Enterprise architectures for supporting the adoption of big data

Abstract

Governments from all over the world are struggling to take advantage of big data developments. Enterprise Architecture (EA) can be used as an instrument to integrate big data (BD) in the existing business processes and ICT-landscape. In this policy paper, we explore the role of EA in the adoption of BD. For this, we adopted a qualitative case study approach and investigated a large administrative organization that was in the process of adopting BD. We found in our case study that the first attempts were focused on integrating big data in the current landscape, but this encountered too many challenges that halt progress. To overcome the challenges, a separate BD department and accompanying infrastructure was created. The strategy was first to reap the benefits of BD and to understand what should be done, and thereafter integrating the working systems in the existing landscape. The findings suggest that current infrastructures might not be suitable for integrating BD and substantial changes are needed first. In the case the role of BD needed to be first clarified before EA could play a role in adopting BD. EA should deal with the uncertainties and complexities by ensuring a configurable landscape, by providing an incremental approach for adapting the infrastructure step-by-step, before the benefits of big data can be gained. Developing an incremental migration plan was found to be a key aspect for the adoption of BD.