Research On Enterprise Information Architecture

Based on the concept of Information Architecture (IA), presented by the famous architect Mr. Wurman, this article examined the content of Enterprise Information Architecture (EIA) and the approaches to realize it in five sections.In the first section, the background about how IA appeared, the area involved and its development in China and abroad were introduced. The concepts of IA in a narrow and broad sense were discussed. The deficiency of current study on IA in China was summarized, based on the previous study.In the second section, the purpose of studying IA was discussed. A series of issues concerning knowledge management and information collecting in enterprises were presented. The solutions to the problems were found to tally with the idea of I A. Thus the significance of EIA for enterprise study was summarized and the assumption of constructing EIA was put forward.The author endowed the third section with the actual content of EIA. EIA is composed of five parts. They are Information Resource Architecture, Information technology Architecture, Business Process Rearrangement, Content Management System and Enterprise Information Portal. Although the five parts appear to be able to serve as an independent system, operation process or tool in an enterprise each, each one of them is indispensable to EIA.Here the approaches to realize EIA were explored. Using the theory and method of enterprise modeling and enterprise model system for reference, the author presented nine procedure charts to construct the EIA pattern of three layers, with full and accurate elaboration on each pattern and procedure as follows. And that is what the fourth section is about.The first one is a strategic layer, including constructing a leading group of enterprise information architecture, analyzing the status of the enterprise itself, the environment and its strategic goal.The functional layer defines the fundamental architecture, including data infrastructure, computer infrastructure, information model, system architecture and enterprise management dimension, which refers to specific strategic functions.The operational layer illustrates the specific operational process of the five component architectures of the functional layer.At the end of the article, the results of enterprise information architecture were discussed and analyzed, with the limits in this study pointed out.