4.6: Toolset
Select an EA Toolset Other Information:
To increase the usefulness of any architecture, it is important to maintain the EA within an interactive architectural tool.
Fortunately, there are many automated architecture tools available on the market today. The choice of tool should be predicated
upon the organization's needs based on the size and complexity of its architecture. The Chief Architect and architecture core
team may use the Office suite of tools (e.g., Microsoft's PowerPoint and Word) and/or modeling tools (e.g., Rational Rose
by Rational Corporation, Systems Architect by Popkin, or Framework by Ptech). There are toolsets available from leading vendors
that can provide alignment with the chosen framework and recommended products. Tool criteria should be determined based on
the intended use of the architecture, scope, levels of integration desired, and other factors. Table 3 lists candidate topics
to aid in the selection of tools. The list can be tailored to a specific set of requirements for tool selection. One tool
will probably not meet all requirements. Therefore, a tool suite or combination of tools will be needed. The work products
should be maintained in several different types of media such as hardcopy documentation (briefings and reports), electronic
files on CD-ROM, HTML documents on the web, and other EA Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools and development
tools that provide a relational database management system.
Indicator(s):
|
