The Essential project was conceived by Enterprise Architecure Solutions (EAS) Ltd, a specialist consultancy in enterprise architecture since 2000.

EAS passionately believe that Enterprise Architecture (EA), if properly implemented and managed, can provide huge benefits to organisations of all shapes and sizes, both in the short and long term, and believe that the availability of free open source tools is important to its ongoing growth and adoption.

From the very beginning, EAS found that organisations were developing their Enterprise Architecture capabilities using a variety of different methodologies, frameworks and tools. However, at the time, most of these were relatively immature and came with meta models that were incomplete, technical in nature and often required a high degree of customisation. EAS decided to develop the Essential Meta-Model; a well-define language that would provide the required completeness, be easily understood by all stakeholders (business and technical) and was flexible enough to allow easy mapping to the established frameworks, methodologies and tools.

Using the Essential Meta-Model, organisations were able to get up and running more quickly and begin to see the benefits of developing their Enterprise Architecture over a period of weeks rather than months. Even as industry standard frameworks and their associated meta-models have matured this has continued to be the case.

Throughout this period, EAS were engaged in a number of projects with organisations who wished to apply Enterprise Architecture practices, but were unable to cost justify the investment in a commercial Enterprise Architecture tool. Nonetheless, it was important to ensure that the output of these activities would provide value on an ongoing basis, rather than flat documentation (e.g. presentations, Visio diagrams) that would be of little use beyond the specific requirements of the project in hand.

EAS identified Protege, an open source knowledge repository developed by Stanford University. By using Protege in conjunction with the Essential Meta-Model and with a number of custom extensions, EAS were able to create the Essential Architecture Manager, a simple and intuitive means of capturing and reporting on an organisation's architecture while satisfying time and capital investment constraints.

Now, with the growth, popularity and relevance of Enterprise Architecture today, more and more organisations are aware of the potential benefits that Enterprise Architecture can provide. However, the challenge of proving its benefit without incurring significant cost is still a barrier to organisations looking to put an EA capability in place. Having proven the Essential Meta-Model and Essential Architecture Manager in a variety of real-world situations (including IT strategy development, project solution architecture and current state architecture reviews), EAS understood the potential value that these tools could have to the broader community. In addition, it was felt that by making these tools available as open source, others would be able to develop and share extensions that would not only further enhance the tools' capabilities but would also provide a means for EA practitioners to share experiences and knowledge in a common context; The Essential Project.

We hope that The Essential Project will encourage people to adopt Enterprise Architecture. We hope to encourage the sharing of real world experience of architecture; what works and what doesn't, best practices, hints and tips etc. Our aim is to move enterprise architecture away from its often perceived ivory tower to a necessary and valuable capability in any organisation.