Evaluating the capabilities of Enterprise Architecture modeling tools for Visual Analysis

By: Naranjo David, Mario Sánchez, Jorge Villalobos

Abstract

In model analysis activities, it is critical to make early statements and diagnosis from a high level of abstraction. Currently, these tasks are difficult to perform, and they require both the involvement of experts and the elaboration of specialized artifacts. Furthermore, the complexity of the tasks increases as models become bigger and more detailed. In other contexts, it has been noticed that total / holistic / unfiltered visualizations may give insight about the models, providing analysts a starting point for exploration and general pattern discovery. In this paper, we evaluate the support that six different Enterprise Architecture (EA) modeling tools offer to EA analysis activities, and assess the strengths and weaknesses of six visualization frameworks, in order to extend the analysis of enterprise models by Visual Analysis. The evaluation is based on a set of 14 requirements which are either visualization-related or specific to EA analysis, and its results were harvested from a) observed characteristics of the diagrams of these tools, and b) visualizations from an enterprise model, generated with the aforementioned visualization frameworks. These results point to several actionable subjects and research opportunities for the field of EA Modeling and Analysis.

Keywords

enterprise architecture, analysis, visualization, tool evaluation

Cite as:

Naranjo David, Mario Sánchez, Jorge Villalobos, “Evaluating the capabilities of Enterprise Architecture modeling tools for Visual Analysis”, Journal of Object Technology, Volume 14, no. 1 (April 2015), pp. 3:1-32, doi:10.5381/jot.2015.14.1.a3.