Open-source enterprise architecture tools

Open-source enterprise architecture tools are a class of enterprise architecture tool that are licensed such that they can be freely used, extended and modified by anyone. Traditionally, enterprise architecture tools are proprietary based and require a license and sometimes a support contract to be purchased. Some open source EA Tools are also free of charge.
Overview
Enterprise architecture is concerned with understanding the detail of an organisation, and the links between them. The organisation is usually broken down into a number of layers; business, information, application and technology and these are viewed through a number of abstractions, conceptual, logical, and physical. The information is captured and modelled to allow senior management to report on and analyse it, allowing effective and timely decision making regarding tactical projects and strategic change initiatives across the organisation.
Enterprise architecture tools are used to aid the enterprise architect in a number of ways; allowing them to capture information regarding the enterprise, undertake modelling in all domains, capture the links between the various artefacts, provide a meta model to standardise the capture and hold this information in a repository to allow interrogation of the information, for example in the form of standard or ad-hoc reports.
Traditionally, enterprise architecture tools are proprietary and have a reputation for being expensive to purchase, customise and run. In a 2009 report over 50% of respondents claimed not to be using a commercial EA Tool, with many making use of Visio, PowerPoint, Excel and/or SharePoint only and a 2008 survey indicated the cost of licensing as the main barrier for EA Tool adoption.
There are a number of underlying issues for organisations that use Visio, PowerPoint, Excel and/or SharePoint rather than an EA Tool:
* the information captured quickly becomes out of date through the de-synchronisation of the deployed architecture and the model;
* difficulties in maintaining and enforcing a consistent meta-model and
* overhead required to efficiently derive intelligence and value from the models.
Requirements of an enterprise architecture tool
The Gartner Group has defined the requirements of an EA tool as being:-
* A repository
* A meta model that supports business, information and technology viewpoints as well as the solution architecture
* Provides support within the repository for relationships among and between the objects in the above viewpoints and solution architecture
* The ability to create or import models and artefacts
* The ability to extract repository information to support various stakeholder needs.
Open-source examples
Recently a number of Open Source EA Tools have appeared, providing an alternative to the commercial tools on the market. There are two main tools that provide the modelling capabilities necessary, combined with the means for multi user capture of the architecture and the ability to extract and report on the information captured. These are Essential and iteraplan.
Archi
Archi is a free, open source, cross-platform tool and editor to create Archimate models.
Developed by Institute for Educational Cybernetics at the University of Bolton and funded by JISC,Archi is targeted toward all levels of Enterprise Architects and Enterprise Modellers. It is intended to provide a low cost to entry solution to users who may be making their first steps in the ArchiMate language or who are looking for a cross-platform ArchiMate modelling tool for their company or institution. Archi fulfils the needs of most Enterprise Architects and associated stakeholders, but it can also be regarded as an introductory ArchiMate tool for those wishing to engage with the language before committing to a commercial solution.
The Essential Project
Essential is a free, open source tool by Enterprise Architecture Solutions Ltd, a UK-based EA consulting company. It launched its first version in March 2009.
The Essential Project has been developed for use in conjunction with a variety of Enterprise Architecture approaches and Enterprise Architecture framework. It comprises:-
Following its open source ethos, The Essential Project is built on the open source Protégé repository and is available under the GNU General Public License.
MappIT
MappIT is a free, tool by FrankITecture Solutions, an Italian consulting company. It launched its first version in February 2011.
The tool is made available under the GNU General Public License.
iteraplan
iteraplan is an Open source tool to manage Enterprise architecture with focus on the IT landscape. The aim of iteraplan is to quickly introduce EAM into an organisation, enable tool support for managing the enterprise architecture and facilitate collaboration between different EA relevant stakeholders, such as enterprise architects, project managers, IT staff.
iteraplan is also available as an Enterprise Edition, which is built on the same code base as the open source project but adds Oracle and MySQL support, multi-user mode with roles and permissions management including LDAP connection, and an import interface. The Enterprise Edition is offered with full maintenance/support.
Customer references are mainly in Germany and Austria, and increasingly in North America. The web-interface of iteraplan is available in English, German, Spanish, French, Bulgarian and Swedish, most of them added as community contributions.
Modelio
Modelio is an Open Source UML tool developed by Modeliosoft, based in Paris, France. It supports the UML2 and BPMN2 standards. The core software is released under the GPL and key APIs are licensed under the more permissive APL.
Analyst view
Recent surveys have shown that over half of all Enterprise Architecture initiatives are not using commercial EA tools. In fact many still rely on Visio, PowerPoint and Excel as their EA tool of choice.
A Forrester Report has shown that there are many reasons for this slow uptake in EA tools, but one solution that is quickly gathering pace is Open Source EA Tools. Not only do open source tools give savings in license costs, but they also provide many other benefits such as:
* Removing the need to cost justify an expensive tool before use
* Concentrating on the needs of an EA team, rather than expensive features that many EA teams will not use for some time, if at all
* Providing an open and extensible meta-model that is easy to customise if required
* Providing an openness and ease of customisation in reporting that commercial tools are unable to provide
* Allowing EA teams to actively contribute to and shape the tool
Butler Group believes it would be unwise to embark on enterprise architecture, and impossible to fully realise the benefits, without assistance from a tool specifically designed to support such an approach and they suggest an open source alternative is something that organisations should consider if lack of financial resources is preventing the use of a tool.

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