Displaying items by tag: team

LieberLieber is proud to present a brand new Enterprise Architect tool named LemonTree (c). The most important function of this ground-breaking product is the diffing and merging of model versions.

Now, you do not have to lock your packages. Just check-in your eap files in your version control system!

Standard approaches use line- and text-based applications that do not suffice for graphic models. Only the finely-grained 3-way diffing algorithm that considers the model’s graph structure enables an exact comparison between two models.

 LemonTree highlights:

• Diff & Merge: Diffing and merging of Enterprise Architect models
• Model Versioning: Parallel editing of models with optimistic model versioning
• Integration: Seamless integration with Subversion (Tortoise) included
• Automation Interface: Automate LemonTree and integrate it in your versioning tool such as Git, PTC, or SVN
• Model Branches: Branches of models (longer-term, parallel development of versions and variants)
• Merge Preview: Diagram merge and merge preview
• Review: Changes are visualized clearly and understandably for review (including preview)

Stefan Mueller, HIMA Paul Hildebrandt, Safety-Related Automation Solutions: “In general, standards such as IEC 61508 demand the application of configuration management. This applies to all artifacts, including UML models. LemonTree from LieberLieber is our key to revealing the changes that have been made to a revision.”

Test LemonTree now and give us your feedback!

For more information: http://lemontree.lieberlieber.com/

Ability Engineering has recently added three new offerings to their Enterprise Architect training portfolio. 

The first new course is Enterprise Architect for teams. This is completely new content, distilled from many years of experience (and lessons learned the hard way) working in a range of organisations and with many different models. This training covers all the issues that an organisation needs to address in order to make its Enterprise Architect implementation successful.

EA for teams is a day long workshop which covers the practicalities of structuring your models and setting up your project team to work together effectively. Topics include:

• Sharing Enterprise Architect data
• Baselines, XMI and DIFFS
• Reference Data
• Reusable Asset Service
• Security
• Harvesting
• Scripts
• MDGs
• Organisation and Roles
• Rolling out Enterprise Architect

EA in a Day

The EA in a Day format has been developed in response to customer demand, to rapidly bring team members up to speed to focus on a particular technique and how to model it in Enterprise Architect. There are currently two 'flavours' of EA in a Day:

1. EA in a Day: Use Cases

This course covers Best Practice in Use Case modelling using Structured Scenarios. Using examples and exercises, delegates learn how to build 'fully dressed' use cases and some common bear traps to avoid. In the afternoon delegates are then hands on in Enterprise Architect, modelling their morning's work.

2. EA in a Day: BPMN 2.0

This course looks at the technique of business process modeling: when to use it, how to do it, and what tools to use. It doesn’t try to teach everything about BPMN – there’s just too much to take in at one sitting, so we cover a workable, practical sub-set. With examples and exercises to reinforce the concepts.

Using the results of the exercises completed in the morning, we then explore the BPMN 2.0 implementation in Enterprise Architect, model the processes and discover hints and tips to make our analysis clear and, where appropriate, re-useful.

For a full list of Ability Engineering training options, plus details of content and pricing, visit http://www.abilityengineering.co.uk/index.php/training

Collaboration is becoming a new enterprise standard. In the face of the disruptive challenges pending from the Nexus of Forces, successful transition to the maximum utilisation of strategic information technology is a priority for many organisations.  Collaboration enables the enterprise to leverage the strengths of all its parts to increase the chances of success while reducing or eliminating process overlap and resource redundancy. Shared awareness of issues through collaboration encourages trust and builds confidence in individual group members and synergises the collective response to problem resolution. Responding effectively to the challenge of the Nexus of Forces is beyond the capacity of any individual part of the enterprise. 
Gartner says that by 2016, 30% of enterprise architecture (EA) efforts will be supported, as a Business and IT collaboration, a 21% increase from 2011.
Betsy Burton, a vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner said in a 2011 Press release “Organizations that do not focus EA on their business strategy and on collaborating with business leaders will be greatly limited in their ability to deliver substantial business value. To achieve business outcomes and to drive business change, EA value must be collaboratively developed and supported within the context of the business direction, strategy and future vision."

People support what they helped to create and the organization's enterprise architecture plays a key role in the transition to this state.

It is no surprise that in the current atmosphere of technology change that collaboration in the enterprise architecture work space is growing.  In its Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker for 2014 IDC shows that the software market grew by 5.5 percent in 2013 and that the Applications market segment -- which accounts for half of total software revenue -- collaborative applications and content applications stood out with CAGR of 10%. This growth is being driven by the adoption of enterprise social networks and team collaborative applications.
A very recent article in SD Times, reports from the 2014 Collaborative Development trends report by the Linux Foundation that collaborative development is on the rise. Nearly half of business managers surveyed said they got involved in collaborative development because it allows them to innovate and/or help transform their industry. 

A common reference frame that allows individuals to understand what the goal is, and their contribution and role in achieving the goal, is at the heart of any change, whatever it may be.

The NASCIO (National Association of Chief Information Officers) Enterprise Architecture and Governance Committee, conducted a study in 2012 called “What Makes Collaborative Initiatives Work?” and sounded a call to action for the promotion of enterprise architecture best practices for organizing and managing multi-jurisdictional collaboratives. The rationale was that, “If enterprise architecture is essential to managing a single enterprise’s complexity and ongoing change, how much more important in the more complex circumstance of a multi-jurisdictional “enterprise.” collaborations.

Widely accepted standards help foster prod­uct interoperability and system architectures that mitigate risks, simplify and reduce de­livery time and yield a stronger ROI as global industries such as healthcare, retail, utili­ties, telecommunications and other sectors continue rapid modernisation programs.

Interoperable system architectures that share a common language and interfaces at a hardware, software and system level are essential for successful global industries.

In turn interoperability supports collaboration, - engaging as many aspects of the organization as possible in problem solving, depends on the flow of ideas and the socialization of people, who would otherwise be siloed. Using tools such as Enterprise Architect stakeholders can effectively collaborate on projects by understanding who is working on specific project tasks, what roles are to be filled and who has responsibility for the various aspects of the project.

Different team members and stakeholders must be able to input information that is relevant to their roles and activities and that is useful to the other members of shared projects. This implies the necessity to capture this information in a model that is available to all team members overcoming their geographical limitation. The emergence of new ideas, or innovation, through collaboration, has been commented on extensively. A single idea can lead to breakthroughs and competitive advantage. The idea of one person can be used by many others who can make small refinements or improvements to the idea or spark completely new ideas. These in turn become the normal as creativity destroys long accepted convention.


Enterprise Architect offers specific functionality for sharing projects in team-based and distributed development environments. Projects can be shared through network deployment of model repositories, replication, XMI Import/Export, Version Control, Package Control and User Security.

http://www.sparxsystems.com.au/enterprise-architect/distributed-teams-collaboration/distributed-teams-collaboration.html

As the impact from the digital industrial economy takes effect, it will drive the need for enterprise architects to digitally renew the business. In a connected world, there is no place for silos, and the extent of connectivity determines levels of inclusion in the digital economy, the quality of service/product and resulting customer loyalty.

Sparx Systems supports those enterprise architects who are navigating business enterprise and facilitating digital business renewal, through rapid and unprecedented change.

Optimised service networks encourage closer consumer relationships, which in turn promote improved business relationships, while providing value added competitive barriers. Service differentiation will come from those organisations that succeed in integrating digital technologies to deliver consumers a unique and ongoing experience.

To ensure maximum customer retention and growth, utilities and telecommunications rely heavily on geospatial information systems, mobile workforce applications and communications management, for the construction, operation, maintenance and management of critical network systems.

In 1999 the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) identified electrification as the first of the 20 greatest engineering achievements of the 20th century and the Smartgrid - which is driving modernisation of the electricity grid - became federal policy, with the passage of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007

The adoption of smart metering capabilities and the creation of new grid infrastructures are extending transmission and distribution systems in ways, which until recently, were not considered in the realm of the possible. Enterprise Architect is used to maintain the Common Information Model (CIM) - Read More Here

But, now this extension is connecting new or previously siloed networks, in an interoperable, communications model. This Smartgrid is a subset of a global tissue of smart connected devices called the Internet of Things (IoT). See http://www.iot-a.eu/public

The ability to automatically transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction is a scenario that suggests an explosion of connections. Providing unique identifiers with such capability, to objects, animals and people will push the installed base of connected things to 212 billion by 2020 according to IDC.

While the functionality of the Internet is based on open and interoperable standards, enabling interoperability and global accessibility the Internet of Things is for most part, a heterogeneous world of silos where standards for scalability, governance and security are yet to be developed.

The explosion of the Internet of Things will contribute to the generation of data volumes, which combined with other sources is referred to as Big Data and which threaten to outstrip our ability to deal with it while sowing new data silos. Without support from collaborative technologies that support highly automated processes, the time required make this data re-usable is impractical.

According to a 2012 Whitepaper by Oracle, An Architects Guide to Big Data, architects are expected to provide a fast, reliable path to business adoption while embracing new technologies and techniques are always challenging. These technologies and techniques should then be deployed to “share knowledge, establish standards, and to manage best practices”.

At a time when the resource “bandwidth” of the enterprise architect is being squeezed under the pressure of tasks and responsibilities, the pressure can be reduced through collaboration – the positive difference between the sum of the parts and the whole!

An affordable shared platform, supporting a highly scaleable, networked collaboration solution, is necessary. With the recent release of Enterprise Architect 11 Sparx Systems has provided several features to address this issue. The Cloud Service, Reusable Asset Service (RAS) and OSLC are a trinity of tools, which when used together, provide a powerful solution.

The Sparx Systems Cloud Services application provides a convenient mechanism for hosting data models while providing easy access to all team members, external customers and consultants, anywhere around the world.

The implementation of the RAS standard within Enterprise Architect provides a shared remote registry, accessible via a Cloud Service connection that will allow organizations to securely share information between one another in a standardised environment. Users can view the information in a single, consolidated virtual registry-repository, while retaining local control over their own registry-repositories, while modellers can easily and conveniently distribute or download data resources including reusable model structures, information, corporate directives or standards. http://www.sparxsystems.com.au/products/ea/cloud-trial.html

Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC), makes it easier for different tools to work together and users can Create, Read, Update and Delete model information such as requirements. A video can be accessed here http://www.sparxsystems.com.au/products/ea/11/index.html

Sparx Systems has partnered with CSIRO to support the ongoing development of model registry features and functionality for Sparx's Enterprise Architect UML modelling tool. http://www.sparxsystems.com.au/press/articles/CSIRO-Collaboration.html