Cloud Computing Architectures: High-Level architecture with Archimate

As described in the last post, we will now take a look at how it is possible to architect cloud computing applications with the support of Archimate. Archimate was developed by the Open Group and it’s target is to achieve a great enterprise architecture. We will discuss each layer and figure out how we can apply this to cloud computing architectures.
A core concept of Archimate are views. Views in Archimate allows the architect to show different levels for different stakeholders. We won’t focus on that now. If you are interested, you can refer to the Archimate Documentation. We also discussed the different layers – business layer, application layer and technology layer. To model each layer, you can use different tools. I personally prefer “Archi” for this purpose. In the Screenshot below, you can see the main window of Archi.

Let us now start with some business layer concepts. In the image below you can find the business layer concepts available with Archimate.

Actors are individuals or departments that interact with the application. It is very similar to the UML Actor. We can also describe a Role, which is similar to an Actor but with a very specific “job”. If we build a customer support system, the Actor would be a “Support Engineer” but the Role would be “Windows Support Role”. An Actor might have different Roles, since the Role is dedicated and specialised.

Another important concept is the Process. In a business model, processes are key concepts since they give us an overview on the interactions associated with the Application or a Service. Processes also require triggers, which are modelled with the Event concept. A process may be realised by a Service.
 

These Concepts are only some of the concepts available in Archimate. However, this is only a short tutorial. The next post will be about the application layer and technology layer in Archimate.
Picture Copyright by Moyan Brenn