Tools

Many organisations build and maintain their Enterprise Architecture data and models simply by using Microsoft Office - particularly Visio, Access and Excel.

Accordingly we have developed a complete set of Visio and Excel templates that fully support our SAM EA methods. This covers each facet of the enterprise architecture - organisation, business process, data model, project and programmes, infrastructure, technology - and so on.

This is a great tool for analysts working alone or in a very small group. We have created a personal Access repository to store all the artefacts created and enable their re-use. As the project grows we can migrate the repository to a shared SQL Server database which would be suitable for a 5 - 10 analyst team.
In projects involving more than 10 analysts we recommend moving to a server side solution using Orbus Software's "iServer" tool. This provides a comprehensive database capability to underpin your Microsoft Office created diagrams and objects. Further it offers full analysis and reporting capability at object level.

In all these solutions, the templates we have been using continue unaltered and the meta-model remains fully customisable and thus completely supports our methodological imperatives of flexibility and focus on the problem-domain.

Of course, there are a number of other commercial tools available on the market. Beware however of tools that impose a predefined EA model upon you. This might be suitable for your problem but very often it is not. You need a tool that allows you to define and manage your own EA model. Further we have encountered problems with tools that are too "fine-grained" to manage the breadth and complexity of inter-relationships that the essence of corporate enterprise architectures. Tools originally developed for software development typically do not scale well to business-focused architecture use.

For some years we offered Strategy SAVI^Ž, the Strategic Architecture Manager and Matrix Manipulator, but this is now in a maintenance only phase. For existing users, and there are still a number round the world, the user guide is here on line. If you want to browse it click User Guide

Please contact us for details of availability and pricing. Contact us.