India Enterprise Architecture

India Enterprise Architecture (IndEA) is a way to establish Unity in Diversity in the domain of e-Governance. It is a framework that enables the development and implementation of Enterprise Architectures independently and in parallel by all governments and their agencies across India, conforming to the same models and standards. It enables planned development through architecture thinking.

IndEA has been notified as a e-Governance standard by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in October 2018.

Vision

To establish best-in-class architectural governance, processes and practices with optimal utilization of ICT infrastructure and applications to offer ONE Government experience to the citizens and businesses.

Purpose

The primary purpose of IndEA is to help state governments, ministries and departments in the governments at various levels to adopt a structured approach for developing their enterprise architecture. This is necessitated due to inconsistent maturity levels that exist in various government entities with respect to architecture driven approach to digital governance, yet mandated to adopt Digital India. Therefore, IndEA is expected to fill a clear gap in current capability and drive its adoption in an effective manner to build a digital economy.

Scope

IndEA is a collection of architecture reference models. Reference models are documented best practices for solutions delivery teams to make effective design and technology choices. The purpose of the reference models is to increase adoption of standards, speed up service design and delivery, and advance towards the target state architecture. IndEA aims at:

• Documenting and sharing explicit and implicit architecture best practices;
• Providing guidance in the development of enterprise architectures;
• Capturing the key elements of architecture and inter-relationships between them;
• Providing the means for architecture governance by enabling an audit process;
• Enabling the adoption of standards based on common understanding;

Intended Audience

IndEA is intended for the following groups:

• All state governments, central government ministries and other government departments especially those that do not currently have an enterprise architecture initiative or are just in the early stages of their enterprise architecture development;
• Senior government officials who have been tasked to oversee and guide enterprise architecture initiatives to augment their understanding and promote active commitment;
• Government Leaders, Chief Architects, Analysts and Designers seeking better, quicker and easier approaches to respond to the needs of their internal and external customers;

Structure

IndEA provides a generic framework, (based on The Open Group Architecture Framework -TOGAF) comprising of a set of architecture reference models, which can be converted into a Whole-of-Government Architecture for India, Ministries, States, Govt. Agencies etc. The IndEA framework is based on federated architecture approach and recognizes the need to accommodate both greenfield (new) and brownfield (existing / legacy) eGovernance initiatives.

The framework is based on 36 principles and 08 reference models supported by a globally acceptable standards.

Reference models of IndEA

In line with other globally known architectural frameworks, the structure of IndEA consists of a number of Reference Models, each dealing with a specific domain of the Enterprise Architecture.

A Reference Model is an abstract representation of the entities relevant to a domain of the Enterprise Architecture, the inter-relationships among those and the standards to be followed. All the Reference Models follow 3 basic attributes namely, abstraction, standards-base and technology-neutrality.

IndEA framework comprises of 8 Reference Models - Business, Application, Data, Technology, Performance, Security, Integration and Architecture Governance.

Principles of IndEA

An Enterprise Architecture is to be founded on a set of Principles that inform and guide the Architecture Development process. A good set of Principles should satisfy five criteria, namely, Understandable, Robust, Complete, Consistent and Stable. Citizen-centricity, Outcome-focus, Standardization, Reusability and Integration are the key mantrasfollowed while designing IndEA.

To access the complete document, click here.

To access the IndEA Adoption Guide, click here.

To access the Agile IndEA, click here.

Source : NeGD, MeitY

InDEA 2.0

India Digital Ecosystem Architecture 2.0 or InDEA 2.0 is a framework that enables Governments and private sector enterprises to design IT architectures that can span beyond their organizational boundaries and enable delivery of holistic and integrated services to the customers.

While InDEA 2.0 builds upon the principles and models recommended in India Enterprise Architecture (IndEA 1.0 - 2018), it adopts a radically different approach to architecture development. It addresses the architectural needs of an ecosystem rather than of an enterprise which was the focus of its predecessor.

InDEA 2.0 is a framework that promotes the evolution of digital ecosystems. It consists of a set of principles and architectural patterns that inform, guide, and enable the development of large digital systems, with a focus on the public sector. The following statements define the characteristics of InDEA:

• InDEA is applicable more to ecosystems than to systems.
•  InDEA offers a set of architectural patterns but not an architecture.
• InDEA prefers enabling to building.
• InDEA is agile and evolving, and not rigid and inflexible.
• InDEA is unifying and does not force uniformity.

InDEA 2.0 Principles

A large national framework should be based on a set of generic principles, but not prescriptions. InDEA 2.0 propounds a set of 27 principles in 5 categories, namely, ecosystem, architecture, business, technology, and architecture governance. The ‘principle of these principles’ relates to enabling rather than building. Federated architecture, openness in designs, modularity and interoperability are core among the set. Security- and privacy-bydesign, and agile governance are among the other key principles. Upholding the primacy of the principles and adoption by all organizations would produce a multiplier effect and thereby pave the way to realizing the goals of InDEA 2.0. 

To access the complete document, click here.