page_title: Enterprise architecture framework
section_title: Layers of the enterprise architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Enterprise architecture framework / EA framework topics / Layers of the enterprise architecture
caption_attribution_description: English: The FEA is being constructed through a collection of interrelated “reference models” designed to facilitate cross-agency analysis and the identification of duplicative investments, gaps, and opportunities for collaboration within and across Federal Agencies
context_page_description: An enterprise architecture framework defines how to create and use an enterprise architecture. An architecture framework provides principles and practices for creating and using the architecture description of a system. It structures architects' thinking by dividing the architecture description into domains, layers, or views, and offers models - typically matrices and diagrams - for documenting each view. This allows for making systemic design decisions on all the components of the system and making long-term decisions around new design requirements, sustainability, and support.
context_section_description: For many years, it has been common to regard the architecture domains as layers, with the idea that each layer contains components that execute processes and offer services to the layer above. This way of looking at the architecture domains was evident in TOGAF v1 (1996), which encapsulated the technology component layer behind the platform services defined in the "Technical Reference Model" - very much according to the philosophy of TAFIM and POSIX.
  The view of architecture domains as layers can be presented thus:
  Environment (the external entities and activities monitored, supported or directed by the business).
  Business Layer (business functions offering services to each other and to external entities).
  Data Layer (Business information and other valuable stored data)
  Information System Layer (business applications offering information services to each other and to business functions)
  Technology Layer (generic hardware, network and platform applications offering platform services to each other and to business applications).
  Each layer delegates work to the layer below. In each layer, the components, the processes and the services can be defined at a coarse-grained level and decomposed into finer-grained components, processes and services. The graphic shows a variation on this theme.
caption: Example of the federal enterprise architecture, which has defined five architectural layers.[21]
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