TOGAF® Version 9.1- in 3 minutes

1 Title/current version

TOGAF® Version 9.1, an Open Group Standard

2 The basics

TOGAF® – the Enterprise Architecture standard used by the world’s leading organizations to improve business efficiency.

3 Summary

TOGAF®, is a proven Enterprise Architecture methodology and framework used by the world’s leading organizations to improve business efficiency. It is the most prominent and reliable Enterprise Architecture standard, ensuring consistent standards, methods, and communication among Enterprise Architecture professionals. Enterprise Architecture professionals fluent in TOGAF standards enjoy greater industry credibility, job effectiveness, and career opportunities. TOGAF helps practitioners avoid being locked into proprietary methods, utilize resources more efficiently and effectively, and realize a greater return on investment.

TOGAF has been continuously evolved and improved by the members of The Open Group since it was first published by them in 1995. The Open Group is a global consortium that enables the achievement of business objectives through IT standards. With more than 400 member organizations, the diverse membership spans all sectors of the IT community — customers, systems and solutions suppliers, tool vendors, integrators and consultants, as well as academics and researchers.

TOGAF Version 9.1 is a maintenance update to TOGAF 9, addressing comments raised since the introduction of TOGAF 9 in 2009. It retains the major features and structure of TOGAF 9, thereby preserving existing investment in TOGAF, and adds further detail and clarification to what is already proven.

The standard is divided into seven parts:

PART I (Introduction): This part provides a high-level introduction to the key concepts of Enterprise Architecture and in particular the TOGAF approach. It contains the definitions of terms used throughout TOGAF and release notes detailing the changes between this version and the previous version of TOGAF

PART II (Architecture Development Method): This is the core of TOGAF. It describes the TOGAF Architecture Development Method (ADM) – a step-by-step approach to developing an Enterprise Architecture

PART III (ADM Guidelines & Techniques): This part contains a collection of guidelines and techniques available for use in applying TOGAF and the TOGAF ADM

PART IV (Architecture Content Framework): This part describes the TOGAF content framework, including a structured metamodel for architectural artifacts, the use of re-usable architecture building blocks, and an overview of typical architecture deliverables

PART V (Enterprise Continuum & Tools): This part discusses appropriate taxonomies and tools to categorize and store the outputs of architecture activity within an enterprise

PART VI (TOGAF Reference Models): This part provides a selection of architectural reference models, which includes the TOGAF Foundation Architecture and the Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model (III-RM)

PART VII (Architecture Capability Framework): This part discusses the organization, processes, skills, roles, and responsibilities required to establish and operate an architecture function within an enterprise

Figure: Components of TOGAF
Source: The Open Group

Central to TOGAF is the Architecture Development Method (documented in TOGAF, Part II). The architecture capability (documented in TOGAF, Part VII) operates the method. The method is supported by a number of guidelines and techniques (documented in TOGAF, Part III). This produces content to be stored in the repository (documented in TOGAF, Part IV), which is classified according to the Enterprise Continuum (documented in TOGAF, Part V). The repository is initially populated with the TOGAF Reference Models (documented in TOGAF, Part VI).

4 Target audience

Enterprise architects, business architects, IT architects, data architects, systems architects, solutions architects; architecture service providers and tools suppliers.

5 Scope

TOGAF can be used for developing a broad range of different Enterprise Architectures.

TOGAF complements, and can be used in conjunction with, other frameworks that are more focused on specific deliverables for particular vertical sectors such as Government, Telecommunications, Manufacturing, Defense, and Finance. The key to TOGAF is the method – the TOGAF Architecture Development Method (ADM) – for developing an Enterprise Architecture that addresses business needs.

TOGAF covers the development of four related types of architecture. These four types of architecture are commonly accepted as subsets of an overall Enterprise Architecture, all of which TOGAF is designed to support. They are shown on the following page.

Architecture Type	Description
Business Architecture	The business strategy, governance, organization, and key business processes.
Data Architecture	The structure of an organization’s logical and physical data assets and data management resources.
Application Architecture	A blueprint for the individual applications to be deployed, their interactions, and their relationships to the core business processes of the organization.
Technology Architecture	The logical software and hardware capabilities that are required to support the deployment of business, data, and application services. This includes IT infrastructure, middleware, networks, communications, processing, and standards.