Enterprise Architecture Framework Design in IT Management

Since the inceptions of Information Technology (IT), organizations have experienced a permanent increase in size and complexity of enterprise information systems. To manage and organize these systems, logical constructions and representations in the form of models were needed, and an architecture approach was developed in response to these challenges. Architectures are used commonly in IT domain to construct blueprints of an enterprise for organizing and optimizing system components, interfaces, processes, and business capabilities, among others. The paper contains a perspective on some of the most important technical issues regarding the designing and selection of an architecture framework for an organization. An Enterprise Architecture Framework (EAF) sets a practical guidance for analyzing, understanding and applying technical descriptions of an architecture in a certain business area. Designing and/or adapting an adequate EAF has been one of the challenging issues of the past years for many companies. Thus, the paper contains a research accomplished by using a comparative analysis of the main Enterprise Architecture Frameworks, underlining the stronger and weaker points of each one. The findings relate mostly to what and how things should unfold in designing the Enterprise Architecture Framework in order to optimize the workflow and thus maximize the business benefits. The paper underlines the most important issues that must be taken into account in designing an Enterprise Architecture Framework or adapting the already existing ones in order to better fit the organization’s objectives and optimize the ongoing processes.