain, sector or field of interest.Reference models or architectures provide a common vocabulary, reusable designs and industry best practices. They are not solution architectures, i.e. they are not implemented directly. Rather, they are used as a constraint for more concrete architectures. Typically, a reference architecture includes common architecture principles, patterns, building blocks and standards.Examples: DODAF, ISA-95, SCOR, APQC.
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Requirement
| A requirement represents a statement of need defining a property that applies to a specific system as described by the architecture. |
Software as a Service (SaaS) | The capability provided to the consumer is to use the provider's applications running on a cloud infrastructure. The applications are accessible from various client devices through either a thin client interface, such as a web browser (e.g., web-based email), or a program interface. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, storage, or even individual application capabilities, with the possible exception of limited user-specific application configuration settings. Software as a service is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted.
SaaS apps are typically accessed by users using a thin client, e.g. via a web browser. Software as a service is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. |
Stakeholder
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A stakeholder represents the role of an individual, team, or organization (or classes thereof) that represents their interests in the effects of the architecture.Examples of stakeholders are the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), the board of directors, shareholders, customers, business and application architects, but also legislative authorities.
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System
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A combination of interacting elements organized to satisfy one or more stated purposes. SaaS apps are typically accessed by users using a thin client, e.g. via a web browser. Where the System is a System of Systems, then its elements will be one or more Constituent System, and where the System is a Constituent System then its elements are one or more System Element. A System can interact with one or more other Systems.
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System of Systems
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A set of systems or system elements that interact to provide a unique capability that none of the (constituent) systems can accomplish on its own.
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View
| The representation of a related set of concerns. A view is what is seen from a viewpoint. An architecture view may be represented by a model to demonstrate to stakeholders their areas of interest in the architecture. A view does not have to be visual or graphical in nature. |
Viewpoint
| A definition of the perspective from which a view is taken. It is a specification of the conventions for constructing and using a view (often by means of an appropriate schema or template). A view is what you see; a viewpoint is where you are looking from; the vantage point or perspective that determines what you see |
