ArchiMate 3 Foundation key terms

An open, vendor-neutral modelling language for enterprise architecture that defines a graphical notation and underlying concepts for describing business, application, and technology domains and their relationships.

The layered structure of the language, comprising the Business, Application, and Technology layers plus the Motivation and Implementation & Migration aspects, used to organise and classify all modelling concepts.

The formal specification of all concepts in a modelling language, their attributes, and the permitted relationships between them; it defines what a valid model may contain.

One of the horizontal strata of the framework (Business, Application, Technology) that groups concepts describing a particular organisational level and exposes services to the layer above it.

A vertical dimension of the framework that cuts across the layers, namely the active structure, behaviour, and passive structure aspects, plus the Motivation and Implementation & Migration aspects.

The framework layer containing concepts for business actors, roles, processes, functions, services, objects, and products that describe how an enterprise delivers value to external customers.

The framework layer containing concepts for application components, interfaces, services, functions, and data objects that describe software supporting the business.

The framework layer containing concepts for nodes, devices, system software, networks, and infrastructure services that describe the technical environment on which applications run.

A concept representing something that can perform behaviour, such as an actor, role, component, or node; active structure elements are typically drawn as boxes with square corners.

A concept representing a unit of activity performed by one or more active structure elements, such as a process, function, interaction, event, or service; drawn with rounded corners.

A concept representing an object on which behaviour acts, such as a business object, data object, or artifact; passive elements do not perform activity themselves.

An active structure element representing an organisational entity capable of performing behaviour, such as a department, a company, or a customer, typically drawn as a box with a small human figure.

An active structure element defining the responsibilities and behaviour that an actor or group of actors fulfils; a role is performed by one or more actors and abstracts away from the concrete entity.

A behaviour element representing a sequence of business activities that together produce a defined result or product for a customer, drawn as a rounded rectangle with an arrow.

A behaviour element grouping behaviour based on required resources and competences rather than on flow; it is a coarse-grained unit of internal behaviour, drawn as a rounded rectangle.

A behaviour element exposing externally visible functionality offered by a business actor or role to its environment; it is accessed through a contract and is drawn as a rounded rectangle.

A passive structure element representing a concept used within the business domain, such as a customer record, an order, or a contract, that business behaviour may create or modify.

An active structure element representing a modular, deployable part of a software system that encapsulates its behaviour and data and exposes it through interfaces.

A behaviour element exposing externally visible functionality provided by an application component and made available through one or more application interfaces.

A point of access where an application service is made available to other components or to the environment; it is drawn as a small circle and may expose one or more services.

A passive structure element representing data structured for automated processing by application components, such as a database record or a message payload.

An active structure element representing a computational or physical resource that hosts or executes other elements, such as a server, a workstation, or a container runtime.

A technology active structure element representing a physical hardware resource, such as a server, laptop, or router, on which system software and artifacts may be deployed.

A passive structure element representing a piece of data that is physically or digitally stored and deployed on a node, such as a file, a library, or a deployment package.

A behaviour element exposing infrastructure or platform functionality, such as computing, storage, or networking, made available to applications by technology active structure elements.

A connection between two or more concepts with a defined meaning and permitted source and target types, such as composition, aggregation, assignment, realisation, serving, and access.

A structural relationship indicating that an element consists of one or more other elements, which cannot exist independently of the whole; drawn as a filled diamond at the whole end.

A structural relationship indicating that an element groups other elements that can exist independently of the whole; drawn as an unfilled diamond at the whole end.

A relationship expressing that an active structure element performs behaviour or is responsible for another element; drawn as a line with a filled circle at the source end.

A relationship indicating that an element brings about or achieves another element, such as a process realising a service; drawn as a dashed line with a hollow arrowhead.

A dependency relationship showing that one element provides functionality to another, such as a service serving a process; drawn as a dashed line with an open arrowhead.

A relationship expressing that behaviour or active structure elements read, write, or otherwise access passive structure elements; drawn as a dashed line with an open arrowhead.

A relationship indicating that an element is a particular kind of another element and inherits its properties; drawn as a solid line with a hollow arrowhead.

The cross-cutting aspect containing concepts such as stakeholder, driver, assessment, goal, requirement, and constraint that explain why an architecture is designed as it is.

The cross-cutting aspect containing concepts such as work package, deliverable, plateau, and gap that support describing change initiatives and the transition from a baseline to a target state.

A specification of the conventions for constructing and using a view, defining which stakeholders it addresses, which concerns it covers, and which model elements it may contain.

A part of a model that presents the elements relevant to a specific set of concerns, produced according to the rules of a viewpoint; it is what a stakeholder actually sees.

A person, team, or organisation that has an interest in, or concern about, the architecture and the outcomes it enables; stakeholders drive the choice of viewpoints.

An interest or matter of importance to a stakeholder that motivates the selection of a particular viewpoint and the elements shown in the resulting view.

A coherent collection of concepts and relationships expressed in the language that represents some part of an enterprise architecture for a defined purpose.