Introduction to Turbo EA¶
What is Turbo EA?¶
Turbo EA is a modern, self-hosted platform for Enterprise Architecture Management. It enables organizations to document, visualize, and manage all components of their business and technology architecture in one place.
Who is this guide for?¶
This guide is for everyone who uses Turbo EA — enterprise architects, IT managers, business analysts, developers, and administrators. Whether you are evaluating the platform, managing your organization's IT landscape day-to-day, or configuring the system as an admin, you will find the information you need here. No advanced technical knowledge is required to get started.
Key Benefits¶
- Comprehensive visibility: View all applications, processes, capabilities, and technologies across the organization in a single platform.
- Informed decision-making: Visual reports (portfolio, capability maps, dependencies, lifecycle, cost, and more) that facilitate evaluation of the current state of technology infrastructure.
- Lifecycle management: Track the status of every technology component through five phases — from planning through retirement.
- Collaboration: Multiple users can work simultaneously, with configurable roles, stakeholder assignments, comments, todos, and notifications.
- AI-powered descriptions: Generate card descriptions with a single click. Turbo EA combines web search with a local or commercial LLM to produce type-aware summaries — complete with confidence scores and source links. Runs entirely on your infrastructure for privacy, or connect to commercial providers (OpenAI, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude, and more). Fully admin-controlled: choose which card types get AI suggestions, pick your search provider, and select the model.
- Visual diagrams: Create architecture diagrams with the embedded DrawIO editor, fully synchronized with your card inventory.
- Business process modeling: BPMN 2.0 process flow editor with element linking, approval workflows, and maturity assessments.
- ServiceNow integration: Bi-directional sync with ServiceNow CMDB to keep your EA landscape connected with IT operations data.
- Multi-language: Available in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Chinese.
Key Concepts¶
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Card | The basic element of the platform. Represents any architecture component: an application, a process, a business capability, etc. |
| Card Type | The category a card belongs to (Application, Business Process, Organization, etc.) |
| Relationship | A connection between two cards that describes how they relate (e.g., "uses", "depends on", "is part of") |
| Metamodel | The structure that defines what card types exist, what fields they have, and how they relate to each other. Fully admin-configurable |
| Lifecycle | The temporal phases of a component: Plan, Phase In, Active, Phase Out, End of Life |
| BPM | Business Process Management — modeling and analyzing business processes |
| SoAW | Statement of Architecture Work — a formal TOGAF document for architecture initiatives |