Preface

The Open Group

The Open Group is a global consortium that enables the achievement of business objectives through IT standards. With more than 450 member organizations, The Open Group has a diverse membership that spans all sectors of the IT community – customers, systems and solutions suppliers, tool vendors, integrators, and consultants, as well as academics and researchers – to:

• Capture, understand, and address current and emerging requirements, and establish policies and share best practices

•  Facilitate interoperability, develop consensus, and evolve and integrate specifications and open source technologies

•  Offer a comprehensive set of services to enhance the operational efficiency of consortia

•  Operate the industry’s premier certification service

Further information on The Open Group is available at www.opengroup.org.

The Open Group publishes a wide range of technical documentation, most of which is focused on development of Open Group Standards and Guides, but which also includes white papers, technical studies, certification and testing documentation, and business titles. Full details and a catalog are available at www.opengroup.org/bookstore.

Readers should note that updates – in the form of Corrigenda – may apply to any publication. This information is published at www.opengroup.org/corrigenda.

The IT4IT™ Forum

The IT4IT Forum, a Forum of The Open Group, was created when its predecessor, the IT4IT Consortium, transferred its activities to The Open Group. The IT4IT Consortium came into being in 2011 as a practitioner-driven initiative. The Consortium was comprised of IT professionals from multiple industry segments and several IT vendors who agreed to share their experiences for the purpose of developing and publishing future-safe prescriptive guidance for implementing end-to-end an IT4IT architecture with full insight. Past and present members include Enterprise Architects and IT department leaders or industry consultants from: Accenture, Achmea, AT&T, HP IT, ING Bank, Munich RE, PwC, Royal Dutch Shell, and University of South Florida.

The Consortium formed a strategy board that spent thousands of hours sharing their insights and analyzing their experiences to develop a future-safe IT operating model. This model includes a prescriptive architecture for implementing the IT Value Chain to optimize the efficiency and effectiveness of IT. The strategy board is backed by an executive board sponsor from each member company.

“Cloud services and multi-provider outsourcing are adding new degrees of complexity to IT service management. The Consortium will use its real-life, cross-industry expertise to define a new operating model for IT.”

Dr. Dirk Heiss, Global Infrastructure Services Officer, Munich RE

This Document

The Open Group IT4IT™ Reference Architecture refers to the capability or capabilities required to manage the business of IT, covering IT end-to-end from plan, through build and operate. It assumes the principle that the business of running IT is industry-agnostic and that IT leaders share the same problems and opportunities in managing the service lifecycle effectively. At the core, these problems are rooted in IT structure, competencies, and capabilities and the missing link has been the lack of an IT operating model. The IT4IT Reference Architecture proposes that it is possible to establish an IT operating model standard mapped to the existing IT landscape yet flexible enough to support the volatility inherent in the IT industry and accommodate changing IT paradigms (composite apps, agile development, mobile technology, multi-sourcing, etc.).

The IT Value Chain and IT4IT Reference Architecture represent the IT service lifecycle XE "IT service lifecycle"  in a new and powerful way, providing the missing link between industry standard best practice guides and the technology you need to select and execute those processes. The IT Value Chain and IT4IT Reference Architecture are a new foundation on which to base your IT4IT operating model and provide a welcome blueprint for the CIO to accelerate IT’s transition to becoming a service broker to the business.

This document is The Open Group IT4IT Reference Architecture, Version 2.0, an Open Group Standard. It has been developed and approved by The Open Group.

This document is structured as follows:

How to Use this Standard

It is recommended that the reader start by familiarizing themselves with Chapter 3 (Overview) which introduces the concepts of the IT Value Chain. This should then be followed by the IT4IT Core (Chapter 4), and the four IT Value Streams. These are:

Documentation Structure of the IT4IT Reference Architecture

Figure 1 is a graphical representation of the data objects associated with the IT4IT Reference Architecture. The architecture is comprised of a set of normative documents[1] and a formal model described using the ArchiMate® XE "ArchiMate language"  modeling language and UML XE "UML" . These define “what” the architecture is. The normative documentation includes:

The Reference Architecture diagrams, in ArchiMate notation, will be provided as a set of web pages, and also as a downloadable zip file of those pages. When available, they will be found at: https://collaboration.opengroup.org/data/IT4IT/RA_2.0.

A set of guidance documents is being developed to accompany the architecture, intended to describe “how” to apply the architecture in practice. Planned guidance documents include:

Figure 1: Documentation Structure of the IT4IT Reference Architecture

Documents/artifacts that fall into these two categories are governed by The Open Group Standards Process. In addition, The Open Group will maintain a set of White Papers that complement the architecture and elaborate on its applicability and use in various settings.

Related Industry Standards

Most IT management standards fall into one of two categories: process and/or method-focused technology and/or implementations-centric. There are no standards that prescribe both the operating model and automation guidelines for running the IT function. Therefore, the IT4IT Reference Architecture fills this gap and as such complements a number of existing standards and best practices such as:

Trademarks

ArchiMate®, DirecNet®, Making Standards Work®, OpenPegasus®, The Open Group®, TOGAF®, UNIX®, and the Open Brand (“X” logo) are registered trademarks and Boundaryless Information Flow™, Build with Integrity Buy with Confidence™, Dependability Through Assuredness™, FACE™, IT4IT™, Open Platform 3.0™, Open Trusted Technology Provider™, UDEF™, and the Open “O” logo and The Open Group Certification logo are trademarks of The Open Group in the United States and other countries.

CMMI® is registered in the US Patent and Trademark Office by Carnegie Mellon University.

COBIT® is a registered trademark of the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) and the IT Governance Institute.

eTOM® is a registered trademark of the TM Forum.

ITIL® is a registered trademark of AXELOS Ltd.

OASIS™ and TOSCA™ are trademarks of OASIS.

OMG®, Unified Modeling Language®, and UML®, are registered trademarks of the Object Management Group, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.

All other brands, company, and product names are used for identification purposes only and may be trademarks that are the sole property of their respective owners.

Acknowledgements

This standard was prepared by The Open Group IT4IT™ Forum.

When The Open Group approved the IT4IT™ Reference Architecture, Version 2.0, an Open Group Standard, on October 5, 2015, the membership of the IT4IT™ Forum was as follows:

Chris Davis, University of South Florida, Chair
Karel van Zeeland, Shell Information Technology International BV, Vice-Chair
Martin Kirk, The Open Group, Forum Director
Andrew Josey, The Open Group, Director, Standards
Cathy Fox, The Open Group, Technical Editor

Contributors

The Open Group gratefully acknowledges the contribution of the following members of the IT4IT™ Forum in the development of this standard:

Richard Aarnink
Rob Akershoek
Chris Armstrong
Charles Betz
Georg Bock
Mark Bodman
Paul Buckley
James Caruso
Eran Cohen
Sam Courtney
Sukumar Daniel
Dwight David
Christopher Davis
Sue Desiderio
Ulrich Feyer
Mike Fulton
Philippe Geneste
Ohad Goldfarb
Mark Gray
Claudia Guli
Trey Harris
Rob Hengeveld
Brian Hodgdon
Keith Jahn
Jim Johnson
Linda Kavanagh
Mark Luchtmeijer
Sylvain Marie
Lakshmi Malhotra
Gunnar Menzel
Satya Misra
Brian Ng
Dan Rosenzweig
Lars Rossen
Vasu Sankhavaram
Ryan Schmierer
Rick Solis
Ken Street
Mary Street
Etienne Terpstra
Richard Tian
Erik van Busschbach
Kees van den Brink
Karel van Zeeland
Gerlan Verlouw
Prafull Verma
Floris Verschoor
Ulrich Wanka
Erik Witte

Technical Reviewers

Technical reviewers are those individuals who have submitted comments during the company review, or participated in the resolution process during the development of the IT4IT Reference Architecture, Version 2.0.

Sam Courtney
Chris Davis
Sue Desiderio
Thorbjörn Ellefsen
Ohad Goldfarb
Andrew Josey
Martin Kirk
Randall Ramsey
Lars Rossen
Mark Smalley

IT4IT™ Forum Members

The following organizations were members of the IT4IT™ Forum at the time of approval:

Accenture Limited, USA
Achmea, The Netherlands
Action Research Foundation, India
Agency for Public Management and eGovernment (Difi), Norway
Arismore, France
Armstrong Process Group, Inc., USA
AT&T IT Architecture Solutions, USA
ATE Enterprises Ltd., UK
Biner Consulting, Sweden
BP Oil International Limited, UK
CA, Inc., USA
Capgemini S.A., The Netherlands
CC and C Solutions, USA
Conexiam Solutions, Inc., USA
Dux Diligens S.A de C.V, Mexico
EA Principals, Inc., USA
Ernst & Young, UK
ExxonMobil, USA
Fujitsu, Japan
HCL Technologies Ltd., India
Hewlett-Packard Company, USA
Huawei Technologies, Co. Ltd., China
IBM, USA
Logicalis SMC, The Netherlands
Microsoft, USA
Ministerie van Financien, The Netherlands
Munich Re Group, Germany
National Healthcare, USA
Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, Inc., USA
Oracle Corporation, USA
Origin Energy, Australia
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, South Africa
Raytheon Company, USA
Real IRM Solutions (Pty) Ltd., South Africa
ServiceNow, Inc., USA
Shell Information Technology International B.V., The Netherlands
Shift Technologies LLC, United Arab Emirates
Stichting ASL BiSL Foundation, The Netherlands
Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., India
The Boeing Company, USA
UMBRiO, The Netherlands
University of South Florida, USA
Westbury Software, The Netherlands

Referenced Documents

(Please note that the links below are good at the time of writing but cannot be guaranteed for the future.)

Normative References

Normative references for this standard are defined in Section  REF _Ref424213833 \r \h 1.4.

Informative References

The following documents are referenced in this standard:


[1] A normative document is one that provides rules, guidelines, or characteristics for activities or their results. The term “normative document” is a generic term that covers such documents as standards, technical specifications, codes of practice, and regulations; e.g., European Cooperation for Space Standardization (ECSS).


return to top of page



Downloads

Downloads of the IT4IT Reference Architecture, Version 2.0, an Open Group Standard, are available under license from the IT4ITinformation web site. The license is free to any organization wishing to use the IT4ITstandard entirely for internal purposes (for example, to develop an information system architecture for use within that organization). A book is also available (in pdf) from The Open Group Bookstore as document C155.


Copyright © 2015 The Open Group, All Rights Reserved. Not for redistribution.
IT4IT is a trademark of The Open Group.

< Previous ▲ Home Next >