Overview of ArchiMate Basic Views and Their Viewpoints

Basic Views

ArchiMate basic views consist of ArchiMate elements and three main layers—business, application, and technology. The following table lists ArchiMate 3.1 example viewpoints, grouped into four categories, indicating their direction and scope.

Composition: defines the internal composition and aggregation of elements.

Support: shows how an element is supported by elements in a higher layer.

Collaboration: depicts peer elements cooperating across different aspects.

Implementation: illustrates how an element implements other elements, typically moving from a higher to a lower layer.

Composition View

Name

Perspective

Focus

Organization

Structure of the enterprise in terms of roles, departments, etc.

Identify capabilities, authority, and responsibility

Information Structure

Shows the structure of information used in the enterprise.

Structure and dependencies of data and information, consistency and completeness

Technology

Infrastructure and platforms such as networks, devices, and system software.

Stability, security, dependencies, and cost of the infrastructure

Layering

Provides an overview of the architecture.

Consistency, complexity reduction, impact of change, flexibility

Physical

Physical environment and its relation to IT infrastructure.

Relationships and dependencies of the physical environment with IT infrastructure

Support View

Name

Perspective

Focus

Product

Shows the content of the product.

Product development and the value the enterprise product provides

Application Usage

Links applications to their use in business processes, etc.

Consistency and completeness, complexity reduction

Technology Usage

Shows how applications use technology.

Dependencies, performance, scalability

Collaboration View

Name

Perspective

Focus

Business Process Collaboration

Shows relationships between various business processes.

Business processes, consistency and completeness, dependencies between responsibilities

Application Collaboration

Shows application components and their mutual relationships.

Relationships and dependencies between applications, service orchestration, consistency and completeness, complexity reduction

Implementation View

Name

Perspective

Focus

Service Implementation

Shows how services are realized through required behavior.

Value addition to business processes, consistency and completeness, responsibility

Implementation and Deployment

Shows how applications map to underlying technology.

Structure of the application platform and its relationship with supporting technology

Physical View

Physical View

What is the Physical View?

The physical view shows devices that can create, use, store, move, or transform material, how they are connected by distribution networks, and other activity elements assigned to the devices.

The table below details the physical view.

Stakeholders

Infrastructure architects, operations managers

Focus

Relationships and dependencies of the physical environment and its relation to IT infrastructure

Purpose

Design

Scope

Multi‑layer / multi‑aspect

Elements

Location, node, Device, Equipment, Facility, Path, Communication network, Distribution network, Material

Physical View Example:

Layered View

What is the Layered View?

The layered viewpoint provides a bird’s‑eye overview of the core elements of all layers and aspects of enterprise architecture. Each dedicated layer exposes the service layer of the layer below via an “implementation” relationship, and the service layer “serves” the next dedicated layer.

The table below details the layered viewpoint.

Stakeholders

Enterprise, process, application, infrastructure, and domain architects

Focus

Consistency, complexity reduction, impact of change, flexibility

Purpose

Design, decision‑making, informing

Scope

Multi‑layer / multi‑aspect

Elements

All core elements and relationships are allowed in this view

Layered View Example: