TOGAF ENTERPRISE CONTINUUM ("CRIB NOTES")

TOGAF Enterprise Continuum 

The amount and variety of matters that are analyzed by an architect is overwhelming. The pace at which she or he works, challenging. The effectiveness and efficiency of her/his work frames the whole IT function.

In order to cope with the required performance, the architecture team have to build on previously existing knowledge - in the same way a physician does his daily work applying well established protocols and drugs. No architecture is developed from the scratch. During their engagements, the architects use diverse architecture and solution models – foundation models, industry models, etc. – that are extended and customized to the organizations’ needs. They represent invaluable knowledge, that has to be leveraged if the architecture team will produce assets that create value to the organization.

TOGAF gives formal status to this general practice and dedicates a framework to it : the Enterprise Continuum. The body of knowledge the architecture team reuses when they are working on an engagement requires a thoughtful and dedicated management. The share of their time the architecture team dedicates to building and managing this body of knowledge is well worth the effort later on, during the architecture engagements. Higher effectiveness is reached, time and effort are saved, risks and costs are lowered. Any time the architects dedicate to their professional development is benefitial ; the benefit is doubled if they identify new contents for the organization’s Enterprise Continuum.

The TOGAF Enterprise Continuum can be thought of as a bidimensional index, classifying the knowledge contents used by the architecture team in two dimensions : 

• Abstract – concrete (vertical dimension) 
• Generic – organization specific (horizontal dimension)

The Enterprise Continuum points to contents in the Architecture Repository or elsewhere (in other repositories in the organization or in external web sites).

The figure reproduced below depicts the general organization of the Enterprise Continuum.

ENTERPRISE CONTINUUM - OVERVIEW

The Enterprise Continuum is partitioned in three distinct continua : 

• Enterprise Context Continuum  
• Classifies contextual assets such as policies, standards, strategic initiatives, organizational structures and enterprise-level capabilities  

• Architecture Continuum 
• Represents a structuring of Architecture Building Blocks, from generic to organization-specific entities.  
• Foundation frameworks (e.g. TOGAF TRM and the whole TOGAF) 
• Common system architectures (e.g. TOGAF III-RM, OASIS WS-* standards) 
• Industry architectures (e.g. a logic data model for a particular vertical industry) 
• Organization-specific architectures  

• Solutions Continuum  
• Represents a structuring of the Solution Building Blocks, from generic to organization-specific entities.   
• Foundation solutions (e.g. ITIL, EDIFACT)   
• Common system solutions (e.g. a portal and content management product suite, an ESB product) 
• Industry solutions (e.g. a physical database schema specific to an industry) 
• Organization-specific solutions 

The figure reproduced below depicts the Architecture Continuum and the Solutions Continuum.

ARCHITECTURE CONTINUUM AND SOLUTIONS CONTINUUM

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