One of the concerns that organizations have about defining their enterprise architecture (EA) is that it takes foundational understanding of the business and its objectives. The Infromation Technology Enterprise Architecture team may take as much investment every year to keep relevant as it did to create it. To make an EA a reality for a business there is a need for those who believe in EA to create a value proposition that holds up. One important question that must be answered is: Is the Enterprise Architecture closer to the CEO or the CIO based on the kind of CIO a company has?

Recently, some of us in HP were discussing the definition of Enterprise Architecture for an upcoming activity by The Open Group. There are a number of different perspectives on what EA is, both within HP and The Open Group.

There is a great deal of work to define EA maturity and techniques for its assessment that are being defined by analysts. These techniques are useful but they may not be appropriate for every type of EA. In a way, this is similar to the differences in perspective on architecture. Merriam - Webster's online dictionary states a general definition of architecture and if I were to associate it with Enterprise Architecture in IT, the result would be:

1. the art or science of the use of IT for the enterprise; specifically : the art or practice of designing and building structures and especially useful ones that generate business value

2. a: formation or construction resulting from or as if from a conscious act <the architecture of the system>

    b: a unifying or coherent form or structure <the workflow lacks architecture>

3. architectural product or work; the delivered work products from enterprise architecture

4. a method or style of IT

5. the manner in which the components of a computer or computer system are organized and integrated

The one thing that is common for EA is that it focuses on the enterprise and it should be used to maximize business value for that oragnization.