Architecture Principles Compliance Analysis

The architecture principles play a key role in the enterprise architecture evolution. However, the architecture does not always address the principles intentions, which could result in unplanned deviations. Through the related work study, it’s perceptible the lack of an architecture analysis that enables to evaluate the architecture compliance regarding the architecture principles. To surpass the referred lack, this research proposes an architecture analysis, which allows evaluating the architecture compliance with its guiding principles. An architecture principle could be considered the rationale for the presence of several elements and relationships in the architecture, which enables to characterize a principle through its expected impact. The proposed analysis consists in the principle expected impact recognition to evaluate the architecture, which consequently enables to identify its compliant elements. This impact is formalized, based on ArchiMate, which enables to analyze the architecture through its enterprise architecture descriptions. The proposed analysis includes a dedicated analysis for nine principles. To demonstrate the research proposal, it is applied to analyze the compliance of some specific architectures. These architectures, provided by a Portuguese insurance company, should address the considered principles instructions. Thus, regarding the guiding principles for each architecture are identified its compliant elements through the proposed analysis. Hereupon, the proposal feasibility positions this work as a contribution to the architecture principles field.