Impact Analysis

Impact Analysis shows how far an architecture object reaches through active repository relationships. It is separate from risk: impact describes connected reach, while risk describes how concerning an object or condition is.

Start an analysis

Open an architecture object and select Impact Analysis.

OpenEA Community 1.5.2 supports traversal depth from 1 through 5. The default is 3.

How traversal works

OpenEA starts at the selected object and traverses active relationships in both stored and inverse directions.

For every result, it preserves:

• Result depth
• Object path
• Relationship path
• Direction used for each step
• Governed forward or inverse label

Cycles are avoided by preventing the same object from appearing twice in a single path.

Direct and indirect impact

Depth 1 results are direct impacts. Deeper results are indirect impacts.

Example:

Python 2.7
   ▲ uses
   │
Regulatory Reporting
   │ supports
   ▼
Regulatory Reporting capability

Depending on the selected root and traversal direction, OpenEA can expose both technology and business reach from the same repository graph.

Filters

Impact Analysis can restrict traversal by relationship type and restrict displayed results by object type. These filters do not alter the repository; they only change the analysis view.

Graph visualization

The Cytoscape.js graph is generated from the impact result. Selecting a node can navigate to the corresponding repository object.

The graph is not stored as authoritative architecture data.

Impact Severity

OpenEA also persists an impact_severity metric using a depth-3 traversal. The score is deterministic and uses components for direct dependents, critical dependents, business reach, dependency depth, and strategic importance.