Concepts Overview

Top 100 List of Architecture Concepts and Architecture Principles

Here is a list of 100 shared and modern concepts and principles to be chosen as part of an enterprise architecture. Various generalizations, specializations, and combinations are described and tested for every concept in the literature. Using sound literature when referring to a particular concept is recommended. For many concepts, products on the market implement (parts) of these concepts. In your architecture documents, there should not be vendor and product names when you want to refer to concepts.

In this list, every architecture principle is written down in the format "concept name" followed by a "short principle statement". The short principle statements consist mostly of four parts: action, effect, enforcement, and result. This format ensures we do not write down general rules or guidelines but write down principles (that is: working mechanisms).

Many of these concepts you will already recognize. They are specializations of functions or quality aspects. Functions are general concepts.

You will also see generalizations and specialization of concepts in the list: computing, client computing, server computing, client-server computing.

In the menu on the left, you find different types of architectures that go into detail for the architecture principles mentioned here.

A basic list of 100 common architecture principles is:

Enterprise, Governance, and Business Concepts and their Principles

1. Complexity
2. Complexity Reduction
3. Monitoring Principle [PDF]
4. Separation of Concerns - By separating concerns, ...
5. Modularity - By grouping functionality into modules, ...
6. Simplicity - By creating a system that is as simple as possible, ...
7. Diversity - By creating a so diverse as possible situation, ...
8. Standardization / Technology Standardization - By standardizing the way of ..., it is ensured that ...
9. Centralization - By centralizing ...
10. Decentralization - By decentralizing ...
11. Centralized Authentication -
12. Federated Authentication -
13. Single Source of Truth - By having only one official source ...
14. Buy before build - By buying before building ...
15. Product differentiation -
16. Business Need Prioritization -
17. Leadership -
18. Business Agility -
19. Product Value Maximization -
20. Working Domain Oriented / Domain Orientation
21. Process Management / Process Orientation
22. Product Management / Product Orientation
23. Service Management / Service Orientation
24. Client Management / Customer Orientation
25. Office Orientation (Using Buildings to organize work)
26. Plant Orientation (Using Plants for Production)
27. Employee Motivation
28. Loyalty / Loyalty Programs
29. Working Paperless / Paperless Office
30. Working With Architecture
31. Outsourcing
32. Offshoring
33. Sustainability
34. Adaptivity
35. Production
36. Zero Waste Production
37. Series Production
38. Mass Production
39. Code of Governance
40. Transparency
41. Openness
42. Business Continuity
43. Innovation
44. Transformation
45. Business Transformation
46. Digital Transformation
47. Strategy Planning
48. Case Management
49. Permanent Education

Information Concepts and their Principles

1. Asset Management (Maximize value of assets)
2. Accountability
3. Multi-Channel Management
4. Omni Channel Management
5. Dependability
6. Availability
7. Confidentiality
8. Authenticity
9. Integrity
10. Patenting / Intellectual Property / Copyrighting
11. eLearning / Blended Learning / Class-Based Learning

Application and Data Concepts and their Principles

1. Application Coherence
2. Interoperability
3. Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)
4. System Life Cycle Management
5. Reuse maximization
6. Master Data Management
7. Data Management
8. Data Hiding
9. Data Encapsulation
10. Data Reuse (Not Replication)
11. Data Privacy
12. Data Lake
13. Loosely Coupling
14. Interfacing
15. Service Broker and Consumer
16. Rules Engine
17. Canonical Domains (CDM)

Technology / IT Infrastructure Concepts and their Principles

1. IT Service Management
2. Capacity Planning
3. Power consumption reduction
4. Automated Monitoring
5. Redundancy
6. Deduplication
7. Robotization
8. Automation
9. Digitization
10. SAN
11. NAS
12. DMZ
13. Single Sign On
14. Computing
15. Client Computing
16. Server Based Computing
17. Client Server Computing
18. Cloud Computing
19. Virtualization
20. Network Virtualization
21. Application Virtualization
22. Server Virtualization
23. Green Energy
24. Service, Service Orientation
25. Self Service
26. Process, Process Orientation, Business Process Management
27. Business Process Orientation
28. Sales Process
29. Computing
30. Cloud Computing
31. Bitcoin
32. Mobile Payments
33. Smart
34. Smart City
35. Autonomous Cars
36. Robotics
37. Nanotechnology
38. Virtualization (Server, Application, Network)
39. Big Data
40. Big Data Analytics
41. Business Intelligence
42. Software, Software Applications
43. Software as a Service (SaaS)
44. Application Programmers Interface (API)
45. XML
46. IOT
47. Blockchain
48. Data Visualization
49. Empowerment
50. eProcurement
51. 3D Printing
52. HR
53. Marketing
54. Omnichannel
55. DevOps
56. Agile

Cyber Security Architecture Concepts and their Principles

1. Privacy by Design
2. Least Privilege
3. Layered Security
4. Fault Tolerant
5. Default Deny