What Does Enterprise Information Architecture Mean?
Enterprise information architecture (EIA) is considered a component of the enterprise architecture. The enterprise information architecture is intended to provide a common framework for the cost-effective sharing of data across the different organizational units taking care of the security and privacy of the specific information. It is often recommended to use the enterprise information architecture in situations such as organizational redundancy assessment, process redundancy assessment, for design and development of the common business language, or technology redundancy assessment.
Techopedia Explains Enterprise Information Architecture
The enterprise information architecture comprises of three sub-components/sub-architectures, namely:
- Business architecture
- Technical architecture
- Organization architecture
Business architecture provides the integrated view of the data from a business-oriented perspective. Technical architecture provides the outlook of the present technical environment and the migration plan to bring the desired technical environment. Organization architecture deals with high level organizational structure as well as the processes done by each individual unit in the organizational units in the company.
There are many benefits associated with enterprise information architecture. First of all, it facilities the common understanding required among the business lines with help of the models which are created from an enterprise-wide perspective. With the help of the corporate data model, it allows the evaluation of the existing data structure and planning for the re-engineering of these in order to maintain the integrated set of structures. Another big benefit associated with enterprise information architecture is the easy integration of new corporate data to existing system environment with data mapped to the specific company data models rather than databases. It also allows in validating the packaged applications needed within the company. Quick orientation can be provided to new resources as they can quickly access the chosen parts of the necessary models of the enterprise information architecture.