Enterprise Architecture at Work: Modelling, Communication and Analysis Book Review

If you want to learn how to do Enterprise Architecture modeling, this book is for you. The book covers the Archimate language in detail. The book starts off with a nice introduction to Enterprise Architecture. It explains the internal and external drivers and then goes on to introduce the current state of Enterprise Architecture in the industry. It introduces EFQM, ISO 9001, COBIT, ITIL, CMMI, IEEE 1471-200, Zachman Framework, TOGAF, and MDA. There is a short introduction to each, but it is enough to put them in context. The book the talks briefly about the description languages which include IDEF, BPMN, Testbed, ARIS, UML, and ADLs. Next there is a nice chapter named Foundations. Foundations outline the fundamental ideas on which the author's approach is based. Topics include architectural complexity, describing enterprise architectures, and pictures, Models, and semantics. The last chapter before heading full steam ahead into modeling is Communication of Enterprise Architectures. The book then has chapters on guidelines for modelling, viewpoints and visualisation, architecture analysis, architecture support, and tool support. The book then has three nice size case studies and wraps up with a chapter on what is beyond enterprise architecture. The case studies are of sizable systems, they are not just three hello world projects. This book is in full color which makes the diagrams easier to understand. The book is small so it is easy to keep by your side. I like the writing style of the authors, they make it an easy and enjoyable read. This book has tons of diagram examples in it. I use Archimate when I do Enterprise Architecture models. I use SPARX EA, but there is also a free tool available named Archi: Archimate Modelling. All in all if you are an architect you owe it to yourself to check out this book and give Archimate a shot.

Enterprise Architecture at Work: Modelling, Communication and Analysis (The Enterprise Engineering Series)