Views are cross domain views on the Enterprise Architecture content (Blueprint) for various stakeholders.
There is too much information in an Enterprise Architecture model for it to be seen all at once.
In general, the information is viewed from several different Views and Viewpoints.
This approach is described by the IEEE 1471 standard for describing architectures.
An Architecture View is defined as that part of the Enterprise Architecture that addresses the set of related concerns from the perspective of a particular stakeholder.
A View is specified by means of a Viewpoint, which defines the subset of concepts, models, guidelines and visualisations that are provided by the View.
The Architecture Domain (silo) views of the Enterprise Architecture are examples of different viewpoints, each one providing a view from a different architecture perspective.
The following table shows examples of stakeholders and their concerns as a basis for the definition of further different views:
| Stakeholder/Role | Viewpoint/Concerns |
|---|---|
| End user | What are the consequences for their daily work environment? What business process can be automated? What information is available? |
| Enterprise Architect | What is the consequence for the enterprise with respect to the enterprise requirements and vision (cost reduction, efficiency, consolidation, target operating model)? What is the Target Enterprise Architecture? |
| Solution Architect | What Business Processes are being realised? What is the scope in terms of Service Domains and Architecture Building Blocks? What reuse is possible? How can the existing application components and services be leveraged? What Application Components need to be built? What commercial off the shelf applications can be used? |
| Senior Management | How can we ensure our policies are followed in the development and operation of processes, applications and technology? What is the impact of architecture decisions? |
| Operations Manager | What new technologies are there to prepare for? Is there a need for preventive maintenance? What is the impact of changes to existing applications and service level agreements? How secure are my systems? |
| Project manager | What are the costs, timescales and resources required to implement the business requirements? |
| Developer | What modifications, with respect to the current architecture, needs to be done? What integration approach should be used? |
Views
| View | Stakeholder |
|---|---|
| Security | Security Architecture |
| Management | Senior Management |
| Quality | Quality Management and Audit |
| Communication-view | Corporate Communications |
| Suppliers-view | Service Providers and Vendors |
| Product Management | Product Management. |
| Business-continuity-view | Disaster Recovery |
| Risk view | Risk Management |
| Regulatory-view | Legal |
| Change | Change Management |
| Financial | Finance and Procurement |
| Operations | Operations and Support |
| Partner | Partner organisations |
| Extended Organisation | Extended organisation |
Archimate Views
The following views are based on the Archimate design viewpoints.
There exists a viewpoint for each Architecture Domain
| Information View | Service View | Cooperation View | Component View |
|---|---|---|---|
| Knowledge View | Business Service View | Actor Cooperation View | Organisation Structure View |
| Business Information View | Business Process Cooperation View | Business Process View | Business Function View |
| Information Structure View | Service Realisation View | Application Usage View | Service Structure View |
| Application Data View | Application Behaviour View | Application Cooperation View | Application Structure View |
| Persistent Data View | Infrastrucrure Services view | Infrastructure Usage View | Infrastructure Component View |
| Message View | Service Management View | Service Support View | Implementation & Deployment View |
