Pragmatic Enterprise Architecture This page intentionally left blank Pragmatic Enterprise Architecture Strategies to Transform Information Systems in the Era of Big Data James V Luisi AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG • LONDON NEW YORK • OXFORD • PARIS • SAN DIEGO SAN FRANCISCO • SINGAPORE • SYDNEY • TOKYO Morgan Kaufmann is an imprint of Elsevier Acquiring Editor: Steven Elliot Editorial Project Manager: Kaitlin Herbert Project Manager: Malathi Samayan Designer: Matthew Limbert Morgan Kaufmann is an imprint of Elsevier 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451, USA Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Details on how to seek permission, further information about the Publisher’s permissions policies and our arrangements with organizations such as the Copyright Clearance Center and the Copyright Licensing Agency, can be found at our website: www.elsevier.com/permissions. This book and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by the Publisher (other than as may be noted herein). Notices Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods or professional practices, may become necessary. Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information or methods described here in. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility. To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Luisi, James V. Pragmatic enterprise architecture: strategies to transform information systems in the era of big data/ James Luisi. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-12-800205-6 (paperback) 1. Information storage and retrieval systems–Business. 2. Management information systems. 3. Business enterprises–Data processing. 4. Business enterprises–Information technology. 5. System design. 6. Computer architecture. 7. Organizational change. I. Title. HF5548.2.L835 2014 658.4’038011–dc23 2014003632 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-0-12-800205-6 Printed and bound in the United States of America 14151613121110987654321 For information on all MK publications, visit our website at www.mkp.com or www.elsevierdirect.com Dedication This book is dedicated to everyone interested in affecting beneficial change in large organizations by promoting constructive behavior and good outcomes; by clearly demonstrating modesty, interest in others, and a good work ethic; by showing a will- ingness to mentor and an eagerness to cooperate; and by making everyone eager to get back to work the next day. Even more so, we salute the management style that contributes all good things to their teams and coworkers. It was Dwight Eisenhower who said, “Leadership con- sists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.” I have to give special thanks to Dr. Malcolm Chisholm for the invaluable advice he gave me for this book, and the repeated proofreading which rendered him more nights of unexpectedly deep and blissful slumber. Most of all, I thank the loved ones in my life as that is what makes it all worth- while, especially my wife and my daughter, whose life story or at least her first 30 years I will one day have to write. This page intentionally left blank Contents Foreword ix Inside the Cover xiii Prologue xv The main Characters xvii Culture xix Part I Introduction 1 1.1 General Background 1 Part II Business Architecture 41 2.1 Business Architecture and Governance Summary 41 Part III Information Systems 57 3.1 “Information Systems” Architecture and Governance 59 Part IV Information Architecture 189 4.1 Information Architecture 190 Part V Control Systems 263 5.1 “Control Systems” Architecture and Governance 263 Part VI Operations Architecture 267 6.1 Operations Architecture and Governance 269 Part VII Cross-Discipline Capabilities 287 7.1 Cross Discipline Capabilities 287 Part VIII Miscellaneous 299 8.1 Special Topics 299 viii Contents Appendix 317 A.1 Transaction Path Analysis (TAPA) 317 A.2 Bibliography 333 Index 335 Foreword Enterprise Architecture (EA) units can be found in most major enterprises today. This is encouraging for a relatively new field which was only formally recognized in the 1980s. Indeed, there is now a widespread recognition that EA is a very important undertaking that can have far-reaching benefits for the organizations that embrace it. This promise of EA, however, all too often clashes with a different reality when we examine just what EA units are doing in enterprises. Some of these units are sim- ply “product pickers” who select technology for their IT departments. Perhaps that is a little harsh, since managing the technology portfolio is certainly necessary and arguably a core function of EA. But if technology selection is the only thing an EA unit does, then it is falling far short of the acknowledged goals of the overall dis- cipline of EA. In other organizations, EA units can be found that are theoretical “talking shops” staffed by individuals who constantly refer to EA theory and the inevitable argu- ments that exist within any body of theory that is still being worked out. Again, this judgment may be overly harsh, since theory is vital. Without theory, we do not know why we are doing, what we are doing, or what we should be doing. Yet, an almost total focus on theory blinds EA practitioners to the urgent and practical needs of the enterprises they work for. Such enterprises do not need EA to spend its time trying to optimize the way that EA works—they want EA to deliver something useful. Another failing of EA units is an overly tight coupling with Information Tech- nology (IT) organizations. Today, attitudes to IT in most large enterprises are increasingly negative. Fairly or unfairly, IT is seen as an expensive, self-referential, and incompetent cost center. Fifty plus years of organic growth in IT infrastructures have created increasingly unmanageable information management environments that now threaten the possibility of business change. This is one of the core problems that EA must solve, but it cannot be done if EA functions as subordinate to, or merely an extension of, IT. The IT mindset of needing to be told every requirement, of work- ing in projects, and of being more aligned to the IT industry than the business of the enterprise in which IT finds itself, is fatal to EA. EA must engage with the business; in fact, it must break down the distinction between IT and the business. Regrettably, too many EA units cannot break out of the IT mindset. It is against this background that Jim Luisi’s Pragmatic Enterprise Architecture stands as a clear and comprehensive vision of how EA can be done and should be done. x Foreword Jim has taken his experience in EA and a variety of technical IT fields and synthesized an approach that can be implemented. A key concept that Jim has put forward is that EA is not a single discipline, but a constellation of many disciplines. It is fair to say that EA has traditionally been broken down into the four main areas of Information Archi- tecture, Business Architecture, Technology Architecture, and Application Architec- ture. However, Jim goes far beyond this to show how EA is really many disciplines which EA brings together to make work in harmony, rather like the conductor of an orchestra. Intuitively, this makes sense. After all, how can an individual who is an expert in data obfuscation fill the role of an expert in analyzing business capabilities? These architectural disciplines are also bound to come into being as overall information management advances, and disappear as old ways of doing things fall away. Thus, the role of an Enterprise Architect is to understand what disciplines need to be brought to bear on the enterprise, and to ensure that the disciplines relevant to an enterprise are staffed and functioning well. Jim also points out the flaw in the opposite approach, whereby generalist enter- prise architects try to address specific disciplines. In the first place, all generalists will carry with them a set of experience, which is likely to be concentrated in just a few areas. Second, the generalist may simply not recognize the depth of knowledge required for a particular discipline, perhaps even failing to recognize that such a dis- cipline actually exists. A further set of problems exist because technology and methodologies change over time. Long ago, when mainframes ruled in enterprises, data was thought of as an uninteresting by-product of automation. In those days, the automation of hith- erto unautomated manual processes was the focus of IT. Today, automation is prev- alent and packages for operational systems exist for an incredibly wide array of enterprise needs. By contrast, the role of data has become increasingly elevated to the point where today the value of data is almost universally recognized. Over this period, the ascent of data has been accompanied by new technologies, such as rela- tional databases, and new methodologies such as data warehousing.