Avolution ABACUS Reviews

I conducted an evaluation of enterprise architecture at the European Court in Luxembourg, reviewing and analyzing existing implementations to identify potential improvements and providing recommendations.

I conduct evaluations to identify potential improvements and make recommendations, forming a roadmap for future projects and implementations.

Avolution ABACUS allows for flexible enterprise architecture analysis. It supports evaluating architecture through corporate objectives, business processes, and IT infrastructure, which helps identify potential improvements and facilitates the creation of roadmaps for implementation.

While Avolution ABACUS is flexible, it can be complex to work with as it requires knowledge of specific configurations to customize the product. It would be beneficial to have seminars or other methods to educate companies on the advantages of enterprise architecture concepts.

ARIS Process Governance has been used. Abacus and ARIS share similar concepts, but the choice of tool depends on specific needs.

The project in Luxembourg was conducted in partnership with Deloitte.

ARIS Process Governance is another solution that aligns with enterprise architecture concepts.

I rate Avolution ABACUS eight out of ten. The focus should be on implementing and understanding enterprise architecture concepts rather than the specific tool.

The tool's implementation is straightforward as everything is readily available. For instance, setting up a portal is seamless, allowing easy publishing and access to data. However, integrating with other tools like BI, Power BI, or Grafana requires setting up pipelines between them.  

It is suitable for sectors like transportation and retail for predictive data analysis.The tool's most beneficial feature is its predefined components and connectors. These components provide a clear roadmap. Additionally, the predefined standards and best practices ensure adherence to organizational standards.  

The solution's support for multiple frameworks has made my work easier. I can choose which framework to use when starting a new project or updating an existing one. With just one click, I could access all the necessary files and tools for my project. This streamlined pulling data, setting up pipelines, and integrating with other systems like CMDB and asset management.

It offers predefined models and standards, which can be helpful. Secondly, its documentation and development structure are good. 

Avolution ABACUS has the drawback of needing data filtering at the development level, unlike some tools that offer filtering at deployment. Two areas where Avolution ABACUS could be improved are regional support and flexibility in model selection. Sometimes, it's challenging to access support or updates in certain regions, which can slow down progress. Additionally, it would be beneficial if the tool allowed more flexibility in selecting multiple models within a single unit.

It would be great if we could select multiple models within one project. Also, having better data filtering options would be useful. It would save a lot of time if the architecture diagrams could update automatically whenever the data changes instead of being updated manually every time.

I have been working with the product for three years. 

The tool's technical support, especially in the Middle East, doesn't respond well or provide much help.

Neutral

The solution's pricing is not an issue. 

I rate the tool a nine out of ten. I would recommend using it to others. However, they need to improve their technical support. It's taking them too long to respond to issues. I faced 14-15 days of delays to get a reply about an installation error. When I heard back, I had already moved on to working with a previous version and had to backtrack. They need to align what they promise with their delivery and have a better presence in the Middle East region. 

We use Avolution ABACUS for all of our enterprise architecture modeling and diagrams across all of our banks.

The most valuable features of the solution are that, firstly, it is a comprehensive tool. Secondly, the impact analysis study is very good in the tool. Lastly, the customization of metadata is great.

Only 60 to 70 percent of the overall tool can be used, and it can be better.

The usability of the tool is an area with shortcomings that need improvement.

I have been using Avolution ABACUS for five years. I use Avolution ABACUS Version 8, though Avolution ABACUS Version 10 is the latest version of the tool.

It is a very stable solution.

I did not test the product's scalability. In our company, we did not reach its optimal level of scalability.

We have 10 to 12 users of the solution in our company.

We do have plans to increase the usage of the tool in our company for the hosts, including the viewers of the solution, which is the whole IT team that involves hundreds of people.

The solution's technical support has been very good.

The initial setup of Avolution ABACUS is very easy.

The solution can be deployed in around a day.

The installation guide provided by Avolution ABACUS has to be followed during the deployment phase.

The solution is deployed on-premises.

We need one or two people, of which there has to be one admin, for the deployment and maintenance of the solution.

Reading the documentation provided by Avolution ABACUS, we were able to install it on our website.

My company makes annual payments toward the licensing costs of the solution. Considering the product's capabilities, its prices are very reasonable.

I would ask those planning to use the tool to read the documentation part, which is very good overall. There is a repository for scripts, and users can exchange the scripts for customization, which is actually very good.

I rate Avolution ABACUS an eight out of ten.

I'm a consultant, and it is used for making clients realize the capabilities of EA tools. There are not that many people using the tool right now. I use it as an example to get clients to be aware of what potential they have.

It is easier for the users of the tool to gain in-depth knowledge of how they're operating and the impact of their changes.

There are a lot of different features, but the business/decision-maker feature, visibility, and dashboards are most valuable.

I use reference models, which are taxonomies, in my EA work. It is a reference model/taxonomy of things with capabilities, sub capabilities, and sub-sub capabilities, so you're working it down. I haven't yet found a simple way to implement that in Abacus. It could be that it is there, but I don't know how to do it.

I have been using this solution for four or five years.

Its stability is very good.

It is very scalable. You can have different versions. You can add other features to it. You can have the base implementation, which is more for enterprise architects and people who are inputting the data about the architecture. There is also an enterprise version of it, which is the browser version to give you the business intelligence views, the visualizations, and the dashboards. It has unlimited scalability.

Their support is good. They're based in Australia, and sometimes, I have to wait a couple of hours to get a response, but mostly, it's not a problem. It seems they also have offices in North America.

In the federal government where I do most of my work, they're stuck on a tool called QualiWare. I don't particularly have a high opinion of it due to its complex integration and complex configuration. It is not really easy to use out of the box, and it lacks the decision support capabilities. So, I use the Abacus tool as an example of what enterprise architecture tools should be doing, which is providing decision support capabilities. It is not being used that much, but it is definitely a tool that more people should be using. Abacus is a better tool.

I have used a different solution previously, and it was called Provision by Metastorm. I stopped using Provision pretty much when Metastorm took over it because they stopped developing the real true EA capabilities of the tool. That's when I started searching for a different solution, and I came across Abacus.

I have also played with MEGA HOPEX a few years ago.

It was straightforward. It is installed on my laptop. I'm using it as a single consultant, and it was simple to install it.

Its implementation hasn't been that strong. I am working with a client right now who is looking at purchasing the tool as their initial version and getting started with it.

I'm paying on a yearly basis. I don't know whether it's a highly expensive tool or not. I'm getting a single version of it, and I don't have the enterprise part on it because I don't need the server component, and I don't need a web browser component. My estimate would be that it's a very reasonably priced tool given that you don't need to have licenses with everyone in order to get the information and the decision support capabilities out of the tool. You use the enterprise edition on top of the studio, which is the heart of the tool. I am not aware of any additional costs.

I looked at Mega and a free tool called Archi. I looked at the tools that were in the upper right quadrant of the Gartner Magic Quadrant.

I would recommend it very strongly. It is one of the best tools out there. At this time, I would rate it a 10 out of 10. I don't rate tens very often, but I believe it is one of the best tools out there.

I am an integrator, integrating solutions for your client, a bank.

It's used for enterprise architecture, mathematical design, and reports.

Avolution ABACUS has cost-related elements for capturing IT landscape costs in terms of different components, databases, licensing, and operating costs. We can track project costs for the next financial year or transformation roadmap. This is another key difference from other products.

We leverage the scenario planning and forecasting features.

It's excellent for extensive modeling, defining multiple states like current and target architecture. 

You can design using a diagram tool installed on your desktop, a key difference from other vendors.

The tool is quite extensive but doesn't have any intelligence built in. We have to design the dashboards ourselves, which is a challenge because we have to depend on the vendor for customizations.

So, two main concerns: pricing and dashboards. Pricing is also another concern because it's per-user licensing. You have to purchase licenses for each user type: administrator, designer, and user.

I have extensive experience with it, over two years.

At times, when you open the client software with many records, there can be slowness and crashes, but it recovers quickly with vendor support.

Scalability-wise, it's not highly scalable because it involves both client and server components. 

It's more suited for organizations with a limited number of architects using the product. It's a heavy product with diagramming capabilities, so it has its plus and minus. It's not a SaaS solution.

We need to follow up with the vendor for support. It's a moderate level of support.

Compared to other vendors like LeanIX or Essential Cloud, the turnaround time and forums are less extensive.

Neutral

I also use LeanIX (LeanIX) for enterprise architecture management. I have also used IBM product. 

LeanIX, Essential Docker, and Essential Cloud are different flavors suited to different organizations and use cases. 

If you need extensive diagramming for application or enterprise architecture, ABACUS is a cost-effective choice, but not for large user bases. 

If you don't need diagramming, LeanIX and Essential Cloud are options. LeanIX is pricey, but Essential Cloud is cost-effective and offers benefits like reduction.

The installation is not very easy, but it can be done with vendor support. We have to set up the repository, and it requires a server and a web component. It's a bit challenging.

It took a month to deploy the solution.

Deployment doesn't require any support. It's self-sufficient, and we can set it up with the vendor's help.

Maintenance takes a bit of planning. New users and administrators need training to ensure the metamodel is maintained and displayed correctly for use by other designers, architects, and developers. So, it requires a little bit of training to maintain the emtamodels. 

For integration, Avolution ABACUS has APIs, and we rely on vendor support to make integration possible.

It's pricey compared to Essential, Deltek, or Essential Cloud. However, its diagramming capabilities and metamodel design make it worth it. But it's not for large user bases.

It has modules for application and portfolio rationalization. The benefits come over time with consistent use for a couple of years.

Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten because it is quite expensive. 

If we don't maintain it with the help of an administrator, the metamodel can become complex and not deliver the results we expect. 

It's essential to maintain it with the vendor's help so the metamodel can be customized to our dynamic software and IT ecosystem. It's important to have a trained administrator to maintain it.

ABACUS is an Australian product that provides its users with the ability to model different types of enterprise architectural approaches, e.g. Zachman and more. They've got so many models within their product, that depending upon your expertise or experience, you can use this product to do BPM (business process management) modeling to various types of models, roadmaps, etc. It's an enterprise architecture platform.

Because I'm focusing on the Zachman framework or the Zachman ontology, and everything else is basically a hybrid of Zachman, I've been using the Zachman approach, the Zachman framework, but it's not really a framework: It's an ontology, so one of the things I love about ABACUS most is that it enables users to utilize and be in touch with all the enterprise architecture models or hybrids that have come out of the Zachman ontology. Because all models or hybrids are all there, this solution provides a better understanding for where enterprise architecture has come from the spinoffs that have happened.

The product features of ABACUS are comprehensive which I also find valuable.

I suggested to them one software product development enhancement. It was a way of handling their page. If you can imagine a virtual page, everything on the page is in view when you're only using half of the page.

My suggestion to them was for the application to become more aware of page usage, so that if I'm not using the other half of the page, why keep it in context with the overall view? When I save, then only bring back up that which I've used. Don't bring up the entire page and all the blank spaces or space within it. I suggested for them to have a way of segmenting their page based on the object position and rendering that has been actually drawn out on that page, so they could make better use of the virtual page based on the diagrams or the entities that are within the page.

Whatever they're using to handle what I would call virtual page mapping with the objects that you're drawing on the page, I would have liked to see the product interface be more aware of the dimensions of the overall page that they present, and where the last position of the object that you placed on the page is, and make it go in print. I don't want to see all the free space.

For example, the right margin: If I only used half a page to put an object onto their overall page size which they've allocated virtually, don't give me the free space on the right hand side, just wherever the object is ending. Allow for that and maybe a little bit more, so that the object appears as large as it possibly can be, because it's not just one page.

A drawing can consist of multiple pages. What I want is to be able to draw on the page size set by Abacus, and when it ends up being a four by four virtual page: four individual pages, I don't want my object to go across two and a half pages out of the four pages.

When I say print, get rid of where my object on the right hand side ends or at the bottom, and only render within the page, which could initially be a four by four matrix. Only bring back in the print part of it that which my drawing utilizes, not all of the predetermined four by four matrix: the combination of pages that you provided me for drawing on. In this way, the object when it's actually rendered either in the print mode or on screen is as large as possible, as opposed to just trying to fit it within the dimension of what you predetermined a page size should be.

I've forgotten another product that actually did that quite well, and this is why I was able to suggest to them. I even suggested that they look at that particular product to get the concept. This is what needs to be improved in ABACUS. 

Whether or not they've added my suggestion in their research and development life cycle, still remains to be seen. I should follow up this year, and see what they thought. They received it. They thought it was well thought out. I provided them with some samples, because I had experienced another product that did that quite well. I just thought it would be a good thing as a feature. Other than that, I love what they do within their enterprise architectural space as a software solution.

The only one that I found which I would like included in their next release was the utilization of print. Print primarily, if you have a page set up, and you have the ability to have contiguous pages going vertically and horizontally based on the size of your drawings, I would prefer at some time to be able to say that my drawing is one and a half pages as opposed to the full two pages. I would like to be able to say: "Well, hey, this is where my drawing ends."

What I'd like is for this product to fix my drawing. What would be ideal is for it to fix my page size so I'll have control over the page size after I complete my drawing, because that way, when you render it on screen, you get to control the viewpoint or the view size based on the utilization of objects on the page, as opposed to defaulting to what the product says, e.g. "Oh, you've gone onto two pages." When really, I've only used up one and a half of those pages. That's what I was trying to indicate to them. What I'd like is to be able to give you my virtual page size and I'm holding you to that.

I've been using ABACUS for two years. I've used it within the last year.

The technical support for this product was good.

They have fairly extensive support manuals built right in their product.

When I raised questions, or if there were any further concepts that I was willing to dialogue on, they were right there. I could fire off a chat if I didn't understand something from their manuals. They were right there.

Setting up this product was straightforward. It's self configuring. It also has a wonderful set of manuals that helps support its users. The examples they provided were great.

I was fairly impressed with this product. As a previous software developer, I thought it was quite nice.

As a semi-retired consultant in the industry, when I think of solutions that I've experienced: database management solutions and similar solutions I've developed in Oracle, and COTS, a few that I have experienced, they're vague now. I haven't been in that part of the industry for a while. I've been focusing on enterprise architecture, and one of the products that provide enterprise architecture which I have experience with is ABACUS.

I'm still getting familiar with this solution and all that it has available within it.

In terms of utilizing this product, I had two months to utilize it. I used it for a month and I haven't been back to it, because from a software perspective, I've been focused on enterprise architecture as a discipline without the use of a software tool. I've been more focused on the actual discipline of enterprise architecture, from a techniques point of view, rather than a tools point of view, as it's applied to understanding an organization.

The tool only helps to graphically capture information, but I haven't been focused on the tool side from a software point of view for the latter half of 2021. I've been focused on the body of knowledge of enterprise architecture.

I've been reading worldwide and studying from various mentors of this particular discipline. Right now, software is not the practiced area, even though I thought the ABACUS product was great, and you have TOGAF as well. Those are the two heavy hitters in the industry for me.

I thought that ABACUS had a lot to offer, so I chose to spend time on it, and I was looking at it from a software point of view, delivering enterprise architecture. I chose ABACUS initially. At some time though, I may double back and take a look at the TOGAF and the ADM part of what they do with ABACUS, but I'm not yet certain if that's going to be in 2022. I may definitely break it up by half a year, and take some time to actually look at TOGAF from a tools point of view within 2022.

I never really got around to acquiring the product and using it from a licensing point of view. I was evaluating the product as it related to the discipline of utilizing and supporting enterprise architecture. That was my initial interest. I never got around to actually acquiring it, procuring it, and putting it into what I call, functional use for any organization. I was a consultant trying to stay on the curve of understanding what's available to the world of enterprise architecture.

The discipline and the acquisition of a tool for an organization, I never really got into that, although I used the knowledge and passed that on to organizations as I'm practicing as a consultant. No one chose to implement an enterprise architecture tool for the entire organization. They liked the principles, the concepts, some of the road mapping that helped them out from a strategic point of view, but they never went for implementing enterprise architecture to the entire enterprise.

My advice to others thinking about implementing ABACUS is that it all depends as each practitioner will gravitate to whatever features they find best suited for the application, for the business, or for the enterprise. I don't have any hard and fixed advice for implementation, because I never really got to implement it. I saw some features that I liked, and I utilized those features to further my understanding and further my client's understanding for what they were looking for at the time, which was basically how to align things from an as-is perspective to where they think they were going, which came up with roadmaps. That's what I did as a person contracted to do, or to help strategic management understand where they're going based on where they are.

I'm rating this tool an eight out of ten. It's definitely high on my purview of tools within the enterprise architecture scheme of things, because it's more than just that. It's a communications tool as well: meaning that you can work almost like Microsoft Team.

This platform offers more than just the ability to draw diagrams across a multiple set of object management group, the BPM, etc. All those drawings that we have out there in the industry that we utilize across business and science: It has those things in it. Not only does it have that, but it has a work approach as well, similar to a Microsoft Team.

You can function like a Microsoft Team so you could be corresponding and have members of your team looking at your objects, and saying: "This is what I'm trying to do."

Another example is if you implemented an enterprise architecture approach electronically across an organization, and you are now in the real world of putting data into catalogs, and trying to look at it from an as-is point of view to potentially what you're going to work towards in the next five years, then it could function as a simulator, e.g. you could simulate what you're trying to work towards.

ABACUS is a really forward thinking product with a lot of nice features in it. It's not just all talk. It actually works.

I use the studio version, which is more of a desktop version as opposed to the enterprise version, which provides more of the analytics and intelligence capability.

The ease of modeling and the ease of showing interconnectivity and relationships is the most valuable. It is fairly simple and out of the box. It is customizable in many ways. It is a pretty good tool.

It doesn't have the simulation capability, which would be helpful in doing some business process analysis and improvements.

I have been working with this solution for about four years.

It is good. Currently, it has only one user.

It is very much scalable.

I've dealt with them in the past, and they're pretty good. They are quick to respond.

I used to use OpenText, which was the follow on from ProVision Enterprise Architecture. OpenText neglected its sort of development as an EA tool. It wasn't worthwhile to continue that relationship. I've always kept my eye on the EA tool market to see the trendsetters and the value-added tools, and ABACUS has always been a leader and one of the visionary type of tools. So, I decided to go that route.

The initial setup was straightforward. It was a personal implementation on my own laptop to demonstrate the tool capabilities and the potential value of architectural work.

It is competitive. It is not chump change. I am just using the studio version. I am not using the full enterprise version, which would probably cost me three times more for single-use, but it gives a lot more capability and analysis. It is server-based as well, and it is reasonably priced compared to a lot of other tools. There are other tools that have other sorts of capabilities, but in order to use them, you'd really have to have like 50 users for the price to become justifiable.

It is a great tool. It provides a lot of flexibility in meeting a client stage. It is an excellent early development tool. If you have an immature EA practice and you're looking for a tool to help you understand what is it that you really want to develop, it is a great tool for helping you in doing that. You can then carry on further, or you could switch to another tool if you really want to. 

Among the features that are coming out there, one of the key ones is automatic updates, where models can automatically update catalogs, like when you draw an object into a model, it'll put it into a catalog or a spreadsheet of stuff so that you can do it automatically. You don't have to go back and update your catalog.

I would give it an eight out of ten. I don't think there are many solutions that would even come close to a nine. Certainly, there are no tens out there.

When a client is looking for information on how to leverage an EA tool or how to look at the analysis that can come from an EA repository using the tool to create reports and dashboards, I can demonstrate that to them. 

I can demonstrate capabilities of what EA tools should be doing and how they should be doing it. 

Whether the client has a current tool in place or not, I can compare the information that needs to be gathered when you're documenting your architecture. Then I can tell the client that this is why the information is important to document. It may seem trivial or non-important at the time but it's important for later on because it allows for analysis and to do things such as project interdependencies reporting. This provides the ability to identify lags in the project delivery, where projects may depend on capabilities being in place but are not in place already. You will now have a lag for another project that is going to deliver early.

It gives you things for capability overlaps, gaps, and standards. 

The most valuable feature is that it has a customizable meta-model, which is key. It has extensive uses of catalogs, which can also be called inventories or taxonomies, and that is important as an enterprise architect. A solution designer would need that.

Rather than starting from scratch, leveraging a section of the predetermined solution and then plugging it into the solution that they're trying to develop provides interoperability or greater potential for it.

One of the key things that Abacus does is that it has a 3D modeling capability that can identify multiple levels of connectivity of components through their 3D views.

An example is looking at if A is connected to B and B is connected to C and C is connected to D and so on, you can have multiple levels of connectivity which wouldn't necessarily be obvious because you don't document it. The tool makes the connection for you.

If you are going to change the tactical standard in your organization and you were going to make everything TCP/IPv6 and you are no longer going to use V4, everything has to be V6. You will want to know what the impact is going to be before you make the change. How many different solutions and how many different systems are out there that you have to change or modify.

You can do an impact assessment through Abacus. You can then model it better and you can manage your standards, and also you can manage your solutions simultaneously.

You can see which capabilities may impact where you wouldn't normally connect a standard to a business function or a business capability.

You can also do it through this nth degree of connectivity. It's making it less complex, but more aware of your business environment.

A good example would be if you were going to remodel your home and you want to know where every electrical plug-in is and what fuse it is connected to. That would be very helpful before just going in there and guessing. It's a lot more, as it will tell you if you have different levels of connectivity. For example, you want to go in and change one thing, but what is that change going to do? While you can change a fuse or a receptacle, if you don't know what it touches then you are going to shock yourself.

Another great feature is that you can create reports on the fly.

It's a role-based tool, where you can identify who can change what type of models. They have different permissions and you can manage those very easily within the tool.

One of the things I like about this tool is that you can do an "as is" and "to be" set of models and you can compare them.

It's an out-of-the-box capable tool. For myself, I think that it works extremely well and it's very useful because, for the most part, I know what I am doing. For some of the functionality, it might be a little complicated for people getting started.

The reporting could be easier to configure.

In the next release, I would like to be able to float some more menus. When I am inputting information about an object into the database, getting that information entered can be done in multiple ways. This is good but sometimes you have to go to a different screen in order to input additional information.

I have been using this solution for three years.

This is a stable solution and I have not had any problems with it.

I know that it's scalable. It's out there and has been in use. I assume that it is going to be very scalable.

I plan to use it more. At this time I am using a lot of the built-in repositories or examples that they have to create examples for my clients. I am going to start to try to populate my type of examples with what I can see as being particularly useful for clients to be able to leverage.

I have contacted technical support and asked them how to do things. 

They have contacted me back with no problems and got it to work.

The technical support is more than fair.

Previously, I used ProVision. I started with it when it was a Proforma company, which was approximately in 2004 and 2005. Then they were bought out. It was sold to a couple of companies. The first was Metastorm and then it was bought out for that tool by OpenText. When OpenText bought it, the product was shelved in many ways. They didn't appear to want to evolve anything and just left it to die. Many companies will buy their competitors, then they disappear and then all of a sudden it's released as a new solution.

The tool is very useful, but it was more of a business process management with some EA and more EA functionality being built into it. 

The tools are expensive, as they are very niche tools.

The initial setup was straightforward. I am the only user on my laptop, it's not like I am putting it in an enterprise solution. They have enterprise solutions and they are quite robust.

The setup may be straightforward for one computer but maybe a bit more complex for and enterprise situation.

It took a couple of hours to deploy.

I downloaded the software, then got my license and went through the steps that they provided and I was up and running.

To get a fairly extensive license for Enterprise Architects from Spark is approximately US $400.00, maybe less, but with Avolution Abacus it was approximately US $2000.00 per year, and that includes maintenance with the Abacus tool.

There are no additional costs other than the licensing fees.

Working with enterprise architecture, I set up the practice and evaluate the client's practices to see where they can leverage more consistent procedures and help with their program development.

Most of my experience in IT solutions is on the documentation of solutions through EA tools as opposed to getting into the details of the actual solutions and the internal workings of them.

From a recent email, Avolution has released a change being made in the latest version and they are explaining what changes need to be done. People who are on servers hosted by Avolution, need to log off by a certain time. You can host a solution either within your enterprise or they can host it for you.

A tool is only as useful as the people using it, so you want to have the training program associated with anything to get people aware of what models to use or what type of templates, viewpoints, or standards that need to be associated and then they can work with that. What you don't want is to have them going in and start changing things, as that would have catastrophic impacts.

Understand how you want to analyze your enterprise information and how you want to leverage that to make better decisions, and that will tell you what features of any tool you need to be considered as fundamental.

For example, if you are going to allow people to put information into a tool with no standardized approach, no rigorous rules, and no procedure on how to do things, then any tool will do because you are not going to get anything out of it. It's going to be garbage in and nothing out. Many organizations will go and buy a tool thinking that it will solve their problem but the tools won't solve the problem unless they understand how they want to leverage it to make better decisions.

You have to keep with it because this solution has so many options and features. I keep learning and I just have to review the tutorials if I have forgotten how to do something. It's not a one-person tool, it's multifaceted. It's role-based and just trying to go through and trying to do everything is a bit overwhelming.

One person can manage it but that also gives you the wrong impression too. You must understand how you want people or organizations to see how to leverage the tool and then assign building the catalogs of a process reference model or a technical reference model. You need to assign that to people to do, you are not going to do it all yourself.

In populating information about the projects, you have to delegate that to the project management office to make sure that they give you the information that you need. At this time, I have a client who's the federal government here and project managers don't like to be questioned or have to put more into a tool. 

it's a very powerful tool. It does what an enterprise architect needs it to do and it supports the business in knowing more about the business so that they can do better.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Our primary use case is for handling the enterprise architecture planning in the company. We are in banking debt processing. We are currently using it for handling the application domain architecture.  

Something that is really valuable to us in using this tool is actually really very simple and generic regarding integrating application data components. Sometimes there is a component in an application that I want to use as a module or whatever as part of something else. Abacus actually provides functionality to make that very easy.  

For example, if you are using something like Graph Database you can create integrations to graphically represent data from other sources. The product is structured to support integrations like this. This is the number one most valuable feature.  

The second most valuable feature is the automatic detection and generation of the linking to the other applications. This is very good and simplifies using the product dramatically.  

One of the usual issues that I have and would like to see improved is something I have already talked to the company about through email support. It is regarding the support of UML (Unified Modeling Language). They are supporting a very old release of UML. I think the version of UML that they are supporting is version 2.1. The specification of this UML appeared 11 years ago.  

We need this update to manage parts of our modeling more efficiently. It seems Avolution does not think it is something that is of general user interest. We hoped that it was because it is important for what we do. It saves us a lot of time, actually. I hope they will take my suggestion and update it as it will make the product more useful. That is really our main issue for our situational needs.  

Some people will not utilize ABACUS as an enterprise solution. But actually, we want to extend the usage of this product and include it in our design detail for our enterprise architecture. To link this solution into our architecture is our ultimate objective.  

There are probably some things that Avolution could add to the product to enhance it and keep up with what some other products are introducing. For example, reverse engineering should be supported. It also does not support some of the common programming languages, like Java. I do stay aware of what other competing products are doing and I can see these features in other tools already. It would be good if they were implemented.  

We have been using Abacus for one-and-a-half years.  

The stability of the product is very good. We have not experienced a single problem with crashing or glitches.  

Currently, we have ten licenses. Eight of them are already being utilized. So we have eight current users up and running, and we still have two licenses because we hope to expand usage to other users. But there is no scalability requirement in our set up. If we needed to scale more than the ten licenses that we have, we could just purchase more.  

Even though we do not have problems with the product and the stability, we have probably used the technical support team a lot. We sometimes need them for advice on how to implement something or to answer other questions. They are actually very responsive and their responses are very clear.  

Positive

We did not have a previous tool to do architectural modeling and planning. ABACUS was our first choice for this type of solution.  

The deployment of the solution took one whole week. But actually we needed to spend more time with the tool so that week was not only for the deployment.  

The vendor came and led some of our team in training. I remember we were already detailing with Avolution how to do customizations and metadata modeling before they even came here for the training and installation. They came to give us personalized training for two days. Their implementation visit included helping us to deploy the initial metadata model and also the customization of the tool. Considering all that we accomplished, it was really quite fast and a productive week. But all the extra things that we accomplished is why the setup took one week to complete.  

The solution has been running for a year-and-a-half. It hardly requires any maintenance. We did one upgrade and that was all the maintenance that has been required. It is even very friendly in its usage of resources and storage. If we needed it, we add it. There is almost no effort required for the maintenance.  

One of the reasons why we selected this solution is because it came at a very reasonable price. I can not say it was cheap, but it was reasonable. Other comparable enterprise architecture tools are very expensive or were at the time we were making the choice.  

I really recommend this product to people who are considering it. For what it does it is very good and a reasonable price.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Avolution ABACUS as an eight-out-of-ten.  

The portfolio management is really good. The dashboard and the reports for the end-to-end impact analysis are really good. These are the features I found most valuable in Avolution ABACUS.

What Avolution ABACUS can improve is their presence in the Middle East, e.g. they could have more partners in the region. Their local presence could also be scaled more, particularly in customer service.

Mobile dashboards for executive management out of the box is a feature I'd like to see in this product in the next release.

I've been using Avolution ABACUS for 10 years. I used it in my previous company, and in my current company, I'm trying to get it, but I'm still waiting on budget approval.

Avolution ABACUS is a stable product.

Avolution ABACUS is scalable. I have used it with complex architecture and in a complex environment where there was a lot of data in the repository. The performance was acceptable. It was good. I've never faced any slowness or hiccup while using it.

The technical support is okay.

As an EA, I didn't have a hands-on experience of setting this tool up myself, because it's the responsibility of a different team, but from the documentation and the interaction with the team, it's not that complex. Avolution ABACUS has a straightforward set up.

The cost of Avolution ABACUS is reasonable, given the features they offer in comparison to other tools. Their price tag is really, really okay.

I evaluated System Architect.

Avolution ABACUS is a really good product. I would rate it the best among the rest.

My rating for Avolution ABACUS will depend on the maturity of the team that uses it. If you're really good and you have good people who understand enterprise architecture, then they can really make good use of the tool. Assuming that the team is mature in enterprise architecture, I would rate this tool an eight out of ten.