ArchiMate 3 Enhancements
The new version of the language has been created to respond to a number of requirements:
- Increasing demand for relating business strategy with business and IT operations
- Technology innovations that mix IT and the physical world
- Usage in new domains; e.g., manufacturing, logistics
- Improved consistency and comprehensibility
- Improved alignment between Open Group standards, notably with the TOGAF Framework
The key changes in the new ArchiMate 3 specification are provided below.
Two New Layers in ArchiMate 3
The ArchiMate framework has been extended to include strategy and physical layers , as shown in figure below:
The strategy elements include elements for capability, resource, and course of action. The physical elements build upon the Technology Layer and add elements for modeling physical facilities and equipment, distribution networks, and materials.
The Strategy Layer
Elements have been added to support modeling strategy, capability-based planning, and related domains. This supports the increased usage of Enterprise Architecture in supporting strategy execution, and is in line with approaches used in related standards, such as the TOGAF Framework and the Business Motivation Model.
Note that:
Outcome, course of action, capability , and resource are new elements introduced in the ArchiMate 3.0 Specification.
From the figure, you can see that:
- Increase Profit is a goal that can be decomposed into a number of other goals: Decrease Costs and Increase Revenue.
- The former is related to the Operational Excellence strategy of the company, modeled as a course of action.
- This is decomposed into two other courses of action: Centralize IT Systems and Standardize Products.
- The two outcomes: Decreased Costs and Loss of Customers influence the goals in positive and negative ways.
- This shows an important difference between goals and outcomes: not all outcomes lead to the intended results.
Outcome Realization by Capabilities
The courses of action are realized by a number of capabilities:
- IT Management & Operations
- Appropriate resources Human Resources and IT Resources are assigned to the former.
- The model fragment also shows that these resources are located in the Headquarters of the organization, in line with the Centralize IT Systems course of action
- Product Management
The Physical Layer
The Technology Layer has been extended with elements for modeling the physical world; for example:
- Manufacturing
- Logistics
- other physical environments
Note that:
All the elements shown in the example below, except for Path , are new in the ArchiMate 3.0 Specification, and Path has been renamed from Communication Path and its meaning extended to allow it to integrate with physical elements.
By reading the flow surrounded by dotted line in the figure above, you can see that an Assembly Line , modeled as equipment, and installed at a facility Manufacturing Plant, makes use of materials Pre-Assembled Circuit Board, Internal Antenna, and Plastic Case to produce material Vehicle Telematics Appliance.
By studying the elements surround by dotted line in the figure above, you can see that the appliance , initially located at the Manufacturing Plant facility , is subsequently transported to the facilities National Distribution Center and Local Distribution Center , making use of the distribution networks Overseas Shipping and Local Trucking . These distribution networks together realize the path Intermodal Freight.
Improved Usability and Consistency
A number of changes have been made to the language to improve its usability and consistency. These are summarized below:
Generic Metamodel
An upper-level generic metamodel has been introduced to document the full structure of behavior and structure elements of the ArchiMate language presenting in the metamodel fragment as shown in the figure below. It defines these elements in a generic, layer-independent way.
Note That:
- This generic metamodel fragment consists of two main types of elements: structure ("nouns") and behavior elements ("verbs").
- The white boxes are abstract metamodel elements; i.e., these are not instantiated in models but only serve to structure the metamodel.
- The gray boxes can be used to model the Enterprise Architecture at a strategic level
Composite Elements
In ArchiMate 3, grouping and location are generic composite elements which has been updated. Composite elements can themselves aggregate or compose other composite elements.
Grouping
The grouping element aggregates or composes concepts that belong together based on some common characteristic.
- The element is no longer classified as a relationship, it is now a composite element.
- A grouping now has an aggregation or composition relationship with its contents, making it much more useful.
- It is also permissible to draw relationships from or to a grouping.
For Example, in the model below, the Grouping element is used to aggregate a conglomerate of two processes and an object that together realize a service (both with nesting and explicitly drawn aggregation relationships).
Location
A location is a place or position where structure elements can be located or behavior can be performed. The location element is used to model the places where (active and passive) structure elements such as business actors, application components, and devices are located.
- This element has been moved from the Business Layer to the generic metamodel and defined as a composite element.
- Improvements in the use of nesting as a notation allow a better representation of related items in modeling
Changed the Notation for the Representation and Contract Elements
The notation of representation and contract has been changed to differentiate these from deliverable and business object , respectively.
Node Description |
Changed Graphic Notation |
Representation
- A representation represents a perceptible form of the information carried by a business object.
- For example, in terms of medium (electronic, paper, audio, etc.) or format (HTML, ASCII, PDF, RTF, etc.).
- A single business object can have a number of different representations.
- Also, a single representation can realize one or more specific business objects.
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Example |
Contract
- A contract represents a formal or informal specification of an agreement between a provider and a consumer
- It specifies the rights and obligations associated with a product and establishes functional and non-functional parameters for interaction.
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Deliverable
- A deliverable represents a precisely-defined outcome of a work package.
- Work packages produce deliverables. These may be results of any kind
- For example: reports, papers, services, software, physical products, etc., or intangible results such as organizational change.
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Business Object
- A business object represents a concept used within a particular business domain
- Business objects are passive in the sense that they do not trigger or perform processes.
- A business object could be used to represent information assets that are relevant from a business point of view
- It can be realized by data objects.
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Optional Notation to Denote the Layer of an Element
An optional notation has been introduced to explicitly denote the layer of an element. A letter 'M', 'S', 'B', 'A', 'T', 'P', or 'I' in the top-left corner of an element can be used to denote a Motivation, Strategy, Business, Application, Technology, Physical, or Implementation & Migration element, respectively.