Analyzing enterprise models using enterprise architecture-based ontology (MODELS 2013 Presentation)

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Development and maintenance of enterprise systems is becoming more difficult due to change drivers along multiple interconnected dimensions. It is advisable to model the enterprise first and analyze it for potential concerns. For modeling enterprises, ontologies have been considered apt and have been used in the past for the same, but application of ontologies for EA analysis based on concepts of enterprise and relations between them have been scarce. We present our ongoing work on analyzing enterprise models using EA-based ontological representation of enterprise. Our contributions are twofold: first, we show how an existing EA modeling language can be leveraged to create EA ontology and second, we show how two known EA analyses can be realized using this ontology. Initial results suggest that ontology representation facilitates basic EA analysis prototyping due to right mix of representation and inference functionalities and is extensible for more involved EA analyses.

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1MODELS’13 Tata Research Design and Development Center

Analyzing Enterprise Models Using EnterpriseArchitecture-based Ontology

Sagar Sunkle, Vinay Kulkarni, and Suman Roychoudhury

2MODELS’13 Tata Research Design and Development Center

Motivation

Multiple change drivers in enterprise context

Enterprise

Business Change Drivers1. Cost reduction/revenue

increment2. Mergers/acquisitions/divesti

tures3. New regulations4. Audit findings

Changes due to Business Drivers1. Process changes2. Product offerings3. New functionality needs4. New data needs

Technology Drivers1. Vendor-driven upgrades2. Technology consolidation

mandates3. Mobile/cloud presence

Changes to Technology Drivers1. Process changes2. Product offerings3. New functionality needs4. New data needs

3MODELS’13 Tata Research Design and Development Center

Motivation

Holistic Enterprise Modeling- Model of enterprise that makes sense of business, IT, and infrastructure entities individually and from point of view of entire enterprise

Enterprise Architecture Frameworks for holistic view but …o Document-based enterprise models

o Non-machine processable

This is where ontology-based representation comes into picture

4MODELS’13 Tata Research Design and Development Center

Way to go about it

ArchiMate as the basis of enterprise architecture ontology- good starting point for intended use-cases

Generic metamodel of ArchiMate is based on subject-verb-object nature of natural language sentences

ArchiMate core conceptso structure and behavior

o services and interfaces

o specialized across business, IT(application), and infrastructureconcepts in the ontology

o Business-IT and IT-Infrastructure alignment via services

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Using ArchiMate Metamodels

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Using ArchiMate Metamodels

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Using ArchiMate Metamodels in EA Ontology

8MODELS’13 Tata Research Design and Development Center

Using ArchiMate Metamodels in EA Ontology

9MODELS’13 Tata Research Design and Development Center

Modeling Enterprise Entities – ArchiSurance Case Study

10MODELS’13 Tata Research Design and Development Center

Ontology Tools

Protégé Ontology Editor for Ontology Modeling

Apache Jena for Ontology API

Pellet Reasoner + SPARQL RDF Query Language for Rules

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Change Impact Analysis Of EA

Change to any entity in any of business, application, infrastructure dimensions leads to changes to entities related to it

Based on Change impact analysis of enterprise architectures Frank S. de Boer and Marcello M. Bonsangue and Luuk Groenewegen and Andries Stam and S. Stevens and Leendert W. N. van der Torre

12MODELS’13 Tata Research Design and Development Center

Change Impact Analysis Of EA

Meaning attributed to various structural and behavioral relations in ArchiMate; each relation connects two concepts- what happens to one of the concepts when the other is deleted or modified

When B is modified/deleted, the concepts it is related to will also be affected- this goes on till no more concepts can get affected

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Change Impact Analysis Of EA

Easily translated into SPARQL

14MODELS’13 Tata Research Design and Development Center

An example from ArchiSurance Case Study

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Concept is deletedMay have to delete

May be danglingNo effect

An example from ArchiSurance Case Study

16MODELS’13 Tata Research Design and Development Center

Issues with Change Impact Analysis Ontology-based Enterprise Models

Meaning attributed to ArchiMate relations and implemented atop ArchiMate-based ontology; not immediately usable when other EA frameworks are used

This change impact analysis is just change propagation without considering deeper effects; for decision making, only provides a rough overview of which entities may get affected and therefore should be addressed

Change impact analysis may be carried out with intentional modeling where changes are possible alternatives and have cumulative effect on goals

Ontology representation enables prototyping of such variations on change impact computation

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Computing Landscape Maps

Landscape map computation involves rule execution, for example, ‘Set of application components C, given business processes P and business services S such that (1) C is usedBy P and (2) P realises S’

Closer inspection of cross layer metamodels reveals that “Business service” is not related to “application component” directly

May be indirectly related via chain of relations between intermediate concepts

A composition operator for ArchiMate relations may be used to establish single indirect relation to compute mutual dependence

Based on o Landscape Maps for Enterprise Architectures - Leendert W. N. van der Torre and

Marc M. Lankhorst and Hugo W. L. ter Doest and Jan T. P. Campschroer and Farhad Arbab

o Composition of Relations in Enterprise Architecture Models - René van Buurenand Henk Jonkers and Maria-Eugenia Iacob and Patrick Strating

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Computing Landscape Maps using SPARQL Property Paths

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An Example

FinancialApplication usedBy HomeNAwayPolicyAdministration realisesPolicyCreationService usedBy CheckAndSignContract == FinalcialApplicationusedBy CheckAndSignContract

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Summary

Compared to previous approaches for enterprise ontology, this approach is holistic with machine-processable and analyzable enterprise models

Similar method is applicable when EA ontology is based not on ArchiMate but any other EA framework

Further extensions with intentional goal modeling already underway with real word merger of two wealth management banks

21MODELS’13 Tata Research Design and Development Center

Thanks!! Any questions?? Please get in touch with me

sagar.sunkle@tcs.com

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