Great design tool for technically-oriented users
Pros
- Enables recording and managmenet of all changes/requirements on ICT solutions.
- Improves transparency of relations among models.
- Helps to manage complexity of documentation.
- Supports well team collaboration (server version with shared database) and allows to manage user access rules.
- Essential tool for enterprise, application, integration and data architects.
- Is well thought through in respect to user experience, it is easy to work in the tool for both, business occasional users as well as seasoned IT analysts.
Cons
- Management of change requests or business requirements is much better implemented in JIRA or Confluence, there is an option to integrate EA artifacts with Confluence/JIRA specifications, via third party solution, in my experience this works one-directional, from EA to Confluence. Maybe there exists other solutions with a full synchronization. The result today is that you can share e.g. architectures designed in Enterprise Architect in Confluence.
- Model governance, especially by working on large scale projects with lots of people, requires double checking of any major change you want to do to the models, e.g. deleting of a particular item/component. Some feature to make deleting "more safe" would be nice.
Return on Investment
- No immediate impact, rather long-term benefits, especially when companies launch large restructuring projects, unbundling (as seen in Telecommunications, Utilities etc.) this tool accelerates the analytical tasks. It can save literally man-years of work in any large company, with complex ICT landscape.
- No negative impact, the cost of the tool is negligible, compared to the benefits.
Alternatives Considered
BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio
Other Software Used
Microsoft Power BI, Microsoft Teams
