National Enterprise Architecture

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Introduction to Enterprise Architecture (EA)

Enterprise Architecture is a capability and framework, which enables an organization to align its Business and Information Technology (IT) with its strategic objectives. This is more than technology as it concerns the entire organization and identifies all the components (Business functions and IT systems) that make the organization work. It identifies the organization’s core objectives, the components critical to achieving these objectives, and the relationship between each of these components.

In typical Government scenarios, the focus is towards whole-of-government approach and e-enablement of services, Enterprise Architecture plays a critical role in providing a foundation and capability to achieve these goals. A central government will generally have various agencies or ministries that provide a range of services to the citizens, businesses, employees and other agencies. In such a scenario, Enterprise Architecture acts as a guiding factor and a governance mechanism that focuses on aligning resources across the country to improve the performance of each individual agency/ministry, while driving a coordinated effort to deliver a whole-of-government capability.

Benefits of
Enterprise Architecture (EA)

  • Holistic & traceable view of the organization’s capability
    • IT Solutions aligned to Business needs and drivers
    • Target Architectures based on strategic direction of organization
  • Enable informed decision making & impact analysis
    • Reduce costs by streamlining solution development and procurements
    • Reduce risk by restricting technology usage to a predefined set of standards and principles
    • Identify and adopt common approach for shared services (common capability)
    • Increase agility by improved impact and gap analysis
    • Improve integration and interoperability between entities by leveraging standards and guidelines and architecture principles.

The
National Enterprise Architecture Framework (NEAF)



In order to enable the Bahrain Government, as a whole and the government entities individually, to implement and benefit from EA, a framework called National Enterprise Architecture Framework (NEAF) was developed.

NEAF is a customized version of The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF). The customizations done took into consideration the current level of EA adoption and the cultural aspects of the kingdom. NEAF shall cover the development, usage and governance of enterprise standards and architectures.

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