TREA - transparent enterprise architecture

kresimir.barbarosa@saliunca.com
+386 51 209 194
DO NOT LET IT CONTROL YOU
TREATransparent Enterprise Architecture

Information technology solutions
are not merely black boxes frozen
in space and time but belong to an
ever-expansive and increasingly
interconnected environment, with
systems working in unison for
delivery of business services
wherever and whenever they are
needed. Their scope and
complexity grows in time and this
occurs on several levels: system,
software, hardware, and network;
each one of them undergo
changes that inﬂuence the entire
environment. Eﬃciently managing
and leveraging such an
environment at all times becomes
a great challenge, one that takes
up much of IT personnel
timesheet.
• system
• software
• hardware
• network
Manegement frameworki
Complexity occurs on several levels
Introduction

• Which technologies from different vendors
are in use by our solutions?
• How many applications are in use and how
do they interface with each other and
users?
• Which systems are hosted where? Are they
physical or virtual?
• Are we taking advantage of our resources
optimally? Are there any bottlenecks?
• Is there unnecessary duplication of
functions?
• Who is administering particular systems
and how?
Management platformi
The absence of a complete picture
arises many questions:
Occupied by numerous tasks, IT staff
is unable to fully serve the business
user with fresh, innovative approaches
that drive the company’s further
development. This puts considerable
pressure on IT both internal and
external, which results in inefficient
use of resources and delays in
achieving business goals. Superfluous
tasks like manual management of
systems grow increasingly harder for
they are prone to human error,
perhaps even dependent on key
individuals involved and their obscure
knowledge of the environment. The
absence of a complete picture of the
situation across the environment
hampers overall agility as numerous
questions arise.
The problem

• Are our systems up-to-date and
protected against known threats?
• Are our systems’ current
deployments documented and still
supported by the vendor?
• Is our licensing current, the capacity
compliant and aligned with business
needs?
• Where in their lifecycles are our
systems at this time, are support and
spare parts still available?
Non-technical beneﬁts:
There are several levels of integration among
systems that have long ceased being
isolated siloes and as such depend on each
other in delivery of business services. In case
any of them become compromised, so do
the solutions built on top of them.
Furthermore, every solution has a lifecycle of
its own that necessitates keeping proper
documentation so planning, maintenance
and management can all be tackled at an
appropriate time. Architectural model of the
environment is not intended to replace
systems’ documentation that contains key
data on a particular system, but to tie them
all together on a larger scale, and describe
their place within the environment. Besides
technical beneﬁts it also provides much
insight into software licensing, deployed
components and their compliance,
communication security and the ability to
discover opportunities for infrastructure
optimisation.
The ecosystem

• Do we have reliable backups of our
data?
• Are our systems safe and secure, are
there any potential weak points?
• Where are potential single points of
failure and how do they affect key
systems availability?
Data protection issues:
Mission-critical systems’ availability
is always limited by their weakest
link, which in case of deep
integrations can be any one in a
host of components. Review,
identification and remediation of
potential issues ensures appropriate
actions can be taken before a
possible crisis may occur. Knowing
answers to data protection issues
such as those outlined on the right
can be a crucial difference between
having a resilient or a vulnerable
environment in time of need.
Business continuity

By utilizing a single all-encompassing
architectural model of the
environment, the company is able to
regain control over the entirety of
included IT assets wherever they are
and however they happen to be
delivered, whereas the possible level
of detail inclusion is virtually unlimited
and open to growth in time. A unified
model of the entire environment
provides a visual, segmented situation
on four different levels.
• Technology (infrastructure and
systems)
• Application (components and
interfaces)
• Business (processes and roles)
• Relational (relationships among
artifacts)
4 levels of unified model of the
entire environment:
The solution

Having awareness of the current
situation throughout the
environment establishes a
baseline starting point from which
the company is able to align IT
assets with business requirements
in a strategic manner. On this basis
the whole organization becomes
nimbler and capable of focusing
on further development instead of
crisis management, which
ultimately leads down the path of
gaining a real competitive edge
over others.
1.MODEL
2.OPTIMIZE
3.GROW
Management platform
The roadmap to this solution
lies in the following three
steps below:
i

Modeling the environment is the ﬁrst
step which involves information
gathering on the entire infrastructure
inventory starting with hardware,
networking and zones, software
systems and their components,
applications and their interfaces, and
various user types. All of these represent
inputs for appropriate Archimate®
standard artifacts that form relationships
tying them all together, accompanied by
important metadata such as software
maintenance levels, system
administrators, network addresses,
dates, makes and models etc. This
process involves assets in both on-
premise and cloud infrastructures.
Complete architectural
model representing the
entirety of the organization's
IT assets, allowing for a
thorough understanding of
the environment and
providing answers to the
questions outlined above.
End result of this step:
STEP 1: MODEL

The second step is to leverage the model in order
to discover relevant interdependencies between
particular artifacts, which can be displayed
visually up to eight layers deep. All integration
points between systems can thus be evaluated
for bottlenecks, security issues, possible role
duplication and whether mission-critical systems
are in fact highly available on all required levels
throughout their stacks. The model also provides
insight into actual deployment of systems aiding
in evaluation of their licensing, lifecycle and
requirements compliance. It has become
increasingly difficult for larger environments to
keep track of all their assets, and efficiently scale
them alongside changing business needs,
however using the architectural model it becomes
possible to do so from a single point, regardless if
the assets in question are on-premise systems,
SaaS or any other subscription models.
Keep track of all
environment’s assets
and efficiently scale
them alongside
changing business
needs - however using
the architectural model
it becomes possible to
do so from a single
point.
STEP 2: OPTIMIZE

With current systems hardened and
optimized, the organization can leverage the
architectural model in subsequent
implementations, modernizations and
migrations in the future. Once the model has
been established, inputting regular updates
becomes easy and transparent. An additional
beneﬁt alongside the completely mapping of
environment is the fact that the model itself
supports further inclusion of business
processes, associated business artifacts,
actors’ motivations, interactions, and a host
of other object types, thereby oﬀering an
additional level of insight into relationships
and interdependencies on an even higher
level that ultimately allows for the
optimization of business processes
themselves.
Scalability and
transparency of
architectural model in
subsequent
implementations,
modernisations and
migrations.
STEP 3: GROW

i
EXAMPLE

Picture 1: A sample of the
complete model view which
includes (from bottom up):
networks, physical devices,
database and conﬁguration
repositories, system
software components,
nodes, applications,
application interfaces, users,
and their relationships.

Picture 2: A sample of various pieces of metadata belonging to an artifact, in this case
a UPS device; demonstration values include: make and model, date of
implementation, network address, serial number, and full name of the system
administrator

Picture 3: A sample of visual representation of dependencies based on a randomly selected
artifact, in this case the view is shown four levels deep; such views provide visual discovery of
interdependence between integrated systems, infrastructure and users.

Picture 4: A sample of an export of the model with its complete set of data accessible using a web
browser; such exports are to be generated each time a change is made.

TREA - transparent enterprise architecture

More Related Content

What's hot

Similar to TREA - transparent enterprise architecture

Recently uploaded

TREA - transparent enterprise architecture