In the beginning, no one needed enterprise architecture tools. A back of an envelope would do in the early years. Thomas Watson Jr., one of the leaders of International Business Machines, supposedly said in 1940s, “I think there is a world market for about five computers.”
The modern enterprise, however, is much different. Some employees have more than five computers on their desk alone. Even a small organization may have thousands of machines; some can easily have more than a million. That’s before the sensors and smart gadgets that make up the internet of things are taken into account. Enterprise architecture (EA) systems track all these machines and the software that runs on them — not to mention how these software layers interact. Because of this, EA tools are the single source of truth for managing these burgeoning virtual worlds.
The EA marketplace is robust with more than several dozen serious competitors. Some specialize in specific platforms or clouds. Others offer deeper integration with business intelligence (BI) and business process management (BPM) software. Some began life as generic modeling software; others were purpose-built for enterprise architecture. All compile long lists of machines and offer various tabular and graphical dashboards for tracking them.
EA systems gather device and software information in a variety of ways. The most manual process involves asking stakeholders and developers to fill out forms detailing who owns what machines. The most automated tools log into a company’s clouds directly, counting the machines themselves. Most use a hybrid approach. Some offer drag-and-drop widgets so that developers, architects, and managers can create a model of all the machines, the software those machines run, and how the data flows from one machine to another.
Everyone from the CIO to the rapid-response team can use the charts and graphs from an EA dashboard to look up processes and track the flow of data. Some watch for bad machines or overloaded pipelines. They can repair problems by following a cascade of failure. Others plan for the future by finding bottlenecks or shortcuts. All rely on the data in the system as a springboard for making quick decisions.
Many of the tools use ArchiMate, an open modeling standard designed to capture much of the complexity of enterprise architecture. It’s built to work closely with the TOGAF open framework. The views and visualizations are created in a manner similar to that of UML (Unified Modeling Language), another generalized approach for visualizing design.
An important consideration is the level of integration with the type of software in your local stack. All of the EA tools support big collections of modules that can gather data from particular clouds or operating systems but some support various clouds and operating systems better than others.
Another consideration is their ability to connect with computing and service clouds. Some EA tools specialize in cloud instances and compute pods. All cloud companies maintain their own tools for tracking your systems and some EA tools can absorb this data directly. Single-cloud teams often rely more on the cloud’s own management software to track deployments.
Choosing the best solution for your organization requires evaluating the tools’ ability to integrate with your technology stack and then weighing the usefulness of the charts and tables that the software produces. Following is an overview, in alphabetical order, of the top enterprise architecture platforms available today.
- Ardoq
- Atoll Group SAMU
- Avolution Abacus
- BOC Group ADOIT
- BiZZdesign HoriZZon
- Capsifi
- Capstera
- Clausmark Bee360
- EAS
- LeanIX Enterprise Architecture Suite
- Mega Hopex
- Orbus Software iServer
- Planview Enterprise One
- QualiWare Enterprise Architecture
- Quest Erwin Evolve
- ServiceNow
- Software AG Alfabet
- Sparx
- Unicom System Architect
- ValueBlue Blue Dolphin
Ardoq
Ardoq creates a “digital twin” of your organization by collecting information from a variety of users, developers, and stakeholders throughout your enterprise with a collection of simplified forms. The goal is to engage people who understand the roles of various systems. This data creates a more “democratic” opportunity for everyone to use the visualizations of the network and data flows to support and modernize the systems supporting their roles. The tool offers integrations with the major clouds and an API that’s open to customization through all major languages (Python, C#, Java, etc.).
Major use cases:
- Simulating architectural stress when demand spikes in order to plan for major events
- Understanding how user behavioral shifts lead to demand changes
- Application portfolio management for better strategic planning
Atoll Group SAMU
The Atoll Group created SAMU EA Tool to track enterprise architecture by examining deep connections throughout on-prem hardware, the cloud layer, and BPM tools. It offers integration with monitoring tools (Tivoli, ServiceNow, etc.), cloud virtualization managers (VMware, AWS, etc.), configuration management databases (CA, BMC), and service organization tools (BMC, HP). These integrations feed a centralized data model that is augmented with input from stakeholders.
Major use cases:
- Creating visualizations of architecture
- Informing the architectural review and strategic planning process
- Improving communications by creating a visual foundation for understanding
Avolution Abacus
Avolution’s created Abacus to deliver a diagram-driven dashboard that captures the range and extent of your enterprise architecture. The core integrations with office tools such as SharePoint, Excel, Visio, Google Sheets, Technopedia, and ServiceNow simplify usage for workflows that use them. The tool began adding a machine-learning layer and users can now experiment with training a model that can help answer questions like which staff member is responsible for a particular system.
Major use cases:
- Opening up IT to the larger workplace to empower the entire organization to understand data flows
- Using extensive enterprise modeling to build a roadmap for future development
- Tracking business metrics that integrate with enterprise performance
BOC Group ADOIT
Helping teams manage resources, predict demand, and track all assets is the goal for BOC Group’s ADOIT, a wide-open tool that maps each system or software package to an object. Data flows between the systems are turned into relationships captured by the objects using a metamodel that can be customized. Business processes are also modeled similarly by a companion product, ADONIS, that is well-integrated. The web-based tool also integrates with tools such as Atlassian’s Confluence for faster data capture and evolution.
Major use cases:
- Creating an enterprise-wide model so all team members can understand and improve the stack
- Providing full access to EA data while away from a desktop with the ADOIT mobile app
- Orchestrating tech mergers and acquisitions through thorough mapping of assets
BiZZdesign HoriZZon
The philosophy from BiZZdesign is to use its tool HoriZZon to model business workflows and the tech stack that supports them. HoriZZon offers a graph-based model for collecting data from all stakeholders so its analytics engine can generate charts illustrating the current state of the system. Managing change and planning for the future is a big emphasis for BiZZdesign and HoriZZon is designed to help manage the risk of redesign. The tool set supports major standards such as ArchiMate, TOGAF, and BPMN.
Main use cases:
- Anticipating future demands through predictive modeling
- Working with both business and tech architecture to orchestrate workflows
- Anticipate issues with risk, security, and governance by modeling data security needs.
Capsifi
Jalapeno from Capsifi creates business models in its cloud-based platform. The goal is not just capturing the workflow in a model but enabling leadership to understand enough to drive a transformation through innovation. The software allows users to knit together modeling concepts such as “customer journeys” or “value stream” and to integrate this with data gathered from tools such as Jira. This data can yield metrics reported through a collection of charts and gauges designed to measure progress or “burndown.”
Main use cases:
- Planning strategically for the future of the enterprise stacks
- Creating a nexus of communication to coordinate all enterprise stakeholders
- Managing continuous transformation through Kanban-style tools for agile teams.
Capstera
The Business Architecture tool from Capstera focuses on creating a map of the business architecture itself. The value and process maps help define and track the roles of the various sections of the business. The connections to the underlying software and tools can be added along the way.
Main use cases:
- Producing reports that explore the business architecture first
- Thinking about the connections between people, divisions, and work requirements
- Developing strategic summaries for long-term planning
Clausmark Bee360
The team members who turn to Clausmark’s flagship product Bee360 (formerly known as Bee4IT) are coming for a system designed to offer a simple source of truth about a business’s workflow so that many roles can make smarter decisions. The system also offers the ability to track and allocate costs with Bee360 FM (financial management).
Main use cases:
- Empowering C-suite level management of projects and asset allocation
- Evolving an accurate digital twin for both understanding current data flows and planning future enhancements
- Building an integrated knowledge base to track all digital workflows
EAS
The Essential package from EAS or Enterprise Architecture Solutions began as an open-source project and evolved into a commercially-available cloud solution. It creates a metamodel describing the interactions between systems and business processes. The commercial version includes packages for tracking some common business workflows such as data management or GDPR compliance.
Main use cases:
- Evaluating the technical maturity of your architecture
- Driving security and governance through better tracking of all assets
- Controlling and managing complexity as it evolves in your system.
LeanIX Enterprise Architecture Suite
The LeanIX collection of tools includes Enterprise Architecture Management and several other tools that perform tasks such as SaaS Management and Value Stream Management to track cloud deployments and the services that run on them. Together, they collect data on your IT infrastructure and present it in a graphical dashboard. The tool is tightly integrated with several major cloud workflow tools, including Confluence, Jira, Signavio, and Lucidchart, an advantage for teams that are already using these to plan and execute development strategies.
Main use cases:
- Managing application modernization and cloud migration
- Evaluating obsolescence for software services
- Controlling and managing cost
Mega Hopex
Mega built the Hopex platform to support modeling enterprise applications while understanding the business workflows they support. Data governance and risk management are a big part of the equation. The tool is built on Azure and relies on a collection of open standards, including GraphQL and REST queries, to gather information from component systems. Reporting is integrated with Microsoft’s Office tools as well as graphical solutions such as Tableau and Qllk.
Main use cases:
- Deriving data-driven insights to guide cloud and application deployment
- Creating accurate models of usage to understand architectural demands
- Capturing an estimate of demand with surveys and other tools to plan for future needs
Orbus Software iServer
Orbus originally built its iServer tools on the Microsoft stack and its product will be familiar and usable to any team that’s tightly aligned with Microsoft’s tools. Reports emerge in Microsoft Word. The data is formatted for Excel. Everything runs well on Azure. The tools aren’t limited to Microsoft environments because its collection of modules support the dominant, open standards for integration to gather data. They’re expanding connections to other reporting platforms such as ServiceNow and LucidCharts.
Main use cases:
- Controlling security and compliance risks through better visibility and deeper vision of the underlying architecture
- Destroying information silos in organizations by opening up access and spreading understanding
- Managing technical debt and cloud migration
Planview Enterprise One
Planview offers a constellation of products for tracking teamwork, processes, and enterprise architecture. Its enterprise tools are broken into three tiers for Strategic Portfolio Management, Product Portfolio Management, and Project Portfolio Management. Together they create databases of machines and software layers that deliver role-based views for managers and team members. The tool is integrated with common ticket-tracking systems such as Jira for creating workflow analytics and reporting. Planview has integrated tools formerly known as Daptiv, Barometer, and Projectplace that were acquired during a merger.
Main use cases:
- Building a long-term, strategic vision for architectural evolution
- Tracking development work at a project-level and integrating this into any strategy
- Focusing on customer experience and product structure to drive change
QualiWare Enterprise Architecture
The Enterprise Architecture tool from QualiWare is part of a broad collection of modeling tools aimed at capturing all business processes. It offers a clean slate for building a digital twin that can document just how a customer’s journey progresses. The company is integrating various artificial intelligence algorithms to enhance both documentation and process discovery.
Main use cases:
- Establishing a collaborative ecosystem for business managers to understand the enterprise architecture
- Capturing architectural design elements to build a knowledge ecosystem around the stack
- Encouraging broad participation in documentation creation and review
Quest Erwin Evolve
Quest’s Erwin Evolve tool began life as a data modeling system and grew to offer enterprise architecture and business process modeling. Teams can use customized data structures to capture the complexity of modern, interlocking software systems and the business workflows that they manage. The web-based tool creates models that generate role-based graphs and other visualizations that form dashboards for all team members. They also have an AI-based modeling tool that can integrate white board sketches.
Main use cases:
- Building a digital twin for strategic modeling of the enterprise data architecture
- Understanding customer journeys through outward facing systems
- Tracking services and systems using application portfolio management
ServiceNow
The collection of tools from ServiceNow are broken down to focus on particular types of the architecture, including Assets, DevOps, Security, or Service. They catalog the various machines and software platforms to map and understand the various workflows and dataflows in the enterprise. Careful analysis of the reports and dashboards can minimize risk and build resilience into the system.
Main use cases:
- Tracking possible assets, services, and systems defining the enterprise
- Uniting governance issues, risk containment, and IT management and security operations in a single platform
- Managing customer-facing services by integrating CRM tools
Software AG Alfabet
Alfabet is one of a large collection of products for managing APIs, cloud computing, and applications supporting devices from the internet of things. The system gathers information from a variety of interfaces and produces hundreds if not thousands of potential reports filled with lifecycle maps, charts, rankings, and geographic coordinates. While traditionally Software AG offers tools such as ADABAS that are closely aligned with IBM’s offerings, Alfabet offers tight integration with all major platforms, including collaboration spaces such as Microsoft Teams. Its latest version will include an audible option, Alfabot, that delivers a “conversational user interface.”
Major use cases:
- Driving change through tracking projects and running code
- Enforcing compliance and software standards
- Using reports, maps, and dashboards to implement business-driven change
Sparx
Sparx created four levels of its tool so that teams of various sizes can tackle projects of various sizes and complexity. All offer UML-based modeling that tracks the parts of increasingly complex systems. A simulation engine enables war gaming and understanding how failure can propagate and cascade, an essential part of disaster planning. Sparx recognizes that models can be built for a variety of reasons from pure analysis, software development, or strategic planning, and they’ve provided hundreds of potential pre-built design patterns to guide modeling.
Major use cases:
- Simulating changes in demand and load to understand and project future needs
- Tracing problems and potential issues through a matrix of connections
- Generating documentation
Unicom System Architect
One of the offerings from Unicom’s TeamBlue is System Architect, a tool that uses a metamodel to gather as much data about the running systems automatically, sometimes through reverse engineering the data flows. This system wide data model can be presented in user-customizable dashboards for team members of all roles. Forward-looking managers can also start simulations to help optimize resource allocation.
Major use cases:
- Asking “what if” questions about the architectural model
- Building a meta-model of data and systems
- Creating migration and transformation plans
ValueBlue Blue Dolphin
ValueBlue’s BlueDolphin gathers data in three ways. First, it depends on standards-driven automation (ITSM, SAM) to import basic data. Second, it works with architects and systems designers in file formats such as ArchiMate or BPMN. Finally, it surveys other stakeholders with questionnaires driven by customizable templates. All of this is delivered in a visual environment that tracks the historical evolution of systems.
Major use cases:
- Gathering system-wide data from internal and external stakeholders through automated and form-based collection
- Generating forward-looking reports to monitor and drive change
- Nurturing cooperation and collaboration through open data reporting
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