Glossary

Term	Meaning
Model object	An identifiable architecture description entity with a type and lifecycle.
Object type	One of the 13 SAF core concepts.
Layer	One of the three coarse-grained model domains: business, application, or infrastructure.
Instance	A concrete company object, such as the CRM system or sales team.
Relationship	A typed, directed connection between two objects.
Profile	Recommended model breadth, chosen for the type of decisions and the cost of maintaining data — not for company scale.
Maturity	Completeness, connectedness, and governance of model information.
Catalog	A set of identified objects whose relationships may be incomplete.
Allowed debt	A deliberate, temporary gap in the model (missing relationships or states) that is tracked and closed as maturity grows.
Connected model	A consistent graph of objects and canonical relationships.
Governed model	A connected model with ownership, lifecycle, freshness, and checks.
Current state	The actual architecture at a selected date.
Target state	The approved expected architecture state.
Stable identifier	An identifier preserved through renaming and refinement.
Owner	An actor that makes lifecycle decisions for an object.
Information source	A system, document, or person from which a model statement originates.
Criticality	An assessment of the impact of unavailability or incorrect operation.

Object type names are listed in the object catalog.