Summarised - 2010

The Architecture Continuum illustrates how architectures are developed and

evolved across a continuum ranging from Foundation Architectures, through

Common Systems Architectures, and Industry Architectures, and to an

enterprise’s own Organization-Specific Architectures.

A Foundation Architecture is an architecture of building blocks and

corresponding standards that supports all the Common Systems Architectures

and, therefore, the complete enterprise operating environment.

Common Systems Architectures guide the selection and integration of specific services

from the Foundation Architecture to create an architecture useful for building common

(i.e., highly reusable) solutions across a wide number of relevant domains.

Examples of Common Systems Architectures include: a security architecture, a

management architecture, a network architecture, an operations architecture, etc. Each

is incomplete in terms of overall system functionality, but is complete in terms of a

particular problem domain (security, manageability, networking, operations, etc.), so that

solutions implementing the architecture constitute re-usable building blocks for the

creation of functionally complete operating states of the enterprise.

Industry Architectures guide the integration of common systems components with

industry specific components, and guide the creation of industry solutions for targeted

customer problems within a particular industry.

A typical example of an industry-specific component is a data model representing the

business functions and processes specific to a particular vertical industry

Organization-Specific Architectures are the most relevant to the IT customer community,

since they describe and guide the final deployment of solution components for a

particular enterprise or extended network of connected enterprises.

There may be a variety of Organization-Specific Architectures that are needed to

effectively cover the organization’s requirements by defining the architectures in

increasing levels of detail. Alter natively, this might result in several more detailed

Organization-Specific Architectures for specific entities within the global enterprise.

Foundation Solutions are

highly generic concepts, tools,

products, ser vices, and

solution components that are

the fundamental providers of

capabilities.

A Common Systems Solution is an

implementation of a Common Systems

Architecture comprised of a set of

products and services, which may be

certified or branded. It represents the

highest common denominator for one

or more solutions in the industry

segments that the Common Systems

Solution supports.

An Industry Solution is an

implementation of an Industry

Architecture, which provides re-usable

packages of common components

and services specific to an industry.

An Organization-Specific Solution is an

implementation of the Organization-

Specific Architecture that provides the

required business functions. Because

solutions are designed for specific

business operations, they contain the

highest amount of unique content in order

to accommodate the varying people and

processes of specific organizations

The TOGAF ADM describes the process of developing an enterprise-specific architecture and an enterprise-specific solution(s) which conform to that architecture by adopting and adapting (where appropriate) generic architectures and solutions (left to right in the continuum classification). In a similar fashion, specific architectures and solutions that prove to be credible and effective will be generalized for re-use (right to left in the continuum classification).

TOGAF itself provides two reference models for consideration for use in developing an organization’s architecture:1. The TOGAF Foundation Architecture, which comprises a TRM of generic services and functions

that provides a firm foundation on which more specific architectures and architectural components can be built.

2. The Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model (III-RM), which is based on the TOGAF Foundation Architecture, and is specifically designed to help the realization of architectures that enable and support the vision of Boundary less Information Flow.

TOGAF Version 9, The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF), 2009

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