Visualizing and measuring enterprise architecture
Subtitle: an exploratory biopharma case
By: Robert Lagerstrom, Carliss Y. Baldwin, Alan MacCormack, David Dreyfus
Contributors: Baldwin, Carliss Y. (Carliss Young); MacCormack, Alan; Dreyfus, David; Harvard Business School
Series: Working paper / Harvard Business School -- 13-105; Working paper (Harvard Business School) -- 13-105
Publisher: Harvard Business School
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Boston]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 19
Description: We test a method that was designed and used previously to reveal the hidden internal architectural structure of software systems. The focus of this paper is to test if it can also uncover new facts about the components and their relationships in an enterprise architecture, i.e., if the method can reveal the hidden external structure between architectural components. Our test uses data from a biopharmaceutical company. In total, we analyzed 407 components and 1,157 dependencies. Results show that the enterprise structure can be classified as a core-periphery architecture with a propagation cost of 23%, core size of 32%, and architecture flow through of 67%. We also found that business components can be classified as control elements, infrastructure components as shared, and software applications as belonging to the core. These findings suggest that the method could be effective in uncovering the hidden structure of an enterprise architecture.
Notes: "June 2013."--Publisher's Web site.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 18-19 unnumbered).