A Deep Perspective on the ArchiMate Enterprise Architecture Modeling Language
Colin Atkinson, Kühne, Thomas, Gerbig, Ralph · MADOC (University of Mannheim) · 2017
Enterprise Architecture Modeling (EAM) stands to beneft signifcantly from multi-level modelling concepts, given the scale and complexity of the systems it is concerned with. However, to date there has been little research into how best to leverage multi-level modeling for this purpose. In this article we study the benefts that multi-level could bring to enterprise architecture modeling by analyzing the goals, concepts and modeling principles adopted by one of the most concrete and a widely used standards developed for EAM – the ArchiMate 3.0 standard. More specifcally, the contribution of this article is to identify and evaluate how the modeling experience envisaged in the ArchiMate standard could be better supported and enhanced using multi-level modeling principles. In our discussions, we focus on a specifc variant of multi-level modeling, so-called deep modeling, which is based on the notions of orthogonal classification and deep instantiation. After outlining the benefts that deep modeling could bring to ArchiMate’s existing modeling vision from the perspective of the involved languages, we present suggestions for further enhancing the modeling experience of ArchiMate users.