The Enterprise Systems Approach

Introduction

The purpose of this study is to define the Enterprise Systems approach, its evolution, and major milestones of its architectural planning. The former is done mostly in a graphic manner and based on graphic models, which should be self-explanatory. The ES architectures are multi-faceted solutions, hence they will defined in the scope of the Enterprise Organization Architecture (EOA), Enterprise Functional Architecture (EFA), Enterprise Processive Architecture (EPA), Enterprise Information Architecture (EIA), Enterprise Software Architecture (ESA), Enterprise Network Architecture (ENA), Enterprise Service Architecture (ESA), Business Component Architecture (BCA), Enterprise Information Infrastructure (EII), and Enterprise Configurations. Such enterprise architectures concerning hardware and data have been left undefined due to the limits of this chapter.

The ES approach became necessary in the 1990s when the complexity of enterprise systems became the major issue in systems development and was integrated into thousands of IT solutions. It was necessary to provide a general, well-modeled map of IT systems and services thatcould help in understanding the rising enterprise complexity, which had to be contained and explored for the sake of enterprise operations.