A Petri-Nets Based Unified Modeling Approach for Zachman Framework Cells

Abstract

With a trend toward becoming more and more information based, enterprises constantly attempt to surpass the accomplishments of each other by improving their information activities. In this respect, Enterprise Architecture (EA) has proven to serve as a fundamental concept to accomplish this goal. Enterprise architecture clearly provides a thorough outline of the whole enterprise applications and systems with their relationships to enterprise business goals. To establish such an outline, a logical framework needs to be laid upon the entire information system called Enterprise Architecture Framework (EAF). Among various proposed EAF, Zachman Framework (ZF) has been widely accepted as a standard scheme for identifying and organizing descriptive representations that have critical roles in enterprise management and development. One of the problems faced in using ZF is the lack of formal and verifiable models for its cells. In this paper, we proposed a formal language based on Petri nets in order to obtain verifiable models for all cells in ZF. The presented method helps developers to validate and verify completely integrated business and IT systems which results in improve the effectiveness or efficiency of the enterprise itself.