Archimate

Recently I was investigating Systems Modeling and stumbled across the Archimate language for enterprise architectures. Archimate is a classic case of defining a lexicon (language) for modeling System of Systems.

An Enterprise Architecture is a Systems of Systems which has Business, Application, Architecture, Technology and Physical aspects to it amongst many other aspects. These are all full systems in themselves and are integrated together to provide one larger system.

Wikipedia relates the following on System of Systems:

Current research into effective approaches to system of systems problems includes:

• Establishment of an effective frame of reference
• Crafting of a unifying lexicon (language)
• Developing effective methodologies to visualize and communicate complex systems 
• Formal modelling language with integrated tools platform
• …

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_of_systems

Archimate does all of the above. It provides an effective frame of reference calling it views and viewpoints. It provides a unifying lexicon with all of its terminologies as listed in it specification. It is a formal modeling language and provides effective methods to visualize and communicate complex systems. There are also tools and software based on the archimate language to define and display architectures. Therefore Archimate is effectively a System of Systems implementation language for the domain of Enterprise IT systems.

It’s specification is linked below and is very intuitive. It makes a good read for someone experienced.

https://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/archimate3-doc/toc.html