Togaf Version 10

[Louella Kammann]

TheOpen Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) is the most used framework for enterprise architecture as of 2020[2] that provides an approach for designing, planning, implementing, and governing an enterprise information technology architecture.[3] TOGAF is a high-level approach to design. It is typically modeled at four levels: Business, Application, Data, and Technology. It relies heavily on modularization, standardization, and already existing, proven technologies and products.

TOGAF began to be developed in 1995 by The Open Group, based on the United States Department of Defense's TAFIM and Capgemini's Integrated Architecture Framework (IAF).[4] As of 2016, The Open Group claims that TOGAF is employed by 80% of Global 50 companies and 60% of Fortune 500 companies.

The ANSI/IEEE Standard 1471-2000 specification of architecture (of software-intensive systems) may be stated as: "the fundamental organization of a system, embodied in its components, their relationships to each other and the environment, and the principles governing its design and evolution".

However TOGAF has its own view, which may be specified as either a "formal description of a system, or a detailed plan of the system at component level to guide its implementation", or as "the structure of components, their interrelationships, and the principles and guidelines governing their design and evolution over time".

TOGAF was initiated in the early 1990s as methodology for the development of technical architecture, and has been developed by The Open Group into an extensive enterprise architecture framework.[7] In 1995, the first version of TOGAF (TOGAF 1.0) was presented. This version was mainly based on the Technical Architecture Framework for Information Management (TAFIM), development started in the late 1980s by the US Department of Defense.

In December 2001 TOGAF 7, the "Technical Edition", was published.[8] TOGAF 8 ("Enterprise Edition") was first published in December 2002 and republished in updated form as TOGAF 8.1 in December 2003. Around 2005 TOGAF became a registered trademark of The Open Group.[9] In November 2006 the Open Group released TOGAF 8.1.1. According to The Open Group, as of February 2011, over 15,000 individuals are TOGAF Certified.[10][11] As of April 2018 the official register has over 77,500 certifications.[12]

The Architecture Development Method (ADM) is applied to develop an enterprise architecture which will meet the business and information technology needs of an organization. It may be tailored to the organization's needs and is then employed to manage the execution of architecture planning activities.[18]

The process is iterative and cyclic. Each step checks with Requirements. Phase C involves some combination of both Data Architecture and Applications Architecture. Additional clarity can be added between steps B and C in order to provide a complete information architecture.

Performance engineering working practices are applied to the Requirements phase, and to the Business Architecture, Information System Architecture, and Technology architecture phases. Within Information System Architecture, it is applied to both the Data Architecture and Application Architecture.

The Enterprise Continuum is a way of classifying solutions and architectures on a continuum that range from generic foundation architectures through to tailored organization-specific both within and outside the Architecture Repository.[19] These include architectural models, architectural patterns, architecture descriptions, and other artifacts. These artifacts may exist within the enterprise and also in the IT industry at large.

The Enterprise Continuum consists of both the Architecture Continuum and the Solutions Continuum. The Architecture Continuum specifies the structuring of reusable architecture assets and includes rules, representations, and relationships of the information systems available to the enterprise. The Solutions Continuum describes the implementation of the Architecture Continuum by defining reusable Solution Building Blocks (SBBs).

The Open Group oversees formal qualifications in TOGAF at two levels, which can be taken following formal training or self-study.[22] Learners can undertake these qualifications through training companies.

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TOGAF, an acronym for The Open Group Architecture Framework, is intended to be a standard way to design and implement architectures for very large computer systems. Today, 80% of Global 50 companies use TOGAF. To say it has a following is an understatement. But, as powerful as TOGAF is, it's not applicable to every situation. Those considering TOGAF need to understand the basics of the framework and the tradeoffs at hand.

In this article, we look at the background from which TOGAF emerged. Then we look at the essentials of the framework. Finally, we discuss what types of projects TOGAF is useful for and, just as importantly, the types of projects where TOGAF is to be avoided.

The term "architect" is bandied about a lot these days throughout IT departments far and wide. It's also a position to which many aspire. Today you have cloud architects, software architects, solutions architects, security architects, and more. It seems as if there's an explosion of architectural activity on the IT landscape. It all might seem new, but the fact is that designing large-scale software systems is a discipline that's been around for a long time, starting early on with mainframe computers.

Big companies were the first customers of large-scale computing systems. They needed computer systems to survive. To put things in perspective, GM had over half a million employees in 1955. Both General Electric and U.S. Steel employed more than 200,000 people during that time. In terms of production, in 1955, the top automobile manufacturers produced over seven million vehicles. That kind of scale leads to distinct challenges. Not only did employees need to be paid and their tax record reconciled accordingly, but every part that went into a company's products needed to be purchased, distributed, and subjected to inventory control. The manual work required to support businesses at this scale was slow, tedious, and detail-laden. Hence, the introduction of computers and large-scale software systems.

Computer-driven business systems provided enormous benefits in reducing manual labor and speeding up business processes. However, when it came to creating the software systems needed, there was a lot of reinvention of the wheel going on. It wasn't the same as having a 40-year history of making automobiles.

Back then, there was no history for designing software systems, so a lot of time was spent figuring things out from scratch. But, figuring things out from scratch wasn't the same as figuring things out randomly. Those early designers were professional business process engineers with formal training in logistics, procurement, accounting, and organizational management. They understood the value of creating design methodologies that were repeatable and controllable.

At the start, these companies may not have had the know-how to build computer systems, but they did know how to make other things well on a very large scale. Remember, Ford Motor Company had the organizational wherewithal during World War II to produce one B-24 Liberator every hour on a 24/7 basis. This incredible pace was powered by business processes and efficiency possible only with standardization. Thus, standardizing design methodology was the next step in creating large-scale software systems for what was to become known as the enterprise. This drive to standardize led to TOGAF.

The TOGAF standard describes an enterprise architecture. It's published and updated by the Open Group. The Open Group is an international organization with over 600 members from a broad variety of disciplines, including business, government, and academia, with companies such as ExxonMobil, Lockheed Martin, Nissan Motors, and even organizations typical of the software space, such as Microsoft, Oracle, and Amazon Web Services.

The first version of TOGAF was published by the Open Group in 1995. The current version of TOGAF as of this writing is version 9.2, which you can read here as a registered user. The TOGAF specification is huge. The TOGAF documentation is divided into seven parts and contains 52 chapters. Also, the publication has appendices that describe terms, definitions, and abbreviations.

What makes TOGAF unique in terms of an architectural framework is that it puts satisfying business needs as the central concern of all design activities. While this might seem like the obvious things to do, you need to remember that in very big companies, when it comes to systems design and implementation, a lot of things can get lost in translation. It's the nature of the beast.

As Yuval Harari asserts in his book, Sapiens, the maximum number of people you can have in a group where all members know each other is about 150, which is about the size of a growing early-stage startup. When the group is small, accurate word-of-mouth communication is possible. Beyond that threshold, groups need to find other ways to share knowledge and foster cooperation among employees who are essentially strangers.

Thus, large companies rely on documentation in various formats, everything from policy and procedure manuals, HR guidelines, disaster recovery plans, and sales tax regulations to investor newsletters, quarterly financial statements, and strategic white papers at the executive level. As necessary as these forms of communication are, their effectiveness is only as good as their availability, and many times their availability is less than optimal. Without a clear understanding of a business's goals, operating procedures, and constraints, it's entirely possible to create a software system that misses the mark completely and wastes years of time and money.

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