Rethinking Enterprise and Infrastructure Architecture

mwd
macehite
rward-dutton
Rethinking Microsoft
enterprise and Infrastructure
Architect
infrastructure Forum
architecture 24 October 2005

Neil Macehiter, Partner
advising on IT-business
Key messages for today
 IT-business alignment has never been so important

 Alignment must be pursued in the context of
understanding business processes, priorities
 Service-orientation is not just for applications
 Contracts aren’t just about function: they encapsulate
and communicate business priorities to IT delivery
organisations
 Enterprise architecture needs to be more inclusive,
sophisticated
 IT governance models must take all this into account
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 2

Agenda
 Business and IT: new tensions

 IT-business alignment
 Alignment principle #1: service-oriented IT
 Alignment principle #2: understanding
business processes and their priorities
 Enterprise architecture must reflect IT-
business alignment principles
 A governance model for service-oriented IT
 Recommendations

A brief introduction to MWD
 Strategic advice and consulting

 Focus on issues concerning IT-business alignment
– Driving more business value out of enterprise IT
– Not about the “nuts and bolts” of individual technologies
 Core: two highly experienced industry analysts /
practitioners
– Sun, Oracle, Sybase, Ovum, Deloitte Consulting, etc
 Based in UK, Europe-wide focus

mwd
macehite
rward-dutton
Business and IT:

new tensions
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com advising on IT-business

5
Business pressures are driving
change in new ways
 Globalisation
– Customers, partners, suppliers – and competition
– Connectedness driving sophisticated value chains
 Transparency
– Industry regulations, consumer pressure and
competition driving openness
 Service focus
– Differentiation and shareholder value increasingly
derived from service experience

Common resulting
business/technology change
projects/scenarios
 Managing and proving regulatory
compliance
 Refinement of approaches to business and
technology outsourcing
 Integration of processes horizontally
across organisations
 Integration of processes, products and
offerings between organisations

The challenge: IT often fails to
support these types of changes
effectively
 Technology integration is costly, risky and
complicated
 Information is everywhere, but getting access
to the right information at the right time is very
difficult
 Modifying system behaviour takes too long and
changes are difficult to communicate and
implement effectively
 Much of IT system and operations expenditure
is bloated and fixed - operations run with
excess redundant capacity
result: IT seen as a cost centre, not a source of business val
Three fractures: information
management, process support and
user experience
Strong
Information management
Little
heritage of
heritage of
Structured information
managemen Unstructured formal
t; BUT tends
(customer records, order & information (office
managemen
to be
fulfilment records, documents,t; web
storagecontent
is
application-
specific
accounts, etc) etc) fragmented
Strong
Process support
heritage of Little
Stable, predictable
managemen Dynamic, collaborative
structured
t; processes
BUT tends (accounting, automated
processes (product
toorder
be fulfilment, HR, support
innovation, marketing,
application- from IT
specific
logistics, etc) strategy setting, etc)
Familiar,
User experience
Open and
highly
Desktop user Web user experience
accessible
interactive
experience (office
BUT tends
(increasingenvironmen
numbers of
productivity, ts but
ERP/CRM applications,
to be
communication/ usability can
content management,
application-
be poor
collaboration, etc)
specific etc)
mwd
macehite
rward-dutton
IT-business
alignment

10
IT-business alignment: multiple
angles
s not just about “building stuff that the business will use”
Business
Investment Change
Change in capability capabilities,
implications limitations
Delivery
of value
IT

A common language is the
essential starting point
Business “Investment prioritised in

terms of business need” A common, agreed
representation of
“Systems that deliver business activity,
value to the business”
?
goals
“Clear direction from the
business about focus, +
strategy” A common, agreed
view of how current
“Collaborative approach
and future IT provides
IT to implementing business
structured support to
change”
the business in this
context

Alignment demands that IT
becomes a service provider
Business
BUSINESS STRATEGY
Business processes
ss
ss
es
es
es
form the foundation
ce
ce
oc
oc
oc
o
of a common
pr
pr
pr
pr
pr
s
s
language
es
es
es
es
es
in
in
in
in
in
s
s
Bu
Bu
Bu
Bu
Bu
Manage Manage Manage
d d d
IT defines and delivers IT IT IT
service service service
“business level” services Manage Manage
which support the right d d
processes, the right way IT IT
service service
APPLICATIONS & INFORMATION

IT
INFRASTRUCTURE
mwd
macehite
rward-dutton
Alignment
principle #1:
understanding
service-oriented
IT
14
So what is an IT service?
“Provide
automated
support for “Update
my sales customer
force” details”
“CRM
database
”
Line of business
perspective Developer
perspective
IT operations
perspective

Managed IT services – aligned with
business processes
Users’ experiences
of “managed IT service”
Lifecycle services
Managing the lifecycles of business functions and infrastructure
Business function services

Automating business functions
Infrastructure services
Providing the platform

Contracts bring obligations for
suppliers and consumers
QoS
Message Format Security Terms
Message Sequence Response Time
Functions Throughput
Functional
Terms
Usage Cost
Liability Clauses
Trust Commerci
al
Terms

mwd
macehite
rward-dutton
Alignment
principle #2:
understanding
business
processes and
their priorities
18
A universe of business
processes [1]
A hierarchy of business processes
“Strategy” processes
– instances oversee
S instances of
management
processes
“Management”
processes – instances
M M M oversee instances of
execution processes
“Execution”
processes – instances
E E E E E handle particular units
of work within
business activities

A universe of business
processes [2]
Contribution to competitive differentiation
S S
M M
M M
E E
E E
E E
Non-differentiating Differentiating
(focus should be on efficiency) (focus should be on flexibility)
Observations on the nature of
business processes
S S
M M
M M
E E
ar
ecnI
c
o des E E
ball
o
, noitar
coh-da E E
utan
I
er
esa ercn
cutsd
r
p, erut
r
a
btci de Non-differentiating Differentiating
ytili
(focus should be on efficiency) (focus should be on flexibility)
Implications for business function
service design
“Strategy”
business processes
e
reas
Level of process abstraction
i nc
High ds
d e man
le xi bility “Management”
n ess, f business processes
n
Ope
Reusability
importance “Execution”
increases business processes
cr e ases
an d in Activity functions
Low em
ien cy d
Eff ic
Technical functions
Non-differentiating Differentiating
(focus should be on efficiency)
(focus should be on flexibility)
Business activity role

mwd
macehite
rward-dutton
Enterprise
architecture
must reflect IT-
business
alignment
principles
23
The real world
From Towards
Build, or buy Application Buy AND build

vs. build implementation AND integrate
Business area investment Front office and

Back office
focus beyond
“Personal Productivity
productivity” IT access environment desktop +
desktop global access to
resources
Communication
Technology innovation
Data processing , collaboration,
focus
integration
Outsourcing
Capability supply “Multi-sourcing”
vs. in-house
delivery
Older approaches fail to capture reality re:
integration, communication, collaboration,
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005
supply complexity
www.mwdadvisors.com 24
A “traditional” view of EA [1]: The
Zachman framework
Source: John Zachman, ZIFA

A “traditional” view of EA [2]:
TOGAF ADM
Source: Open Group

The good and the bad of EA
frameworks
The good The bad

 The frameworks give us a  The roots of most
useful “language” for frameworks are in the
communicating and sharing creation or change of
ideas about how IT systems transactional information
can/should support business processing systems
needs
 The real world of IT is
 Methodologies like the
much more ugly and
TOGAF ADM give solid complicated
templates for EA process
work  Still documentation-
 Starting to consider more
oriented – not focused on
the process of architecture
dynamic aspects of EA
evolution & governance
– as-is, to-be, vision views

The challenge
Business process
Applications
The business Activities, processes

Data
e real world doesn’t “decompose” nicely – and IT isn

just about things you build in-house
Providing structured support for business
processes means understanding scope &
scale of interactions
From Towards
Business process
Business
process
Data design tightly coupled to

application design, and Loosely-coupled resources
application design to “user provide services which are
requirements” – very restricted designed to support the
view of process needs interactions that take place
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com within a business process 29
EA approaches must consider business
process support more broadly
Business process
Support scenario:
a mesh of
interactions
Transactional Information Communication

services services & collaboration
services
We have to model more than just transactional applications

An alternative enterprise
architecture model
Business architecture
- activities, entities
- goals, strategy, differentiation
Process architecture
- roles, flows, resources
Historically the
focus of
architecture has Business function service architecture
been here
Transactional Analytics, Communicati
/ information discovery, on,
management reporting collaboration
Historical Infrastructure architecture

- security, identity management
disconnect here - resource management

mwd
macehite
rward-dutton
Enterprise
Architecture and
IT Governance

32
Enterprise architecture…
Business
 Needs to be driven in
partnership with the
business
IT
 Should follow a service-oriented Lifecycle
model – but one which is about
more than application functionality
Business function
Infrastructure
 Should consider all the
different views of Functional QoS
service provision – not
just functional
Commercial
considerations
These perspectives are the key
dimensions for IT governance, too
Business processes, priorities
i ps
n sh Change
tio Delivery
la
Re Investment
Business function
Service types
Infrastructure
Lifecycle
na
l
oS i al
c
ti o Q er
u nc m
m
F o
C
Contract aspects
Enterprise architecture and IT
governance should be considered
together
Business
architecture
i ps Process architecture
n sh Change
tio Delivery
la
Re Investment
Business fn
Business function architecture
Service types
TX/IM A/R C/C
Infrastructure Infrastructure
architecture
Captures the
Lifecycle
iterative process
of architecture change
na
l
oS i al
c
ti o Q er
u nc m
m
F o
C
Contract aspects
You can use the model to…
 Identify strengths and weaknesses in your

current IT governance approach
 Identify the contributions made by
particular technologies to business
objectives
 As above for IT vendors
 Consider the dimensions that affect
sourcing decisions

mwd
macehite
rward-dutton
A worked
example: the
role of DSI

37
DSI: the “design for operations”
approach today…
i ps
n sh Change Capability today is
tio Delivery
ela in designing
R Investment
business function
services with
Business function
explicit reference
Service types
to runtime QoS
Infrastructure directives and
validate them
Lifecycle against a static
infrastructure
na
l
oS i al model
c
ti o Q er
u nc m
m
F
Co
Contract aspects
DSI: with planned “Longhorn
wave” technology
With planned
i ps future capabilities,
n sh Change
tio Delivery
design-time QoS
la
Re Investment directives form the
basis of a “live
Business function model” which is
Service types
interpreted and
maintained by
Infrastructure
server
infrastructure to
Lifecycle perform goal-
oriented
na
l
oS i al infrastructure
c
ti o Q er
u nc m
m monitoring and
F
Co management
Contract aspects
A call to action
 For architecture to contribute to IT-business alignment,

you have to follow a holistic approach
– Not just applications but infrastructure and lifecycle services
– Proactively consider the links between all three
– Look for technologies and patterns which support the linkages
 Set up an architecture governance practice which
doesn’t just allow change, but promotes it
– Not a project-focused approach but an ongoing process with
senior level sponsorship
– Close links to business stakeholders and their priorities
– Think about using contracts, policies and processes as the
foundation of a common language

mwd
macehite
rward-dutton
Thank you

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mwd

architecture 24 October 2005

 IT-business alignment has never been so important

© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 2

 Business and IT: new tensions

© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 3

 Strategic advice and consulting

© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 4

Business and IT:

© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com advising on IT-business

© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 6

© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 7

© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com advising on IT-business

© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 11

Business “Investment prioritised in

© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 12

APPLICATIONS & INFORMATION

© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 15

Business function services

© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 16

© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 17

© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 19

Business activity role

Build, or buy Application Buy AND build

Business area investment Front office and

Source: John Zachman, ZIFA

© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 25

Source: Open Group

© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 26

The good The bad

© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 27

The business Activities, processes

e real world doesn’t “decompose” nicely – and IT isn

Data design tightly coupled to

Transactional Information Communication

We have to model more than just transactional applications

Historical Infrastructure architecture

© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 31

© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com advising on IT-business

TX/IM A/R C/C

 Identify strengths and weaknesses in your

© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 36

© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com advising on IT-business

 For architecture to contribute to IT-business alignment,

© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 40

© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com advising on IT-business

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