Pardon this interruption whilst I post for this grad school assignment...

An Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a conceptual blueprint that defines that structure and opeation of an organization. The intent of an Enterprise Archtecture is to determine how an organization can most effectively achieve its current and future objectives (http://searchcio.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid182_gci1081274,00.html).

Michael Pratt views Enterprise Archtecture as containing four points of view:

1. The Business Perspective - defines the processes and starndards by which the business operates on a day-to-day basis.
2. The Application Perspective - defines the interactions among the processes and standards used by the organization.
3. The Information Perspective - defines and classifies the raw data that the organization requires in order to efficiently operate.
4. The Technology Perspective - defines the hardware, operating systems, programming, and network solutions used by the organization.

Some feel the advantages of an Enterprise Architecture include; improved decision making, imporved adaptability to changing demands or market conditions, elimination of inefficient and redundant processess, optimization of the use of organizational assets, and minimization of employee turnover.

Roger Sessions, CTO of ObjectWatch, Inc, wrote a white papter entitled, "The Comparison of the Top Four Enterprise-Architecture Methodologies." Sessions states that, initially, the field of Enterprise Architecture began to address two problems; systems complexity and poor business alignment. He states that many Enterprise Architectural methodologies have come and gone,but at this point 90 percent of the IT field use one of these four methodologies:

1. The Zachman's Framework for Enterprise Archtecture
2. The Open Group Architecural Framework (TOGF)
3. The Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA)
4. The Gartner Methodology

Even though these four methologies, according to Sessions, approach Enterprise Architecture in four different ways, they all contain Pratts four points of view: the business perspective, the application perspective, the information perspective, and the technology perspective.