Architecture describes the impact of the change task on business processes, information provision and infrastructure. The open standard ArchiMate®3 provides a presentation with a standard modeling of elements in these different domains. Based on this modeling, views, diagrams and tables are created.
The architect and GDPR
Since 2018, General Regulation on Data Protection (GDPR) legislation has been in place in Europe that all organisations must comply with. The legislation requires you to specify how personal data is used, for the purpose of collecting it, how it is edited, who has access to this data and where it is stored.
The Architect can draw up the broad and integrated views to support a thorough assessment. This supports the new role of “Data Protection Officer”. With architectural principles data security and the GDPR compliancy can be enforced in a future-oriented way, with every change in the organization.
From assessment to objective
The motivational elements of ArchiMate® 3 are used to model arguments that guide the design or change of the Enterprise Architecture.
A requirement associated with a stakeholder realizes here an architectural principle, meeting the architecture principle realizes the “Outcome”, a concrete result, which contributes to the achievement of a previously formulated larger strategic goal.
TOGAF®
TOGAF is the standard of the Open Group that concentrates around the cycle of meeting requirements and requirements. This Architecture Development Method (ADM) provides a process to develop the architecture. The ArchiMate concepts can be directly related to the different phases of TOGAF.
The ArchiMate business layer, application layer and technology layers correspond to the Architecture Building Blocks (ABB) of phase B-C-D TOGAF.
Architecture as an activity
The application of an architecture has changed in recent years. From a framework where systems were mapped, with many static documents, architecture has evolved as a way of working, an activity to support change. The products are a communication tool that are tailored to target audiences. The 5 main focuses have become:
- Stakeholders: identify their concerns and understand importance, discuss the added value of the change for each of them
- Communicate the architecture views, adapted to the target audience: IT, finance and legal
- Design for the future and accept risks, fill in details later, the target architecture
- Socialize the architecture views multidisciplinary with frequent exchange
- Use an integrated architecture tool with a repository so the models, diagrams and views can be reused