TOGAF stands for "The Open Group Architecture Framework." TOGAF is published by The Open Group on its public web site, and may be reproduced freely by any enterprise wishing to use it to develop an enterprise architecture for use within that enterprise.
According to TOGAF, "architecture" has two meanings depending upon its contextual usage:
1. A formal description of a system, or a detailed plan of the system at component level to guide its implementation
2. The structure of components, their inter-relationships, and the principles and guidelines governing their design and evolution over time.
It describes an architecture framework as "a tool which can be used for developing a broad range of different architectures. It should describe a method for designing an information system in terms of a set of building blocks, and for showing how the building blocks fit together. It should contain a set of tools and provide a common vocabulary. It should also include a list of recommended standards and compliant products that can be used to implement the building blocks."
TOGAF looks at four architecture domains:
1. Business (or business process) architecture.This architecture defines the business strategy, governance, organization, and key business processes of the organization
2. Applications architecture.
This architecture provides a blueprint for the individual application systems to be deployed, the interactions between the application systems, and their relationships to the core business processes of the organization
3. Data architecture.
This architecture describes the structure of an organization's logical and physical data assets and the associated data management resources
4. Technology architecture.
This architecture describes the software infrastructure intended to support the deployment of core, mission-critical applications
Information about TOGAF and its Architecture Development Method (ADM) cycle, adapting the ADM, architecture scope, and architecture integration are available from the Open Group.
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