Analyzing common structures in Enterprise Architecture modeling notations

Abstract: Over the past few decades, the field of Enterprise Architecture has attracted researchers, and many Enterprise Architecture modeling frameworks have been proposed. However, in order to support the different needs, the different frameworks offer many different elements types that can be used to create an Enterprise Architecture. This abundance of elements can make it difficult for the end-user to differentiate between the usages of all the various elements in order to identify what elements they actually need. Therefore, this research analyzes existing Enterprise Architecture modeling frameworks and extract the common properties that exists in the different Enterprise Architecture modeling notations. In this study, we performed a Systematic Literature Review that aims at finding the most commonly used Enterprise Architecture modeling frameworks in the Enterprise Architecture literature. Additionally, the elements defined in these frameworks are used to create a taxonomy based on the similarities between the different Enterprise Architecture Frameworks. Our results showed that TOGAF, ArchiMate, DoDAF, and IAF are the most used modeling frameworks. Also, we managed to identify the common elements that are available in the different Enterprise Architecture Frameworks mentioned above and represent the common elements in a multilevel model. The findings of this study can make it easier for the end-user to pick the appropriate elements for their use cases, as it highlights the core elements of Enterprise Architecture modeling. Additionally, we showed how our model can be extended to support the needs of different domains. This thesis also forms the foundation for the development of an Enterprise Architecture modeling framework that can be customized and extended so that only the relevant elements are presented to the end-user.