TOGAF Support in Archi

July 2007

Archi is a collaborative modeling tool backed by a repository and supporting web and graphical browsers for multiple concurrent user access. It is primarily used in support of Enterprise Architecture, Strategic Planning, Application Portfolio Management, Program Management and Methods Engineering.

TOGAF is The Open Group Architecture Framework, a methodology and guidelines for performing Enterprise Architecture activity within organizations. TOGAF includes the Architecture Development Method (ADM) as well as introducing the idea of the Enterprise Continuum, a way of organizing reusable building blocks and standards according to categories, satisfaction of requirements and compatibility, which facilitates open, interoperable architectures. TOGAF uses building blocks in a very generic way, to represent reusable designs, architecture components, technical components and other elements (e.g. A data model fragment). TOGAF provides a reasonably well developed Technical Reference Model (TRM) which categorises technical architecture components.

TOGAF at this time requires that tools claiming support offer facilities to support the defined methodology and manage artefacts produced. It names, rather than rigorously defining, the artefacts that should be produced at each phase of the ADM. Most of these artefacts within TOGAF are conceived as documents, the exceptions being selected Viewpoints (e.g. Organization Structure, Business Process, Corporate Data Model). It does not currently have a formal meta model.

This document details current and near future support for TOGAF in the Archi tool environment.

Current Support (Release 2.5)

There is currently light weight support for TOGAF in the following ways:

1. The tool inherently supports the management of “documents” and graphical models, and hence the production and management of TOGAF artefacts. These can be uploaded to the repository, versioned and linked to the method steps and other artefacts or repository objects

2. There are spatial maps representing a few key TOGAF concepts (e.g. The ADM cycle, the TRM etc.) and mapping these to object types in the repository provided by the standard Inspired/Agilense meta model shipped with the tool

3. The tool inherently has the ability to define methods in terms of hierarchies of tasks, artefacts, resources, techniques and skills and relationships between these facets. This model is not currently populated with ADM content, though a user organization could achieve this. Features are available to allow the maintenance, browsing, reporting, export to portals etc. of this information should it be loaded

4. There is a composite view facility that will allow the collation of information from the repository into compound artefacts. While these may meet the information requirements of TOGAF deliverables, they are not formatted in a desirable way

Near Future Support (Release 2.6 – August 2007)

We are currently implementing much more comprehensive support for TOGAF version 8.1. These enhancements include:

1. Full support for the ADM and all its content in the methods model. This will be linked to the spatial map representing the “crop circle” diagram from TOGAF and will allow easy navigation to method definition, linked artefact definitions, actual artefacts produced by projects, resource types and actual resources deployed.

2. Rich Meta Model support by:

   1. Identifying all the required meta model elements needed to fully support TOGAF artefacts and models

   2. Mapping the TOGAF requirements to the Inspired/Agilense meta models, extending these where necessary – specifically in support of the way TOGAF uses building blocks, the Enterprise Continuum and other elements such as standards and components

   3. Creating a TOGAF domain which will hold all required supporting types, properties and relationships

At this level, EA WebModeler should be a fully TOGAF 8.1 compliant tool as required by the Open Group.

Longer Term Support (Release 2.7 – November 2007)

The tool will have a more flexible Composite Document Generator facility driven by HTML or XML templates where users can fully determine structure, but include “live” repository content in the form of attributes, tables, lists, graphics etc.

We will be defining specific TOGAF related artefacts in the form of composite documents and/or model types. This activity goes well beyond the current TOGAF specification. It will provide a very practical environment for organizations adopting TOGAF to:

1. Understand and drive the methodology

2. Tailor the method where required

3. Create, maintain and manage the lifecycle of all required models and artefacts

4. Generate required artefacts from live content as and when required, with the ability to store and version “snapshots” of these views

We believe this will be the highest level of support available in the industry.

Website Generation with Graphical Models

(from Release 2.6, February 2007). This includes the following enhancements:

Archi 2.5 Introduces GIDE

The new Generic Item Display and Edit interface is now fully functional in release 2.5. It is equivalent to the right hand two panes of the Item Tree Browser. It can be used as the "drill down" view (typically right hand screen or pop up) for many browsers e.g. Graphical, Worksheet item edit, Spatial, Calendar, Search tool, Domain Tree, etc.

The new interface also has a button which launches the Documentor browser, a quick way to document an item and all immediately related items.

GIDE is also available anonymously, so you can embedd links in normal web pages (say on your intranet or extranet) which will launch a GIDE screen. A great way to integrate viewing and editing capabilities for selected repository content into your portal environments!

Model Type Building Simplified with Graphical Capability

This process has now been simplified by the provision of a capability from within the Visio Requestor environment to Visually construct the Model Type definition by dragging and connecting stencil shapes (effectively drawing a meta model) then submitting this to Archi.