3/23/24, 1:02 PM (24) Blast from the past...

ArchiMate to explain SAP | LinkedIn

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Blast from the past...

ArchiMate to explain
SAP
Wim Van Hooste
2 articles Following
Digital Solutions Coach & People Leader

November 5, 2020

Open Immersive Reader

In a long lost past we where requested specify the

architecture for each technology stack used in our
company. No question, for SAP we had to produce
something similar. Depending on the audience, and scope
of the discussion, we wanted to provide different
viewpoints (top-down, high level, bottom-up, system level,
etc.).

The diagramming style of choice was ArchiMate. The style

was not yet established in the company, but several people
started to explore to possibilities. Expressing SAP was an
interesting challenge.

The very first [controversial] attempt was to break the

common ArchiMate layering concept.

This was done by not using layers and not separating the
components. We used the more familiar nesting without
any relations or specialized drawing tools. This resulted in
the following embarrassment.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/blast-from-past-archimate-explain-sap-wim-van-hooste/?trackingId=my4r6HwTCXFdTQ789Fr%2F0g%3D%3D 1/6
3/23/24, 1:02 PM (24) Blast from the past... ArchiMate to explain SAP | LinkedIn

Later we
explored
support in
drawing tools.
Besides some
die-hard Visio
folks, the
"converts" decided to use Archi (archimatetool) for all
future ArchiMate modelling. There was little that could
compete with a specialized free tool; allowing for context of
each component, meta-data, views with displayed / hidden
components and export for reporting / documentation. A
modelling solution that understands the standard and
relationships is hard to beat, compared to any "free-form"
generic software.

The resulting diagrams [for the state of SAP in a specific

era] are shown below - enjoy...

SAP ecosphere

Provides an overall view of products, specializations and

scope.

SAP System

Provides insight in a classical SAP (ABAP) System.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/blast-from-past-archimate-explain-sap-wim-van-hooste/?trackingId=my4r6HwTCXFdTQ789Fr%2F0g%3D%3D 2/6
3/23/24, 1:02 PM (24) Blast from the past... ArchiMate to explain SAP | LinkedIn

SAP SPOF

Details of a SAP ABAP system Single Point Of Failure (SPOF)

mitigation components.

SAP product

Provides information about how a classical SAP product is

structured.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/blast-from-past-archimate-explain-sap-wim-van-hooste/?trackingId=my4r6HwTCXFdTQ789Fr%2F0g%3D%3D 3/6
3/23/24, 1:02 PM (24) Blast from the past... ArchiMate to explain SAP | LinkedIn

SAP Software Logistics

Finaly, a [somewhat tricky] representation of the SAP

Transport system to manage Software Logistics and
deployment.

I hope this helps someone. I felt it could help to promote

the freedom and flexibility of ArchiMate modelling, forcing
people to think & express themselves.

Report this

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/blast-from-past-archimate-explain-sap-wim-van-hooste/?trackingId=my4r6HwTCXFdTQ789Fr%2F0g%3D%3D 4/6
3/23/24, 1:02 PM (24) Blast from the past... ArchiMate to explain SAP | LinkedIn

Published by

Wim Van Hooste

Digital Solutions Coach & People Leader 2 articles Following
Published • 3y

Use #archimate to creatively explain and express yourself. In the meantime, I have
left the SAP world and have welcomed Microsoft Dynamics as a platform of our
UMAX utility solution. And who knows, that might be something for another article
#weareitineris ;) .

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Erkan Isik • 2nd 9mo

CEO, Enterprise Architect

Hi Wim, I already saw today your Archimate pictures really thanks. How
would you model it from strategic point of view. For a CIO point of view,
this picture is more tactical and the most responsible IT persons would see
the transformation from ECC to S/4. Kind regards Erkan

Like · 2 Reply

Wim Van Hooste • 2nd 3y

Digital Solutions Coach & People Leader

Side note: some people ask if i have additional functional or application-

level Archimate diagrams?
Answer: Yes, but those are specific to the business. Related to internally
implemented processes. So, not suitable to share.

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Wim Van Hooste

Digital Solutions Coach & People Leader

Following

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