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Data architecture consist of models, policies, rules, and standards that govern which data is collected and how it is stored, arranged, integrated, and put to use in data systems and in organizations. [1] Data is usually one of several architecture domains that form the pillars of an enterprise architecture or solution architecture. [2]
A data architecture aims to set data standards for all its data systems as a vision or a model of the eventual interactions between those data systems. Data integration, for example, should be dependent upon data architecture standards since data integration requires data interactions between two or more data systems. A data architecture, in part, describes the data structures used by a business and its computer applications software. Data architectures address data in storage, data in use, and data in motion; descriptions of data stores, data groups, and data items; and mappings of those data artifacts to data qualities, applications, locations, etc.
Essential to realizing the target state, data architecture describes how data is processed, stored, and used in an information system. It provides criteria for data processing operations to make it possible to design data flows and also control the flow of data in the system.
The data architect is typically responsible for defining the target state, aligning during development and then following up to ensure enhancements are done in the spirit of the original blueprint.
During the definition of the target state, the data architecture breaks a subject down to the atomic level and then builds it back up to the desired form. The data architect breaks the subject down by going through three traditional architectural stages:
The "data" column of the Zachman Framework for enterprise architecture –
| Layer | View | Data (What) | Stakeholder |
| 1 | Scope/Contextual | List of things and architectural standards [3] important to the business | Planner |
| 2 | Business Model/Conceptual | Semantic model or Conceptual/Enterprise data model | Owner |
| 3 | System Model/Logical | Enterprise/Logical data model | Designer |
| 4 | Technology Model/Physical | Physical data model | Builder |
| 5 | Detailed Representations | Actual databases | Developer |
In this second, broader sense, data architecture includes a complete analysis of the relationships among an organization's functions, available technologies, and data types.
Data architecture should be defined in the planning phase of the design of a new data processing and storage system. The major types and sources of data necessary to support an enterprise should be identified in a manner that is complete, consistent, and understandable. The primary requirement at this stage is to define all of the relevant data entities, not to specify computer hardware items. A data entity is any real or abstract thing about which an organization or individual wishes to store data.
Physical data architecture of an information system is part of a technology plan. The technology plan is focused on the actual tangible elements to be used in the implementation of the data architecture design. Physical data architecture encompasses database architecture. Database architecture is a schema of the actual database technology that would support the designed data architecture.
Certain elements must be defined during the design phase of the data architecture schema. For example, an administrative structure that is to be established in order to manage the data resources must be described. Also, the methodologies that are to be employed to store the data must be defined. In addition, a description of the database technology to be employed must be generated, as well as a description of the processes that are to manipulate the data. It is also important to design interfaces to the data by other systems, as well as a design for the infrastructure that is to support common data operations (i.e. emergency procedures, data imports, data backups, external transfers of data).
Without the guidance of a properly implemented data architecture design, common data operations might be implemented in different ways, rendering it difficult to understand and control the flow of data within such systems. This sort of fragmentation is undesirable due to the potential increased cost and the data disconnects involved. These sorts of difficulties may be encountered with rapidly growing enterprises and also enterprises that service different lines of business.
Properly executed, the data architecture phase of information system planning forces an organization to specify and describe both internal and external information flows. These are patterns that the organization may not have previously taken the time to conceptualize. It is therefore possible at this stage to identify costly information shortfalls, disconnects between departments, and disconnects between organizational systems that may not have been evident before the data architecture analysis. [4]
Various constraints and influences will have an effect on data architecture design. These include enterprise requirements, technology drivers, economics, business policies and data processing needs.
Data modeling in software engineering is the process of creating a data model for an information system by applying certain formal techniques.
The Zachman Framework is an enterprise ontology and is a fundamental structure for enterprise architecture which provides a formal and structured way of viewing and defining an enterprise. The ontology is a two dimensional classification schema that reflects the intersection between two historical classifications. The first are primitive interrogatives: What, How, When, Who, Where, and Why. The second is derived from the philosophical concept of reification, the transformation of an abstract idea into an instantiation. The Zachman Framework reification transformations are: identification, definition, representation, specification, configuration and instantiation.
Enterprise application integration (EAI) is the use of software and computer systems' architectural principles to integrate a set of enterprise computer applications.
Information technology service management (ITSM) is the activities that are performed by an organization to design, build, deliver, operate and control information technology (IT) services offered to customers.
Enterprise architecture (EA) is an analytical discipline that provides methods to comprehensively define, organize, standardize, and document an organization’s structure and interrelationships in terms of certain critical business domains characterizing the entity under analysis. The goal of EA is to create an effective representation of the business enterprise that may be used at all levels of stewardship to guide, optimize, and transform the business as it responds to real-world conditions. EA serves to capture the relationships and interactions between domain elements as described by their processes, functions, applications, events, data, and employed technologies.
The Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF) is an architecture framework for the United States Department of Defense (DoD) that provides visualization infrastructure for specific stakeholders concerns through viewpoints organized by various views. These views are artifacts for visualizing, understanding, and assimilating the broad scope and complexities of an architecture description through tabular, structural, behavioral, ontological, pictorial, temporal, graphical, probabilistic, or alternative conceptual means. The current release is DoDAF 2.02.
In business and accounting, information technology controls are specific activities performed by persons or systems designed to ensure that business objectives are met. They are a subset of an enterprise's internal control. IT control objectives relate to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data and the overall management of the IT function of the business enterprise. IT controls are often described in two categories: IT general controls (ITGC) and IT application controls. ITGC include controls over the Information Technology (IT) environment, computer operations, access to programs and data, program development and program changes. IT application controls refer to transaction processing controls, sometimes called "input-processing-output" controls. Information technology controls have been given increased prominence in corporations listed in the United States by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The COBIT Framework is a widely used framework promulgated by the IT Governance Institute, which defines a variety of ITGC and application control objectives and recommended evaluation approaches. IT departments in organizations are often led by a chief information officer (CIO), who is responsible for ensuring effective information technology controls are utilized.
Unicom System Architect is an enterprise architecture tool that is used by the business and technology departments of corporations and government agencies to model their business operations and the systems, applications, and databases that support them. System Architect is used to build architectures using various frameworks including TOGAF, ArchiMate, DoDAF, MODAF, NAF and standard method notations such as sysML, UML, BPMN, and relational data modeling. System Architect is developed by UNICOM Systems, a division of UNICOM Global, a United States-based company.
An enterprise architecture framework defines how to create and use an enterprise architecture. An architecture framework provides principles and practices for creating and using the architecture description of a system. It structures architects' thinking by dividing the architecture description into domains, layers, or views, and offers models - typically matrices and diagrams - for documenting each view. This allows for making systemic design decisions on all the components of the system and making long-term decisions around new design requirements, sustainability, and support.
Enterprise information security architecture (ZBI) is a part of enterprise architecture focusing on information security throughout the enterprise. The name implies a difference that may not exist between small/medium-sized businesses and larger organizations.
Enterprise modelling is the abstract representation, description and definition of the structure, processes, information and resources of an identifiable business, government body, or other large organization.
In information systems, applications architecture or application architecture is one of several architecture domains that form the pillars of an enterprise architecture (EA).
A view model or viewpoints framework in systems engineering, software engineering, and enterprise engineering is a framework which defines a coherent set of views to be used in the construction of a system architecture, software architecture, or enterprise architecture. A view is a representation of a whole system from the perspective of a related set of concerns.
Technical Architecture Framework for Information Management (TAFIM) was a 1990s reference model for enterprise architecture by and for the United States Department of Defense (DoD).
Open-system environment (OSE) reference model (RM) or OSE reference model (OSE/RM) is a 1990 reference model for enterprise architecture. It provides a framework for describing open system concepts and defining a lexicon of terms, that can be agreed upon generally by all interested parties.
NIST Enterprise Architecture Model is a late-1980s reference model for enterprise architecture. It defines an enterprise architecture by the interrelationship between an enterprise's business, information, and technology environments.
Generalised Enterprise Reference Architecture and Methodology (GERAM) is a generalised enterprise architecture framework for enterprise integration and business process engineering. It identifies the set of components recommended for use in enterprise engineering.
Enterprise interoperability is the ability of an enterprise—a company or other large organization—to functionally link activities, such as product design, supply chains, manufacturing, in an efficient and competitive way.
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is a visual modeling and design tool based on the OMG UML. The platform supports: the design and construction of software systems; modeling business processes; and modeling industry based domains. It is used by businesses and organizations to not only model the architecture of their systems, but to process the implementation of these models across the full application development life-cycle.
A data architect is a practitioner of data architecture, a data management discipline concerned with designing, creating, deploying and managing an organization's data architecture. Data architects define how the data will be stored, consumed, integrated and managed by different data entities and IT systems, as well as any applications using or processing that data in some way. It is closely allied with business architecture and is considered to be one of the four domains of enterprise architecture.
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