A Probabilistic Enterprise Architecture Model Evolution

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a widely accepted means to ease the alignment of IS projects with enterprise-wide objectives. One central artifact of EA are EA models, which provide a holistic view on the organization and support EA's stakeholder to create added value. As EA collects its data from different sources, the data can be contradictory. This work contributes to existing research by proposing a novel approach to deal with contradictory data without solving the thereby caused conflicts. In order to achieve this objective, we refine the Predictive, Probabilistic Architecture Modeling Framework (P2AMF) introduced by Johnson et al., which already incorporates a way to represent uncertainty regarding the existence of modelled entities. To make our technique usable, we generalize P2AMF from its UML/OCL notation to a graph presentation in order to apply it to EA models notated in arbitrary notations like ArchiMate. Furthermore, we add alternative scenarios in different versions along a time series to meet the requirements of a distributed EA evolution. To show the applicability of our approach, we developed a proof of concept prototype by implementing the proposed calculations and guidelines on a Neo4j graph database. Last, we argue that our approach meets the stated requirements of a distributed EA evolution.