Looking for definitions

Here is my take:

Business Designer is the basic modeling tool that will support people who are building models but not doing other tasks that affect the entire repository.

Business Architect is for more experienced users who need to build models and manage the modeling environment. It has everything that Business Designer has plus some additional functionality that helps manage the repository. This includes things like modifying method filters, merge, reorganize, publishing, user management. etc.

IT Architect is for folks modeling IT software and hardware and managing the objects in those models against standards or tracking the life cycle of technology components over time. It has everything that Business Architect has plus some additional model types, object types, reports and macros that make it easier to manage those things.

Hope this helps.

Hi Mr. Bosworth, and thanks for your support.

You mentioned that ARIS IT Architect has everything that Business Architect has plus some additional model types, object types, reports and macros that make it easier to manage the modelling IT software and hardware.

Would you (or someone else) be so kind to point out what are those additional model types, object types, reports and macros we won't find in ARIS Business Architect?

I would like to understand if the Processes Department does need IT Architect to model the IT infrastructure that supports the processes, or they can do that with Business Architect only, and IT Architect is required only for the IT Department to administer the IT infrastructure inventory.

Thank you very much.

I don't have or know of a comprehensive list (unfortunately). You can take a look at the IDS Scheer web site for the product decription and the Users Guide for IT Architect for more information on the details of what the product can do.

From a business/process perspective, you can model all aspects of what software, hardware and data are needed to support a process with Business Architect/Designer. Business Architect allows you to describe SW composition, capabilities,  and deployments of various versions, HW platforms, deployments and SW that runs on them, you can also use the Org/People aspect to model who is responsible for the SW/HW.

IT Architect is more focused on managing the Software or Hardware portfolio of products across the enterprise. It is intended for Enterprise and IT Architects not business process modelers. It offers the ability to manage SW and HW from a life cycle perspective. Capturing, analysing and visualziing things like which SW/HW products are company standard vs. non standard, what products are going to be standard and when the standard is going to take effect, etc. If you intend on managing a portfolio of IT assets across the enterprise you should strongly consider IT Architect, otherwise you will likely be fine with Business Architect.