IT4IT Concepts and Metamodel

This section formally defines all the concepts of the IT4IT Standard, which includes the IT4IT Metamodel.

The IT4IT Standard uses the ArchiMate modeling language, and thus the IT4IT Metamodel is defined as an IT4IT solution pattern in the ArchiMate language. This consists of the IT4IT Reference Architecture as a model specified in the ArchiMate language, which can be exchanged using the ArchiMate^® Model Exchange File Format for the ArchiMate Modeling Language, Version 3.1 [C19C].

The IT4IT Standard is complemented with a simplified notation that makes it easier to communicate the high-level concepts of the IT4IT Standard to people not familiar with the ArchiMate language. Note that the simplified notation has a direct translation into the ArchiMate representation, and thus is as formal as the ArchiMate representation.

Most of the terminology used in the architecture is based on or derived from existing industry standard taxonomies. The architecture does introduce some new terms but this is only done when no other existing term could be utilized to express the intended meaning of the concept.

Note that the following definitions are ordered to reflect a hierarchy of refinement level as introduced in IT4IT Abstractions.

Refer to Acronyms and Abbreviations for an alphabetic list of acronyms and abbreviations used in this document.