An enterprise architecture is the decomposition of an enterprise into its manageable parts, the definition or those parts, and the coordination of the interaction among those parts. Architectures may have three benefits: responsiveness, innovativeness, and economies of scope. Responsiveness means that enterprises with a better-designed architecture than their competitors will be better able to adapt to accommodate to changing business conditions. Innovation has a better foundation with a flexible architecture, since future knowledge requirements are uncertain. Economies of scope means that enterprises with more capable architectures are likely to have lower information technology (IT) related costs than those with less capable architectures.

The four domains of the four-domain architecture (FDA) are: process (for example, business tools), information/knowledge (for example, data models), infrastructure (for example, computers, networks, and operating systems), and organization (for example, people and roles). This paper describes how the FDA can support frameworks, such as the one proposed by Zachman for information systems [1], and discusses in detail each box of the Zachman matrix.

Putting together a complete FDA could be a difficult challenge, especially in light of changing business conditions and budget constraints. However, selectively applying the principles described in this paper might well move an enterprise toward achieving the potential benefits of an enterprise architecture, and encourage the further spread of the basic FDA concepts. Therefore, IT architects may want to read this paper.