IT Architect Space

An insight in to Enterprise Architecture

2008-05-21T16:19:00.001+10:00

Personas for an Enterprise Architecture

Strategic Architecture
Chief Architecture
Business Architecture

Rationale: Behind and EA

Why Enterprise Architecture is Important for your Organisation .

Manages IT portfolio
Managing complexity
Support Decision making
Delivers roadmap for change
Delivers insight an overview of Business & IT
Supports System development
Supports business and IT budget priortisation

What issue you plan for EA program

Business IT Allignment
Business Change
Transaformation roadmap
Infrastructural renewal
Application renewal
Legacy transformation

In recent years the familirisation of Organisation with the EA is growing and so as the need. Even the enterprsie governance is identifying EA. EA is also sitting at the Top management and IT Maangement governance structure. From the analysis and surveys performaed it is a self learned discipline by understanding the Business needs, organisation structures and what rechnology can offer. The need for certification is also not necessary if the wokring experience support the requirement for an Enterprise Architecture profession. Though as any othe profession constant awareness programs about the Business-Technology models is important to keep the momentum and insights in to what is available is required.

And as we knwo about the book "Lost in the world of Framweorks", most of the organisation follows there own framework that work efficient for them and that is most of the time best of the breed Hybrid framework that may include a combination of more than one framework. Other than that the most common frameworks in use are Zachman and TOGAF.

Looking at the EA maturity lot of companies still use the tools like Visio and Powerpoint as the main tool for EA practice. But in the recent years the more wholistic tools are picking up with much wider coverage of the aspects of EA.

Single Sign On (SSO)

2007-08-23T10:26:00.000+10:00

Enterprise Single Sign On (ESSO) (Defined by Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_sign-on) IS

Ability of a user to log in once to multiple applications that would ordinarily require their own separate logins. The same credentials will be used while navigating through the multiple Organisation websites and depending on your policies constraints. The ability could be allowed to share the SSO credential to the Business partners.

IS Not

Password synchronisation, as password synchronisation doesn't reduce the number of log-on. Behind the seen it is still log-on for each individual system.

Attributes:

Rule based capabilities
Role based capabilities

Benefits and Business Drivers

Improve user experience by not maintaining large number of users password by the end user
Reduce Operational cost incurred to organisation in provisioning and maintaining user-passwords
Organisation wide consistent policies and security implementation and be able to enforce uniform Enterprise authentication and/r authorisation policies across the enterprise
Maintainability is increased by simplifying the process and also greater audit-ability of user sessions
Eliminate possibility of Orphaned Accounts
Resolves redundant and overlapping Administration across various system
Free up developer for implementing silo solution for the security authentication and/or authorisation) and promote re-usability
Fine grained Auditing

Cons:

Single Point of Failure due to Denial of Service or Lack of availability
Stolen credential via insecure implementation

Type of SOS

Web Based

Website:

One log-in to access multiple website
All subsequent Logins to websites are handled transparently

Web Services

Legacy Based

Solution Option:

Big Players:

Entrust :GetAccess
Evidian : PortalXpert
Netegrity : SiteMinder
RSA : ClearTrust
IBM : TIVOLI Access Manager (TAM) with WebSeal
WebSeal will act as the first point of contact and work as a reverse proxy. This entails that the internal systems will trust all incoming request that have passed through the byWebSeal and thus the access to website will only be allowed via the WebSeal and all other requests are just rejected.
Novell
Computer Associates
HP : Identity and Access Management (IdM)
Sun : Sun Java Access Security Manager
Passlogix : v-GO Sign-On Platform

Future of Mainframe based system

2007-06-13T11:57:00.000+10:00

After the origin of all the integration layer technology, organisations are finding it more comfortable to extend the usage of the mainframe based system. Since mainframe is still based on quite old technology, the question arise. How long can we sustain the mainframe based solution?

For all those organisation where the core of the business functions are on Mainframe based technology, migrating to the midrange new technology is still quite expensive and complex exercise. Thus they refrain and delay as much further as they can. Integration technology has given them more hope now, as they have provided various adapters and technology integration options that you can now have a complete SOA based system using Integration Technology like TIBCO consuming the resources as mainframe.

Some question still arise:

How extensible will be these solutions?
When will they saturate considering the Resources (mainframe) technology and the more modern technology in the IT Arena?

There are probably more thinking that might be going around, need to get your opinion.

Architecture Frameworks

2007-05-30T11:11:00.000+10:00

Architecture Framework in Use

While developing the Architecture Artifacts, Architects use various frameworks, Guidelines and Principles. Most of the time I came across Architects using a mix of frameworks. The most commonly used frameworks are:

Zachman Framework
TOGAF (The Open Group Architecture Framework )

More recently Gartner has come up with their own framework called "Gartner Enterprise Architecture Framework". Gartner highlight the importance of bringing together three constituents: business owners, information specialists, the technology implementers instead of checking off items on a process matrix. It is more agile approach towards building the Architecture.

I am posting this blog to get different opinion about the various other frameworks used across different industries. What value does one add as opposed to other or is it time to develop a new framework out of the experience of the Architects.