This assignment will be evaluated in terms of the following criteria:
a) Completeness (contents addressing the key areas)
b) Correctness (demonstrating research skills by identifying and using relevant sources)
c) Presence of relevant information (showing cognitive skills: analysis, evaluation)
d) And clarity of expression (showing writing skills: structure, expression, presentation)
Assignment Aims and learning objectives
This assignment is designed to evaluate students’ understanding about the importance of aligning enterprise IT architecture with its business architecture. Please note that the terms enterprise architecture and business architecture (business plan and model) are used in their broad sense.
Specifically the assignment focuses on the “What” and “Why” aspects of an Agile EA and its underlying fundamental concept, principle of practice and theoretical complexity issues. In particular, the assignment requires students to critically think about the relationship among enterprise IT architecture and business strategic and operation goals. Students are also expected to understand how various factors may influence formulation and subsequent implementation of enterprise architecture in organisations. Students are required to consult prescribed e-text books, you-tube and tutorial class presentation materials, published EA articles in the literature, electronic sources (including FIT5133 lecture notes) on enterprise architecture management.
3 of 3
All body text should be in Times New Roman Font size 12 with 1.5 line spacing and the “suggested length” specified for each question.
Part A – This section addresses the what and why concepts of EA from lessons 1-3
1. Define what is meant Enterprise Architecture (EA) by concluding what you can discover from 3 academic and 3 field (industry) definitions?. Total 10 marks.
2. Based on your answer to Q1, explain why one can regard EA as a meta and inter-disciplinary enterprise management function. Total 10 marks.
3. Read the Sparx case Study: download case PDF and answer the following:
(a) Discuss the business problems of the Sparx’s government client that led to starting up an EA program? 10 marks
(b) Discuss the business benefits of the Sparx EA program? 10 marks
(Total 20 marks)
Part B – This section address the how concepts of EA from lessons 2-5
4. EA work consists of two process groups: program management and the specification of EA artefacts. Determine the work breakdown of these two process groups. 10 marks
5. Two questions about service oriented architecture (SoA) concepts:
(a) What is a strategic service, a business service and a system service? (3X5=15 marks)
(b) Discuss how they can they integrate? (5 marks)
(Total 20 marks)
6. Two questions about service abstraction design methods:
(a) Explain the concept of service abstraction? 5 marks
(b) There can be more than one methods for abstracting SoA services. Describe one such method. 5 marks.
(Total 10 marks)
7. Tabulate an evaluative comparison between two EA best practice standards, and describe their similarities and differences against each evaluation criterion. Total 20 marks