Background Components Relationship to Other Parts of TOGAF Drivers "Health Warning"
With the emergence of internet based technologies in recent years, for many organizations the main focus of attention, and the main return on investment in architecture effort, has shifted from the Application Platform space to the Applications space. (Indeed, this has been one of drivers behind the migration of TOGAF itself from a framework and method for Technology Architecture to one for overall Enterprise Architecture.)
The TOGAF Technical Reference Model (TRM) described in the previous section focuses on the Application Platform space, and it is what the Enterprise Continuum terms a "Foundation Architecture".
This section describes another reference model, one that focuses on the Applications space, and one that is a "Common Systems Architecture" in Enterprise Continuum terms. This is the Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model (III-RM).
The Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model is a subset of the TOGAF Technical Reference Model in terms of its overall scope, but it also expands certain parts of the Technical Reference Model - in particular, the Business Applications and Infrastructure Applications parts - in order to provide help in addressing one of the key challenges facing the enterprise architect today: the need to design an integrated information infrastructure to enable "boundaryless information flow". These concepts are explained in detail below.
This introductory subsection examines the concept of "boundaryless information flow"; why an integrated information infrastructure is necessary to enable it; and how the Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model can help the architect in designing an integrated information infrastructure for his or her enterprise.
Like the TOGAF Technical Reference Model, the Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model has two main components:
The model assumes the underlying existence of a computing and network platform, as described in the TRM; these are not depicted in the model.
The relationship of the Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model to the Technical Reference Model is explained above.
Although the Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model is intended as a useful tool in the execution of the TOGAF Architecture Development Method, it is important to emphasise that the ADM is in no way dependent on use of the Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model (any more than it is dependent on use of the TRM). Other taxonomies and reference models exist in this space that can be used in conjunction with the ADM, and indeed may be preferable for some organizations.
The Boundaryless Information Flow problem space is one that is shared by many customer members of The Open Group, and by many similar organizations worldwide. It is essentially the problem of getting information to the right people at the right time in a secure, reliable manner, in order to support the operations that are core to the extended enterprise.
In General Electric, Jack Welch invented the term "the Boundaryless Organization", not to imply that there are no boundaries, but that they should be made permeable.
Creating organizational structures that enabled each individual department to operate at maximum efficiency was for a long time accepted as the best approach to managing a large enterprise. Among other benefits, this approach fostered the development of specialist skills in staff, who could apply those skills to specific aspects of an overall activity (such as a manufacturing process), in order to accomplish the tasks involved better, faster, and cheaper.
As each overall activity progressed through the organization, passing from department to department (for example, from Design to Production to Sales), each department would take inputs from the previous department in the process, apply its own business processes to the activity, and send its output to the next department in line.
In today's world where speed, flexibility and responsiveness to changing markets make all the difference between success and failure, this method of working is no longer appropriate. Organizations have been trying for some time to overcome the limitations imposed by traditional organization structures. Many business process re-engineering efforts have been undertaken and abandoned because they were too ambitious, while others cost far more in both time and money than originally intended.
However, organizations today recognize that they need not abandon functional or departmental organization altogether. They can enable the right people to come together in cross-functional teams so that all the skills, knowledge and expertise can be brought to bear on any specific problem or business opportunity.
But this in turn poses it own challenges. CIOs are under enormous pressure to provide access to information to each cross-functional team on an as-required basis, and yet the sources of this data can be numerous and the volumes huge.
Even worse, the IT systems, which have been built over a period of 20 or 30 years at a cost of many billions of dollars, and are not about to be thrown out or replaced wholesale, were built for each functional department. So although it may be possible to get people to work together effectively (no minor achievement in itself), the IT systems they use are designed to support the old-style thinking. The IT systems in place today do not allow for information to flow in support of the boundaryless organization. When they do, then we will have Boundaryless Information Flow.
The Open Group's Interoperable Enterprise Business Scenario, originally published in 2001, crystallizes this need for Boundaryless Information Flow and describes the way in which this need drives IT customers' deployment of their information infrastructure.
In this scenario, the customer's problem statement says that I (as the customer enterprise) could gain significant operational efficiencies and improve the many different business processes of the enterprise - both nternal processes, and those spanning the key interactions with suppliers, customers, and partners - if only I could provide my staff with:
The infrastructure that enables this vision is termed the Integrated Information Infrastructure.
As an example, one current approach to Integrated Information Infrastructure is to provide "enterprise portals" that allow integrated access to information from different applications systems enterprise-wide, via a convenient, web-enabled interface (one of the colored segments in the ends of the cylinder in the figure below):
Figure 1: An approach to Boundaryless Information Flow ("Enterprise Portals")
One of the key challenges for the architect in today's enterprise is to work out, and then communicate to senior management, how far technologies such as web services, application integration services, etc., can go toward achieving an integrated information infrastructure, and realizing the vision of Boundaryless Information Flow, in the enterprise concerned.
The Open Group's follow-up analysis of the Interoperable Enterprise Business Scenario has resulted in the development of an Integrated Information Infrastructure model, which depicts the major components required to address the Boundaryless Information Flow problem space, and can help the architect in this task.
The Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model thus provides insights related to customer needs for Boundaryless Information Flow in enterprise environments. The model also points to rules and standards to assist in leveraging solutions and products within the value chain.
The following subsections discuss the model in detail.
The Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model is documented as it stands today, and is by no means considered a finished article. However, it is a model that has been developed and approved by the members of The Open Group as a whole, in response to an Interoperable Enterprise Business Scenario, which itself was developed in response to an urgent need articulated by the customer members of The Open Group for assistance in this field.
The business scenario and the reference model thus represent a problem and a solution approach that The Open Group membership as a whole fully endorses.
It is hoped that publication of the model as part of TOGAF will encourage its widespread adoption and use, and provide a channel of communication whereby experience with use of the model can be fed back, improvement points assimilated, and the model refined and republished as necessary.
Copyright © The Open Group, 2002