Rethinking Enterprise and Infrastructure Architecture

8/9/2019 Rethinking Enterprise and Infrastructure Architecture

1/41

advising on IT-business

mwdmacehiterward-dutton

Rethinking

enterprise andinfrastructurearchitecture

MicrosoftInfrastructure

ArchitectForum

24 October 2005

Neil Macehiter, Partner


2/41

Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 2

Key messages for today

IT-business alignment has never been so important

Alignment must be pursued in the context ofunderstanding business processes, priorities

Service-orientation is not just for applications

Contracts arent just about function: they encapsulateand communicate business priorities to IT deliveryorganisations

Enterprise architecture needs to be more inclusive,sophisticated

IT governance models must take all this into account


3/41


Agenda

Business and IT: new tensions

IT-business alignment

Alignment principle #1: service-oriented IT

Alignment principle #2: understandingbusiness processes and their priorities

Enterprise architecture must reflect IT-

business alignment principles A governance model for service-oriented IT

Recommendations


4/41


A brief introduction to MWD

Strategic advice and consulting

Focus on issues concerning IT-business alignment

Driving more business value out of enterprise IT

Not about the nuts and bolts of individual technologies

Core: two highly experienced industry analysts /practitioners

Sun, Oracle, Sybase, Ovum, Deloitte Consulting, etc

Based in UK, Europe-wide focus


5/41


advising on IT-business


Business and IT:

new tensions


6/41


Business pressures are drivingchange in new ways

Globalisation

Customers, partners, suppliers and competition

Connectedness driving sophisticated value chains

Transparency

Industry regulations, consumer pressure andcompetition driving openness

Service focus

Differentiation and shareholder value increasinglyderived from service experience


7/41 Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 7

business/technology changeprojects/scenarios

Managing and proving regulatorycompliance

Refinement of approaches to business andtechnology outsourcing

Integration of processes horizontallyacross organisations

Integration of processes, products andofferings between organisations



support these types of changeseffectively

Technology integration is costly, risky andcomplicated

Information is everywhere, but getting access

to the right information at the right time is verydifficult

Modifying system behaviour takes too long andchanges are difficult to communicate andimplement effectively

Much of IT system and operations expenditureis bloated and fixed - operations run withexcess redundant capacity

result: IT seen as a cost centre, not a source of business va



Dynamic, collaborativeprocesses (productinnovation, marketing,strategy setting, etc)

Stable, predictableprocesses (accounting,

order fulfilment, HR,logistics, etc)

Web user experience(increasing numbers ofERP/CRM applications,content management,etc)

Desktop userexperience (office

productivity,communication/

collaboration, etc)

Unstructuredinformation (officedocuments, web contentetc)

Structured information(customer records, order &

fulfilment records,accounts, etc)

management, process support anduser experience

Information management

Process support

User experience

Strongheritage of

management; BUT tends

to beapplication-

specific

Littleheritage of

formalmanagement; storage isfragmented

Strongheritage of

management; BUT tends

to beapplication-

specific

Littlestructuredautomated

supportfrom IT

Familiar,highly

interactiveBUT tends

to beapplication-

specific

Open andaccessible

environments but

usability can

be poor


10/41 Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 10advising on IT-business


IT-business

alignment

b i li l i l



IT-business alignment: multipleangles

IT

Business

Changeimplications

Changecapabilities,limitations

Investmentin capability

Deliveryof value

not just about building stuff that the business will use



A common language is theessential starting point

IT

Business

?

Investment prioritised in

terms of business need

Systems that delivervalue to the business

Clear direction from thebusiness about focus,strategy

Collaborative approachto implementing businesschange

A common, agreedrepresentation ofbusiness activity,goals

+A common, agreedview of how currentand future IT providesstructured support tothe business in thiscontext



Alignment demands that ITbecomes a service provider

Business

IT

Busin

essproce

ss

Busin

essproce

ss

Busin

essproce

ss

Busin

essproce

ss

Busin

essproce

ss

Managed

IT

serviceManage

dIT

service

Managed

IT

serviceManage

dIT

service

Managed

IT

service

A P P L I C A T I O N S & I N F O R M A T I O N

I N F R A S T R U C T U R E

B U S I N E S S S T R A T E G Y

Business processes

form the foundation

of a common

language

IT defines and delivers

business level services

which support the rightprocesses, the right way


14/41 Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 14advising on IT-business


Alignmentprinciple #1:

understandingservice-oriented

IT



So what is an IT service?

CRMdatabase

Provideautomatedsupport formy sales

force

Updatecustomerdetails

Line of businessperspective

IT operationsperspective

Developerperspective

d i li d i h


16/41


Managed IT services aligned withbusiness processes

Lifecycle servicesManaging the lifecycles of business functions and infrastructure

Business function servicesAutomating business functions

Infrastructure services

Providing the platform

Users experiencesof managed IT service

C b i bli i f


17/41


Contracts bring obligations forsuppliers and consumers

Message FormatMessage Sequence

Functions

SecurityResponse TimeThroughput

Usage CostLiability Clauses

Trust

FunctionalTerms

QoS

Terms

Commercial

Terms


18/41

Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 18advising on IT-business


Alignmentprinciple #2:

understanding

businessprocesses andtheir priorities

A i f b i


19/41


A universe of businessprocesses [1]

E E E E E

M M M

S

Executionprocesses instanceshandle particular unitsof work withinbusiness activities

Managementprocesses instancesoversee instances ofexecution processes

Strategy processes instances overseeinstances ofmanagementprocesses

hierarchy of business processes

A i f b i


20/41


A universe of businessprocesses [2]

E

E

E

M

M

S

ontribution to competitive differentiation

E

E

E

M

M

S

Non-differentiating

(focus should be on efficiency)

Differentiating

(focus should be on flexibility)

Ob ti th t f


21/41


Observations on the nature ofbusiness processes

E

E

E

M

M

S

E

E

E

M

M

S

Increasedstructure,predictability

Increasedcollaboration,ad-hocnature

Non-differentiating

(focus should be on efficiency)

Differentiating

(focus should be on flexibility)

I li ti f b i f ti


22/41


Implications for business functionservice design

Levelof

process

abstr

action

Low

High

Non-differentiating(focus should be on efficiency)

Differentiating(focus should be on flexibility)

Business activity role

Strategybusiness processes

Managementbusiness processes

Executionbusiness processes

Activity functions

Technical functions

Reusabilityimportanceincreases

Opennes

s,flexibil

itydema

ndsincre

ase

Efficiencydem

andincre

ases


23/41



Enterprisearchitecture

must reflect IT-

businessalignmentprinciples


24/41


The real world

From Towards

Build, or buyvs. build

Applicationimplementation

Buy AND buildAND integrate

Back officeBusiness area investment

focusFront office and

beyond

Personalproductivity

desktop

IT access environmentProductivitydesktop +

global access toresources

Data processingTechnology innovation

focus

Communication, collaboration,

integration

Older approaches fail to capture reality re:

integration, communication, collaboration,su l com lexit

Outsourcingvs. in-house

delivery

Capability supply Multi-sourcing

A t diti l i f EA [1] Th


25/41


A traditional view of EA [1]: TheZachman framework

Source: John Zachman, ZIFA

A traditional ie of EA [2]


26/41


A traditional view of EA [2]:TOGAF ADM

Source: Open Group

The good and the bad of EA


27/41


The good and the bad of EAframeworks

The good The frameworks give us a

useful language forcommunicating and sharing

ideas about how IT systemscan/should support businessneeds

Methodologies like theTOGAF ADM give solid

templates for EA processwork

Starting to consider moredynamic aspects of EA

as-is, to-be, vision views

The bad The roots of most

frameworks are in thecreation or change oftransactional informationprocessing systems

The real world of IT ismuch more ugly andcomplicated

Still documentation-oriented not focused onthe process of architectureevolution & governance


28/41


Business process

Applications

Data

The challenge

Activities, processesThe business

real world doesnt decompose nicely and IT isjust about things you build in-house

rov ng structure support or us ness


29/41


rov ng structure support or us nessprocesses means understanding scope &scale of interactions

From

Data design tightly coupled toapplication design, and

application design to userrequirements very restricted

view of process needs

B

us

in

e

s

s

p

ro

c

e

s

s

Towards

B

u

s

in

e

s

s

pr

o

c

e

s

s

Loosely-coupled resourcesprovide services which are

designed to support theinteractions that take placewithin a business process

EA h t id b i


30/41


EA approaches must consider businessprocess support more broadly

B

u

s

in

e

s

s

p

ro

c

e

s

s

Transactionalservices

Informationservices

Communication& collaboration

services

Support scenario:a mesh of

interactions

e have to model more than just transactional applications

An alternative enterprise


31/41


An alternative enterprisearchitecture model

Business architecture- activities, entities- goals, strategy, differentiation

Process architecture

-roles, flows, resources

Business function service architecture

Infrastructure architecture- security, identity management- resource management

Transactional/ information

management

Analytics,discovery,

reporting

Communication,

collaboration

Historically thefocus of

architecture hasbeen here

Historicaldisconnect here


32/41



Enterprise

Architecture andIT Governance


33/41


Enterprise architecture

Needs to be driven inpartnership with thebusiness

IT

Business

Lifecycle

Business function

Infrastructure

Functional QoS

Commercial

Should consider all thedifferent views ofservice provision not

just functional

considerations

Should follow a service-orientedmodel but one which is aboutmore than application functionality

These perspectives are the key


34/41


These perspectives are the keydimensions for IT governance, too

Investment

Delivery

Change

Func

tional

QoS

Commercial

Business function

Infrastructure

Lifecycle

Contract aspects

S

ervice

types

Rela

tionshi

ps

Business processes, priorities


35/41


governance should be consideredtogether

Investment

Delivery

Change

Func

tional

QoS

Commercial

Business function

Infrastructure

Lifecycle

Contract aspects

S

ervice

types

Rela

tionshi

ps

Businessarchitecture

Process architecture

Captures theiterative process

of architecture change

Infrastructurearchitecture

Business fnarchitecture

TX/IM A/R C/C


36/41


You can use the model to

Identify strengths and weaknesses in yourcurrent IT governance approach

Identify the contributions made byparticular technologies to businessobjectives

As above for IT vendors

Consider the dimensions that affectsourcing decisions


37/41



A worked

example: therole of DSI

DSI: the design for operations


38/41


DSI: the design for operationsapproach today

Investment

Delivery

Change

Func

tional

QoS

Commercial

Business function

Infrastructure

Lifecycle

Contract aspects

Service

types

Rela

tionshi

ps

Capability today isin designingbusiness function

services withexplicit referenceto runtime QoSdirectives andvalidate them

against a staticinfrastructuremodel

DSI: with planned Longhorn


39/41


DSI: with planned Longhornwave technology

Investment

Delivery

Change

Func

tional

QoS

Commercial

Business function

Infrastructure

Lifecycle

Contract aspects

Service

types

Rela

tionshi

psWith plannedfuture capabilities,design-time QoSdirectives form thebasis of a live

model which isinterpreted andmaintained byserverinfrastructure to

perform goal-orientedinfrastructuremonitoring andmanagement


40/41


A call to action

For architecture to contribute to IT-business alignment,you have to follow a holistic approach

Not just applications but infrastructure and lifecycle services

Proactively consider the links between all three

Look for technologies and patterns which support the linkages

Set up an architecture governance practice whichdoesnt just allow change, but promotes it

Not a project-focused approach but an ongoing process withsenior level sponsorship

Close links to business stakeholders and their priorities

Think about using contracts, policies and processes as thefoundation of a common language


41/41


Thank you

Rethinking Enterprise and Infrastructure Architecture

Documents

Transcript of Rethinking Enterprise and Infrastructure Architecture