Glossary

ArchiMate

This standard is the specification of the ArchiMate Enterprise Architecture modeling language, a visual language with a set of default iconography for describing, analyzing, and communicating many concerns of Enterprise Architectures as they change over time. The standard provides a set of entities and relationships with their corresponding iconography for the representation of Architecture Descriptions.

API Management

API management is the set of people, processes and technology that enables an organization to safely and securely publish APIs, either internally or externally. Common components include an API gateway, developer portal, and administrative UI with reporting and analytics capabilities. Some API management solutions include monetization capabilities.

Application

A system for collecting, saving, processing, and presenting data by means of a computer. The term application is generally used when referring to a component of software that can be executed. The terms application and software application are often used synonymous. An application can consist of more parts (application components) in backend, middleware and frontend. Also Application and Infrastructure process. An application can consist of more parts (application components) in backend, middleware and frontend.

Application component

An application component represents an encapsulation of application functionality aligned to implementation structure, which is modular and replaceable.

Application platform

An application platform is a collection of technology components of hardware and software that provide the services used to support applications.

Application suite

An application suite is a collection of software programs that are bundled and sold together as a package. Each program in the suite has a related functionality and can exchange data with each other. An application suite usually has a similar user interface and a single installer.

Assessment

An assessment represents the result of an analysis of the state of affairs of the enterprise with respect to some driver.

Asset

An asset is an item, thing or entity that has potential or actual value to an organization. The value will vary between different organizations and their stakeholders, and can be tangible or intangible, financial or non-financial.

Asset Management (AM)

Asset management is all coordinated activity of an organization to realize value from assets.

Asset Management system

An asset management system is a management system for asset management whose function is to establish the management policy and asset management objectives.

Back-End

Back-end is defined as the server side of a client/server system.

Business function

A business function represents a collection of business behavior based on a chosen set of criteria such as required business resources and/or competencies and is managed or performed as a whole.

Business Information Modelling (BIM)

BIM is the use of a shared digital representation of a built asset to facilitate design, construction and operation processes to form a reliable basis for decisions

Business object

A business object represents a concept used within a particular business domain.

Capability

A capability represents an ability that (an active structure element, such as) an organization, person, or system, possesses.

Citizen developer

A citizen developer is an employee who creates application capabilities for consumption by themselves or others, using tools that are not actively forbidden by IT or business units. A citizen developer is a persona, not a title or targeted role. They report in general to a business unit or function other than IT.

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.

Common

Differs from general in implying participation, use, or a sharing by all members of the class, group, or community of persons or, less often, of things under consideration. Used to differentiate between this quite similar terms...

Common Data Environment (CDE)

A CDE is an agreed source of information for any given project or asset, for collecting, managing and disseminating each information container through a managed process. An information container is a named persistent set of information retrievable from within a file, system or application storage hierarchy.

Common (IT) Platform

A computer or hardware device and/or associated operating system, or a virtual environment, on which software can be installed or run and must be, used by more stakeholders. See definition common platform below …

Common platform

A platform that is, so must be, used by more stakeholders.

Continues Integration (CI)

Continuous integration (CI) systems provide automation of the software build and validation process driven in a continuous way by running a configured sequence of operations every time a software change is checked into the source code management repository. These are closely associated with agile development practices and closely related to the emerging DevOps toolsets.

Constraint

A constraint represents a limitation on aspects of the architecture, its implementation process, or its realization.
In contrast to a requirement, a constraint does not prescribe some intended functionality of the system to be realized but imposes a restriction on the way it operates or may be realized.

Customer

Data Fabric

A data fabric is an emerging data management design for attaining flexible, reusable and augmented data integration pipelines, services and semantics. A data fabric supports both operational and analytics use cases delivered across multiple deployment and orchestration platforms and processes. Data fabrics support a combination of different data integration styles and leverage active metadata, knowledge graphs, semantics and ML to augment data integration design and delivery.

Data Governance

Data governance is the specification of decision rights and an accountability framework to ensure the appropriate behavior in the valuation, creation, consumption and control of data and analytics.

Data Hub

An IT infrastructure focused on organizing, often subset, collections of data from multiple sources for (re)distribution and sharing. "Server-less" is a misnomer in the sense that servers are still used by cloud service providers to execute code for developers.

Data Integration

The discipline of data integration comprises the practices, architectural techniques and tools for achieving the consistent access and delivery of data across the spectrum of data subject areas and data structure types in the enterprise to meet the data consumption requirements of all applications and business processes.

Data Lake

A data lake is a concept consisting of a collection of storage instances of various data assets. These assets are stored in a near-exact, or even exact, copy of the source format and are in addition to the originating data stores.

Data Mesh

Data mesh is a cultural and organizational shift for data management focusing on federation technology that emphasizes the authority of localized data management. Data mesh is intended to enable easily accessible data by the business. Data assets are analyzed for usage patterns by subject matter experts, who determine data affinity, and then the data assets are organized as data domains. Domains are contextualized with business context descriptors. Subject matter experts use the patterns and domains to define and create data products. Data products are registered and made available for reuse relative to business needs.

Data Warehouse

A data warehouse is a storage architecture designed to hold data extracted from transaction systems, operational data stores and external sources. The warehouse then combines that data in an aggregate, summary form suitable for enterprise wide data analysis and reporting for predefined business needs.

DataOps

Data ops is the hub for collecting and distributing data, with a mandate to provide controlled access to systems of record for customer and marketing performance data, while protecting privacy, usage restrictions and data integrity.

DevOps

DevOps represents a change in IT culture, focusing on rapid IT service delivery through the adoption of agile, lean practices in the context of a system-oriented approach. DevOps emphasizes people (and culture), and it seeks to improve collaboration between operations and development teams. DevOps implementations utilize technology — especially automation tools that can leverage an increasingly programmable and dynamic infrastructure from a life cycle perspective.

DevSecOps

DevSecOps is the integration of security into emerging agile IT and DevOps development as seamlessly and as transparently as possible. Ideally, this is done without reducing the agility or speed of developers or requiring them to leave their development toolchain environment.

Digital Platform

A digital platform is a foundation of self-service APIs, tools, services, knowledge and support which are arranged as a compelling internal product. Autonomous delivery teams can make use of the platform to deliver product features at a higher pace, with reduced co-ordination. 
https://martinfowler.com/articles/talk-about-platforms.html

Digital Twin

A digital twin is a dynamic virtual representation of physical assets, processes, or systems.

Digital Twin

A digital twin is a dynamic - past, now and (already defined) future data-consisting - real-world virtual representation of monitorable, so connected or to-be connected, unique physical assets, processes (where assets are used in), or systems delivering smart solutions by integrating - in principle - cross-domain services (realized by those assets, processes or systems), using smart software (as machine learning, simulation, VR/ AR) for understanding and interacting with the actual physical world and shaping the future world with the objective of getting better performance and/or reduced risks.

The comprehensive definition of a digital twin. A digital twin can be used for understanding (and interacting with) the actual world and shaping the future world.

Driver

A driver represents an external or internal condition that motivates an organization to define its goals and implement the changes necessary to achieve them.

Eco-system

A (digital) ecosystem is an interdependent group of actors (enterprises, people, things) sharing standardized digital platforms to achieve a mutually beneficial purpose.

Eco-system

Something (such as a network of businesses) considered to resemble an ecological ecosystem especially because of its complex interdependent parts.

Edge

The edge is the physical location where things and people connect with the networked, digital world.

Edge Computing

Edge computing is part of a distributed computing topology where information processing is located close to the edge, where things and people produce or consume that information.

Enterprise

An enterprise is a human undertaking or venture that has explicit and clearly defined mission, goals, and objectives to offer products or services, or to achieve a desired project outcome or business outcome.

Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise architecture is the conceptualization of the form, function, and fitness-for-purpose of an enterprise in its environment, as embodied in the elements of the enterprise, the relationships between those elements, the relationship of the enterprise to its environment and the principles guiding the design and evolution of the enterprise.

Enterprise Architecture

The fundamental concepts or properties of a system in its environment embodied in its elements, relationships, and in the principles of its design and evolution. As in Togaf 9.2

Enterprise Architecture

The structure of components, their inter-relationships, and the principles and guidelines
governing their design and evolution over time.

Epic

An Epic is a significant solution development initiative. An epic can be an enabling or business epic and has about a one year dimension.

Equipment

Equipment represents one or more physical machines, tools, or instruments that can create, use, store, move, or transform materials.

Feature

A Feature represents solution functionality that delivers business value, fulfills a stakeholder need. A feature is sized to be delivered by an Agile Release Train within a PI. So, this is mostly quarterly based.

Foundation

A basis upon which something stands or is supported.

Foundation

A Foundation is an underlying basis of IT and organisational components on which IT services can be produced or consumed.

Framewok (enterprise)

A framework is a structure expressed in diagrams, text and formal rules which relates the elements of an enterprise architecture to each other.

Framework (software)

A style guide that defines the look, feel and interoperability of software applications.

General

Can imply reference to all, either of a precisely definable group (as a class, type, or species) or of a more or less loosely or casually combined or associated number of items. In contrast to universal , general tends to be used with less precise boundaries and often implies no more than reference to nearly all or to most of the group. Used to differentiate between this quite similar terms...

Generic

Is often used in place of general when a term implying reference to every member of a genus or often of a clearly defined scientific or logical category and the exclusion of all other individuals is needed; thus, a general likeness between two insects may be a likeness that is merely observable, whereas a generic likeness is one that offers proof that they belong to the same genus or that enables a student to assign a hitherto unknown insect to its proper category; the use of words is a general characteristic of writing but the use of meter is a generic characteristic of poetry. Used to differentiate between this quite similar terms ...

Generic service

A service that can be, so should be, used by more stakeholders

Goal

A goal represents a high-level statement of intent, direction, or desired end state for an organization and its stakeholders.

Infrastructure as a Service

The capability provided to the consumer as where the consumer is able to deploy and run arbitrary software, which can include operating systems and applications. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage, and deployed applications; and possibly limited control of select networking components (e.g., host firewalls).A accepted picture is used by everyone (also Microsoft) to describe On premise, IaaS, PaaS and SaaS.

Intangible asset

An intangible asset is a nonphysical asset or resource whose value to a business cannot always be simply recorded on a balance sheet. Examples include business reputation, branding, intellectual property, computer software and unique business processes. Unlike tangible assets – material objects like machinery, equipment, vehicles and inventory – the monetary value of intangible assets can be longer term and can increase a company’s value over time.

iPaaS

Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) is a suite of cloud services enabling development, execution and governance of integration flows connecting any combination of on premises and cloud-based processes, services, applications and data within individual or across multiple organizations.

IT platform

A computer or hardware device and/or associated operating system, or a virtual environment, on which software can be installed or run. 

Market

A market is a group of customers.

Metamodel (architecture)

A model that describes how and with what the architecture will be described in a structured way.

Method

A defined, repeatable approach to address a particular type of problem. A defined, repeatable series of steps to address a particular type of problem, which typically centers on a defined process, but may also include definition of content.

Middleware

Middleware is the software “glue” that helps programs and databases (which may be on different computers) work together. Its most basic function is to enable communication between different pieces of software.

Model

A representation of a subject of interest. A model provides a smaller scale, simplified, and/or abstract representation of the subject matter. A model is constructed as a ‘‘means to an end’’. In the context of enterprise architecture, the subject matter is a whole or part of the enterprise and the end is the ability to construct ‘views’’ that address the concerns of particular stakeholders; i.e., their ‘‘viewpoints’’ in relation to the subject matter.

Model

A model is a representation of certain entities and their characteristics either (a) using a formalism, or (b) using an established or ad hoc modelling paradigm, approach, or technique.

Motivation

Motivation elements are used to model the motivations, or reasons, that guide the design or change of an Enterprise Architecture and therefor of the enterprise.

Motivation stack

A structured framework to get clear the requirements and constraints for a system; starting from stakeholder's drivers via assessments (pain and gains) and goals to outcomes complying to the generic principles of the company.

OLAP

Online analytical processing (OLAP) is a technology that organizes large business databases and supports complex analysis. It can be used to perform complex analytical queries without negatively affecting transactional systems.

OLAP

OLAP (for online analytical processing) is software for performing multidimensional analysis at high speeds on large volumes of data from a data warehouse, data mart, or some other unified, centralized data store. OLAP extracts data from multiple relational data sets and reorganizes it into a multidimensional format that enables very fast processing and very insightful analysis.

OLTP

The management of transactional data using computer systems is referred to as online transaction processing (OLTP). OLTP systems record business interactions as they occur in the day-to-day operation of the organization, and support querying of this data to make inferences.

OLTP

OLTP, or online transactional processing, enables the real-time execution of large numbers of database transactions by large numbers of people, typically over the internet. In OLTP, the common, defining characteristic of any database transaction is its atomicity (or indivisibility)—a transaction either succeeds as a whole or fails (or is canceled). It cannot remain in a pending or intermediate state.

Ontology

An ontology, creates a formal framework that describes anything (not just a taxonomy) by establishing the classes, relationships and constraints that act on the concepts and entities within a given system. In effect, an ontology is the system of classes and relationships that describe the structure of data and the rules that prescribe how a new category or entity is created, how attributes are defined, and how constraints are established.In effect, an ontology is the system of classes and relationships that describe the structure of data, the rules, if you will, that prescribe how a new category or entity is created, how attributes are defined, and how constraints are established. In DB terminology: the ontology is not the data itself, but rather the system that defines the columns and tables (classes, loosely) that each row and each primary key/foreign key relationship uses.

Ontology

An ontology is a representational artefact that describes universals and certain relations among them in
a domain of interest. Ontologies generally do not specify data structures or data types used to represent
particular entities.

Ontology

Collection of terms, relational expressions and associated natural-language definitions together with one or more formal theories designed to capture the intended interpretations of these definitions. Outcomes are high-level, business-oriented results produced by capabilities of an organization, and by inference by the core elements of its architecture that realize these capabilities. Outcomes are tangible, possibly quantitative, and time-related, and can be associated with assessments. An outcome may have a different value for different stakeholders.

Outcome

An outcome represents an end result, effect, or consequence of a certain state of affairs.
Outcomes are tangible, possibly quantitative, and time-related, and can be associated with assessments.
The distinction between goals and outcomes is important. Simply put, a goal is what you want, and an outcome is what you get.

Party

A party is an entity with which to cooperate.

Platform

A platform is a product that serves or enables other products or services.Platforms (in the context of digital business) exist at many levels. They range from high-level platforms that enable a platform business model to low-level platforms that provide a collection of business and/or technology capabilities that other products or services consume to deliver their own business capabilities.Platforms that enable a platform business model have associated business ecosystems. They typically expose their capabilities to members of those ecosystems via APIs.
Platforms (in the context of digital business) exist at many levels. They range from high-level platforms that enable a platform business model to low-level platforms that provide a collection of business and/or technology capabilities that other products or services consume to deliver their own business capabilities.

Platform

A platform is a group of technologies that are used as a base upon which other applications, processes or technologies are developed. In personal computing, a platform is the basic hardware (computer) and software (operating system) on which software applications can be run. From a technology point of view.

Platform

A platform is a business model that creates value by facilitating exchanges between two or more interdependent groups, usually consumers and producers.From a business point of view.
Classification platforms (out-dated?): https://trello.com/b/f02kt8xH/platform-hunt-the-definitive-guide-to-platform-business-models

Platform (digital business)

The capability provided to the consumer is to deploy onto the cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquired applications created using programming languages, libraries, services, and tools supported by the provider. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, or storage, but has control over the deployed applications and possibly configuration settings for the application-hosting environment. PaaS refers to cloud platforms that provide runtime environments for developing, testing, and managing applications. PaaS vendors supply a complete infrastructure for application development, while developers are in charge of the code.

Platform as a Service

A platform is a product that serves or enables other products or services.
Platforms (in the context of digital business) exist at many levels. They range from high-level platforms that enable a platform business model to low-level platforms that provide a collection of business and/or technology capabilities that other products or services consume to deliver their own business capabilities. Platforms that enable a platform business model have associated business ecosystems. They typically expose their capabilities to members of those ecosystems via APIs.
Internal platforms also typically expose their capabilities via APIs. But they may offer other mechanisms, such as direct data access, as required by the products that consume them.

Policy

A policy represents a definite course or method of action selected from among alternatives and in light of given conditions to guide and determine present and future decisions.

Principle

A principle represents a statement of intent defining a general property that applies to any system in a certain context in the architecture. Similar to requirements, principles define intended properties of systems. However, in contrast to requirements, principles are broader in scope and more abstract than requirements.

Process

A process is set of interrelated or interacting activities that use inputs to deliver an intended result. Better in relation to a service provider as Royal HaskoningDHV.

Process

A business process represents a sequence of business behaviors that achieves a specific result such as a defined set of products or business services.

Product

Output of an organization that can be produced without any transaction between the organization and the customer. Also Application and Infrastructure service

Product

A product represents a coherent collection of services and/or passive structure elements, accompanied by a contract/set of agreements, which is offered as a whole to (internal or external) customers.Mostly intangible

Reference architecture

Reference architectures are standardized architectures that provide a frame of reference for a particular domain, sector or field of interest.
Reference models or architectures provide a common vocabulary, reusable designs and industry best practices.They are not solution architectures, i.e. they are not implemented directly. Rather, they are used as a constraint for more concrete architectures. Typically, a reference architecture includes common architecture principles, patterns, building blocks and standards.
Examples: BIAN, ACORD, NORA (and daughters), DODAF, ISA-95, SCOR, APQC.

Requirement

A requirement represents a statement of need defining a property that applies to a specific system as described by the architecture.

RHDHV, off-the-shelf product

A product representing (configurable) application services, accompanied by a contract, directly to be used for external customers.

RHDHV, customized product

A product representing a service-mix consisting of 1. consultancy services, 2, (configurable) application services, 3. implementation/ integration services and 4. support and maintenance services; accompanied by a contract/ set of agreements.

Serverless computing

A cloud computing execution model in which the cloud provider allocates machine resources on demand, taking care of the servers on behalf of their customers.

Service

Output of an organization that can be produced with at least one activity necessary performed between the organization and the customer.

Service

A business service represents explicitly defined behavior that a business role, business actor, or business collaboration exposes to its environment. Mostly tangible.

Software as a Service

The capability provided to the consumer is to use the provider's applications running on a cloud infrastructure. The applications are accessible from various client devices through either a thin client interface, such as a web browser (e.g., web-based email), or a program interface. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, storage, or even individual application capabilities, with the possible exception of limited user-specific application configuration settings.Software as a service is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted.
SaaS apps are typically accessed by users using a thin client, e.g. via a web browser. Software as a service is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted.

Solution Intent

Solution Intent is the repository for storing, managing, and communicating the knowledge of current and intended Solution behavior. Where required, this includes both fixed and variable specifications and designs; reference to applicable standards, system models, and functional and nonfunctional tests; and traceability.

Stakeholder

A stakeholder represents the role of an individual, team, or organization (or classes thereof) that represents their interests in the effects of the architecture.
Examples of stakeholders are the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), the board of directors, shareholders, customers, business and application architects, but also legislative authorities.

Starting point

A starting point represents a statement of intent defining a specific property that applies to one or more systems in a certain context (the scope) of the business transformation.

System

A combination of interacting elements organized to satisfy one or more stated purposes. SaaS apps are typically accessed by users using a thin client, e.g. via a web browser. Where the System is a System of Systems, then its elements will be one or more Constituent System, and where the System is a Constituent System then its elements are one or more System Element. A System can interact with one or more other Systems.

System of Systems

A set of systems or system elements that interact to provide a unique capability that none of the (constituent) systems can accomplish on its own.

Tangible (asset)

Tangible is an adjective that describes something that can be perceived by the senses, especially touch. Also energy, cold, etcetera …

Theme (strategic theme)

Strategic themes are portfolio-level business objectives that provide competitive differentiation and strategic advantage. They provide business context for portfolio strategy and decision-making, representing aspects of the enterprise’s strategic intent. They provide business context for portfolio strategy and decision-making, representing aspects of the enterprise’s strategic intent. So, themes runs over many years.

Twinn

Twinn is the Royal HaskoningDHV's digital platform that provides digital solutions for decision intelligence that help you connect and understand the dynamics across your organisation's physical and digital worlds.
Comprehensive definition adopted by Royal HaskoningDHV.

Twinn

Twinn is the Royal HaskoningDHV's digital platform that provides digital solutions for decision intelligence that help you connect and understand the dynamics across your organisation's physical and digital worlds. Manage your risks and make better informed strategic and operational decisions with the support of our deep domain expertise, software and data. Original on twinn.io: Twinn provides digital solutions for decision intelligence that help you connect and understand the dynamics across your organisation's physical and digital worlds. Manage your risks and make better informed strategic and operational decisions with the support of our deep domain expertise, software and data.

Twinn

A basis delivered by Royal HaskoningDHV (consisting of a common IT platform and generic applications) upon Digital Twins stand or are supported.

Universal

As used chiefly in logic and philosophy implies reference to each one of a whole (as a class, a category, or a genus) without exception; thus, “all men are animals” is a universal affirmative proposition, and “no man is omniscient” is a universal negative proposition; color is a universal attribute of visible objects, but chroma is not used to differentiate between this quite similar terms ...

View

The representation of a related set of concerns. A view is what is seen from a viewpoint. An architecture view may be represented by a model to demonstrate to stakeholders their areas of interest in the architecture. A view does not have to be visual or graphical in nature.