What does Enterprise Architecture (EA) mean?

Enterprise architecture (EA) is a comprehensive operational framework that explores all of an

organizations functional areas while defining how technology benefits and serves the
organization's overall mission. The technological aspect of EA defines the hardware, operating
systems, programming and networking solutions a business employs and how those may be used
to achieve its current and future objectives.

EA includes the following components: mission, stakeholders and customers, processes,

applications and infrastructure, networks, and data.

EA facilitates improvement of processes in the following ways:

Discovering business processes that require change

Efficiently and continuously managing change via clearly defined documentation
Developing and implementing enterprise-wide procedures
Encouraging effective enterprise-wide communication, which, in theory leads to better
decisions.