Understanding Business Versus Architecting Business

by Bartosz Kiepuszewski

Enterprise architecture (EA) has always been one of many terms with overloaded meaning. To some of us, EA is about "organizing multiple applications in an enterprise into a coherent whole" [1]. This view points out the difference between architecting an individual application versus architecting a collection of applications that support a business unit or an entire organization. It is not unlike comparing architecting a single building to working on an entire city plan. Clearly with this understanding, cross-departmental initiatives such as corporate data warehouse, application integration, SOA, and so on fit squarely within the EA group.