Enterprise Architecture Models Description of Integrated Components for Validation - A Case Study of Student Internship Programme

摘要

Enterprise Architecture (EA) has been defined as the organization of a system embodied in its components, relationships to each other, environment, the principle guiding its design and evolution (IEEE, 2000). Thus an important characteristic of EA is to provide a holistic view of the enterprise visualizing the relevant aspects of the business for specific stakeholders. However, one of the many concerns of this interest has been how to deal with the complex challenges of implementing the models with the ability to validate its integrated components to ensure conformity with individual stakeholder's motivation. To achieve this, methodologies that describe components in relation to their behavioral attributes, impact on other elements in the domain and their dependencies have been postulated. Albeit, studies show that these taxonomies do not adequately address this requirement (Lankhorst, 2013). This article analyzes the EA concepts of ArchiMate, focusing on the business and application layers with the objective to extend motivation with tests specifications using the model-driven approach thus offer descriptive semantics for validation. The paper contributes to a better understanding on how EA models can be validated thus improve alignment with the business vision and strategy. Student Internship Program case study is used to exemplify this hypothesis.