Definition of the various Business level architectural views supports the analysis of the business processes and other aspects, permitting optimizations to be discovered, along with a better understanding of the business. It also supports the linkage of Logical and Technical level structures and decisions directly back to the business drivers.

This phase has the following goals:

• Define a Business Entity Model for the system;
• Define a Business Process Model for the system;
• Define a Business Locations Model for the system;
• Define a Business Roles Model for the system;
• Update the Architecture Glossary and define Architectural Decisions as required.

A number of tasks may be undertaken in parallel, such as the definition of the various aspects, and Architectural Decisions will also arise at any time. Once a complete perspective is defined a peer review is done to decide if the IT architecture is complete, or if additional iterations are required.

These activities are best carried out by a small team staffed by cross-functional team members, lead by an IT architect. Issues that are typically architecturally significant include data, process, locations, and roles. The team should also include members with business domain experience and ideally logical level modelers. The team should also have experience with model organization and layering. From the provided inputs, the team will need to be able to synthesize the models.