The ArchiMate Forum members had the new version on their desk for quite some time. I think The Open Group coordinated the release intentionally with its ongoing conference in San Franscisco and let me wait for it 😉 Anyway the version 2.0 contains the main enhancements as I expected:
- The motivation and implementation/migration extensions are integrated as optional language extensions to the core language,
- the terms are slightly aligned to the TOGAF and
- of course they included corrections and improvements.
You can find more information on ArchiMate 2.0 on the official web page http://theopengroup.org/archimate/.
In the next weeks I’ll have a closer look at the version 2.0. Particularly I’m interested in two aspects in relation to the new version:
- The tool support of ArchiMate 2.0 and
- the Plateau and Gap elements within the Implementation and Migration extension.
The vendors who want to support the newly introduced extensions the language will be posed to some challenges with respect to implementation of the ArchiMate metamodel. I assume this to be a challenge because the linkage between the motivational aspects and the core elements and the implementation/migration concepts and the core elements respectively is required to be highly flexible.
The Plateau and Gap elements of the Implementation and Migration extension are to my mind a bad approach to model different architectures (e.g. as is, to be and transition architectures).
But later more on that…
As an enterprise architect I’ve just been looking for further information about ArchiMate 2.0 and found your blog which just lists all the topics that were also relevant for me in the last months. Thanks for summarizing all the information about new standards and the topics you are interested in. I’m looking forward to read more on your blog.
Do you already know tools that support all the notation elements (including the extensions)?
What is your opinion concerning the metamodel differences between TOGAF and ArchiMate (some more in ArchiMate than in the Content Metamodel and some different names)?
Hi Florian,
thanks for your comment and the questions!
One tool I know supporting ArchiMate 2.0 is ABACUS by Avolution. We’ve been using the ArchiMate 1.0 standard and configured the extensions by ourselfs and with the support by Avolution team. Since this tool is very flexible with respect to the metamodel this was work for some hours. Avolution provides a metamodel library containing the ArchiMate 1.0 standard and both extensions. We’ve been using the extension since they were white papers by BizzDesign. With ArchiMate 2.0 there are some changes with respect to the extensions described in the white papers. Meanwhile the Avolution team has made an ArchiMate 2.0 library available. Today at 16:00 GMT there’s a Open Group Webinar hosted by Avolution. Have a look at this session (or afterwards watch the replay) because I suppose that the new ArchiMate 2.0 standard will be part of the discussion.
To my mind the TOGAF Content Model is (as described within and intented by TOGAF itself) a straightforward metamodel which is used to illustrate and define the ADM. It is of course a good starting point but when you want to elaborate enhanced models and view you should have a look at ArchiMate. You don’t have to use all the elements and relationships but use it as a universe of potential modeling elements and their relationships and especially reuse the semantics by ArchiMate. Of course ArchiMate is not complete at all but as far as I know it is the most comprehensive specification of an EA metamodel.
Regards,
Stefan