Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model (III-RM) - High-Level View

Derivation    High-Level Graphic    Components

Derivation of the III-RM from the TRM

The Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model is a model of the major component categories for developing, managing, and operating an integrated information infrastructure. It is a model of a set of applications that sits on top of an application platform. This model is a subset of the TOGAF TRM, and it uses a slightly different orientation.

Consider Figure 2a below where two views of the TOGAF TRM are presented. The left side is the familiar view of the TOGAF TRM; it is a side view, where we look at the model as if looking at a house from the side, revealing the contents of the "floors". The top down view on the right hand side depicts what one might see if looking at a house from the "roof" down.

Figure 2a: TOGAF TRM Orientation Views

The subset of the TRM that comprises the Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model is depicted in Figure 2 below, in which those parts of the TRM not relevant to the Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model are "greyed out".

Figure 2b illustrates that the focus is on the application, application platform, and qualities subset of the TOGAF TRM.

Figure 2b: Focus of the Integrated Information Infrastructure Model

The High-Level III-RM Graphic

The resulting Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model itself is depicted in Figure 3. It is fundamentally an Application Architecture reference model - a model of the application components and application services software essential for an integrated information infrastructure. (There are more Business Applications and Infrastructure Applications than these in the environment, of course, but these are the subsets relevant to the Boundaryless Information Flow problem space.)

Figure 3 - Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model - High-Level

As explained above, the model assumes the underlying existence of a computing and network platform, and does not depict them explicitly.

Although the computing and network platform are not depicted, there may be requirements on them that must be met, in addition to requirements on the components of the Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model, in order to fully address the Boundaryless Information Flow problem space.

Components of the High-Level III-RM 

The Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model has the following core components:

• Business Applications, denoted by the light-brown boxes in the high-level model (corresponding to the light-brown "Business Applications" box in the TRM graphic). There are three types of Business Application in the model:
  • Information consumer applications, which deliver content to the user of the system, and provide services to request access to information in the system on the user's behalf
  • Brokering applications, which manage the requests from any number of clients to and across any number of Information provider applications
  • Information provider applications, which provide responses to client requests and rudimentary access to data managed by a particular server
• Infrastructure Applications, denoted by the dark-brown boxes in the high-level model (corresponding to the dark-brown "Infrastructure Applications" box in the TRM graphic). There are two types of Infrastructure Application in the model:
  • Development tools, which provide all the necessary modeling, design, and construction capabilities to develop and deploy applications that require access to the integrated information infrastructure, in a manner consistent with the standards of the environment
  • Management utilities, which provide all the necessary utilities to understand, operate, tune, and manage the run-time system in order to meet the demands of an ever changing business, in a manner consistent with the standards of the environment
• An Application Platform, which provides supporting services to all the above applications, in areas such as location, directory, work flow, data management, data interchange, etc., and thereby provides the ability to locate, access, and move information within the environment. This set of services constitutes a subset of the total set of services of the TRM Application Platform, and is denoted by the dark green underlay in the high-level model (corresponding to the dark green of the application platform in the TRM graphic).
• The Interfaces used between the components. Interfaces include formats and protocols, application programming interfaces, switches, data values, etc. Interfaces among components at the application level are colored brown. Interfaces between any application-level components and their supporting services in the applicaiton platform are colored white (corresponding to the white of the Application Programming Interface box in the TRM graphic).
• The Qualities backplane, denoted by the beige underlay in the high-level model (corresponding to the beige of the Qualities backplane in the TRM graphic). The applications and application platform must adhere to the policies and requirements depicted by the qualities backplane.

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