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Context: Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a discipline which has evolved to structure the business and its alignment with the IT systems. Most of the enterprise architecture frameworks, especially Zachman framework, focus on describing the enterprise from six viewpoint perspectives of the stakeholders. These six perspectives are based on English language interrogatives what, where, who, when, why, and how (thus the term W5H). W5H to describe an event or incident is common in journalism, however, it is difficult to "fit" EA into the "universe" of events, leading to difficulties in creation and evolution of EA. Moreover, the ordering in which interrogatives should be answered and viewpoints arranged is not defined in the existing EA frameworks, making the order and inter-dependence difficult to decide. In this paper, our goals are to 1) assess if W5H is sufficient to describe EA of today's rapidly evolving enterprise, and 2) explore the ordering and precedence among the viewpoint concerns, a major problem faced by the EA practitioners today. Method: We achieve our goals by bringing tools from the linguistics, focusing on the full set of English language interrogatives to describe viewpoint concerns and the inter-relationships and dependencies among these. Results: 1) We show that addition of the seventh interrogative which to the W5H set (we denote this extended set as W6H) yields extra and necessary information enabling creation of holistic EA. 2) We discover that particular ordering of the interrogatives, based on semantic and lexical analysis of English language interrogatives, set starting points and prescribe an order in which viewpoints should be arranged for creating complete EA. 3) We demonstrate that W6H enables creation of EA for iterative and agile Software Development Life Cycles (SDLCs), which is otherwise difficult to achieve using W5H. Conclusions: We believe that our findings may help practitioners in starting and creating complete EA for their enterprises, and provide theoreticians with tools needed to improve other EA frameworks, such as Zachman, TOGAF, and SABSA.

Early efforts on bridging the communication gap between a business and its IT systems have resulted in several business analysis and modeling techniques. Most recently, BPMN is rapidly consolidating its position as the established standard for modeling business processes. Yet, research shows that BPMN still lacks comprehensive constructs for representing some core business concepts, including business goals, non-functional requirements and resources. The purpose of this paper is to use Zachman Framework to assess BPMN's modeling capabilities and to identify its modeling gaps. The motivation of the paper is to provide a better understanding of the suitability of BPMN as a business process modeling language for bridging the gap between business and its information systems.

The success of innovative e-participation solutions depends heavily on the organizational planning and the incorporation of such initiatives into the different stages of the policy life-cycle. E-participation often demands to introduce new participation facilities into the traditional processes of policy formulation and decision making. Accommodating the various requirements from distinct perspectives calls for a holistic engineering approach for e-participation systems analysis and design. Enterprise Architectures (EA) have evolved in information systems research as an approach to give guidance in developing complex socio-technical systems. This paper analyses the application of EA frameworks in the context of e-participation. First, e-participation domain and implementation models are introduced to identify crucial tasks in e-participation project development and implementation. Related to the tasks identified, three EA frameworks are analyzed: Zachman Framework, TOGAF, and ARIS. We explain how EA frameworks can support the development and implementation of e-participation projects and argue finally the needs for a reference framework for e-participation.

In this demonstration, we showcase an integrated approach for event-driven process monitoring in the Internet of Services. Our business-oriented development methodology for Complex Event Processing (CEP) utilizes the idea of the Zachman framework with modeling on different perspectives. Starting with the Business Motivation Model (BMM) on a strategic perspective, an Event Hierarchy with key performance indicators (KPIs), objectives, noticeable situations and reactions is successively built in a top-down approach. The demonstration includes an Eclipse-based prototype for modeling and a runtime component using the open source CEP engine Esper with a seamless integration.

To achieve the ultimate goal of attribute-based access control (ABAC), a robust architecture for Identity, Credential, and Access Management must first be established. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) began formal development of its Identity, Credential, and Access Management Architecture using the Zachman Framework for Enterprise Architecture in June 2006. The Architecture provided the necessary structure to meet aggressive deadlines for issuance and use of the PIV smartcard. It also led to the development of NASA's Logical Access Control infrastructure to support not only PIV smartcards, but all authentication credentials in use at NASA.Use of the Zachman Framework has transformed the way that NASA looks at Logical Access Control, and has positioned NASA to provide robust attributed-based access control in the future. In this paper, we will discuss the Logical Access Control System (LACS) we are implementing at NASA, changes in the way NASA views Identity Trust and Level of Assurance, technical challenges to implementation, and our future vision for Identity, Credential, and Access Management.

The proliferation of IT and its consequent dispersion is an enterprise reality, however, most organizations do not have adequate tools and/or methodologies that enable the management and coordination of their Information Systems. The Zachman Framework provides a structured way for any organization to acquire the necessary knowledge about itself with respect to the Enterprise Architecture. Zachman proposes a logical structure for classifying and organizing the descriptive representations of an enterprise, in different dimensions, and each dimension can be perceived in different perspectives.In this paper, we propose a method for achieving an Enterprise Architecture Framework, based on the Zachman Framework Business and IS perspectives, that defines the several artifacts for each cell, and a method which defines the sequence of filling up each cell in a top-down and incremental approach. We also present a tool developed for the purpose of supporting the Zachman Framework concepts. The tool: (i) behaves as an information repository for the framework's concepts; (ii) produces the proposed artifacts that represent each cell contents, (iii) allows multi-dimensional analysis among cell's elements, which is concerned with perspectives (rows) and/or dimensions (columns) dependency; and (iv) finally, evaluate the integrity, dependency and, business and information systems alignment level, through the answers defined for each framework dimension.

In realizing Business-to-Business integration, much communication among persons with different backgrounds is needed. We affirm that Enterprise Architecture Descriptions are an important part of the necessary communication in information systems development and maintenance. This article is about categorizing the models that describe Business-to-Business integration (B2Bi) practices, and identifying the numerous ways B2Bi issues could and should be described. The framework we propose is based on lessons learnt from proven architecture description frameworks. The Zachman framework forms the basis of the Framework for the Architectural Description of the Extended Enterprise (the FADEE) presented in this paper. It changes the communication between CIO and CEO, what results in more involvement of the CIO in the strategy making process.