Governing the Infrastructure.

With today's dynamic IT and business environments, it's not possible to keep systems or applications completely isolated from one another. There are simply too many required connection points and all evidence highlights the fact that there will be even more in the future. Tomorrow's applications and IT infrastructure must be better integrated and more coordinated in order to dynamically address changing business needs.

That's where an enterprise architecture system like MEGA International's MEGA Modeling Suite comes in. Founded in 1991 in Paris, MEGA International has grown to be an enterprise architecture solutions provider with a business process modeling perspective. With a customer base of more than 2,000, including large enterprises such as Michelin and Philip Morris USA and, more recently, many government agencies, MEGA is an established player in the enterprise architecture market.

Its MEGA Modeling Suite supports a variety of standard data exchange formats including WSDL, BPEL, and UDDI, to enable the end-to-end management of services-oriented architectures. New interfaces released in the MEGA Modeling Suite, including IBM WebSphere Integration Developer, SoftwareAG CentraSite, and Systar BusinessBridge, enable organizations to more quickly integrate  EA and BPA efforts with leading BPM, SOA, and BAM solutions.

But good enterprise architecture isn't just an IT requirement. It's an on-going relationship between the business and its IT infrastructure. MEGA's Advisor component is a good example of how an enterprise architecture tool can help organizations tame, understand and leverage their enterprise infrastructure. MEGA Modeling Suite's MEGA Advisor is an on-demand, Web-based reporting application intended for users that need access to essential business process modeling information. The tool adapts to the viewer's perspective and filters through all of the information in the EA repository to present the relevant information via a Web portal to the user. In effect, the tool provides a way for non-modeling-oriented users to gain access to critical operational data in a way that they can most easily consume it.

For most organizations, a phased approach to enterprise architecture is an appropriate solution. In fact, related projects such as business intelligence or business process management can be good jumping off points for implementing an enterprise architecture solution with tangible business benefits. For example, MEGA offers a four-layer framework to define how enterprise architecture can be implemented with tangible business benefits.

In the end, good enterprise architecture relies on close communication between business and IT. A good architecture will reflect business needs and be responsive to business changes.