An intro to building an architecture repository meta model and modeling framework

An Introduction to Building an Architecture Repository Meta-model and Modeling Framework

Warren Weinmeyer

May 5, 2013

Updated: Sep. 2014

Contents

• The need for Models to be in sync

• The Modeling Framework

• The Meta-model

• How these fit in the overall Architecture Framework

• Considerations when creating a Meta-model

2

Models Must Address Stakeholder Concerns

Job

Status

Report

Rig

Rig

Schedule

Cust-

omer

Job/Well

Rig

Cust-

omer

RigBooking JobBooking

Well

License

Well License

Search

Equipment

MaintenanceStatus

ReportingJob TrackingRig Bookings

Job

PetroApp

Oracle

11g

Equip-

ment

Booking

Well

License

Job

sPrdVM1168.192.1.13

Rig

ActiveJobRec

JobStatus

Field

wsBookRig wsTrackJob wsReportSt wsSrchLic

sPrdDBClust1168.192.0.27

SSL Terminator

Head Office

DMZ

Red

Zone

Corp

ZoneRigBooking JobBooking JobStatus Well

License

Rig Admin

Rig Foreman

Business Sponsor

PM

TechServices

Developer

Who are affected Users

Business Info at risk?

What Locations are affected?

Is Confiden-tiality &Security affected?

What infrastructure is required?

What Data is processed?

What Interfaces are required?

SolArc RA PC (5)(Citrix client)

Load

Balancer

Switch

Load

Balancer

Switch

Citrix Access

Gateway Farm (exist)

Active Directory

Server (exists)

DMZ Red Zone

SRA PC (15)

(Citrix client)

SRA PC (15)

(Citrix client)

Internet

WAN

SRA LAN PN

(TELUS)

30 Mbits /

Sec

PN

(TELUS)

45 Mbits /

Sec

Router

Router

Router

Dundan LAN

Durban LAN

Core LAN - Datacenter

Minimum IIS Server Spec:

§ 2 load-balanced servers

§ Win Server 2003 64-bit

§ IIS 7.0

§ quad-core 2.3GHz cpu

§ 2GB RAM

SAN Fiber Network

SAN Storage

SRA PC

(Citrix clients)

SRA Client PC Spec:

§ Windows XP Professional

§ Single P4 1.4GHz or Greater

§ 512MB RAM or higher

Load Balancer

Minimum RAMQ Spec:

§ 3 load-balanced servers

§ Win Server 2003 Ent Ed. 64-bit

§ quad-core 2.3GHz 64-bit cpu

§ 2GB RAM

SRA SQL

Server Cluster

SQL Server (SECONDARY)

Configured identically to PRIMARY

Legend:

New Existing

Firewall RouterFirewall Router

Data SwitchMinimum Intermediary File Server Spec:

§ Win 2003 Server, Std Ed., 64-bit

§ 1x quad-core 2.3GHz 64-bit cpu

§ 4GB RAM

Minimum Workstation Spec:

§ Win XP 32--bit

§ dual-core 2.3GHz 32-bit cpu

§ 3GB RAM

Minimum SQL Server (primary) Spec:

§ Win 2003 Server, Std Ed., 64-bit

§ SQL Server 2005, 64-bit

§ 2x quad-core 2.8GHz 64-bit cpu

§ 32GB RAM

Router

SRA Database

§ 200GB

Well-License

LicenseId

Lead

LeadId

Status

BookingId

Contact

ContactId

Operator

OperatorId

Booking

BookingId

StartDate

EndDate

RigId

EquipId

Location

LocId

LocDesc

Lat

Long

Job

JobId

RigId

Start

End

Well

StatusRpt

ReportId

Equipment

EquipId

Drilling-Rig

RigId

N

11

1

1

N

N

N N

N

N

N

N

N

0..N

N

0..N

N

N

N

N

1

1

1

0

11

1

3

Stakeholders Concerns Models

Models Need to be Sync’d to Each Other

• Each model may be driven by stakeholder concerns, but if there is no overall organization to the models, then:• Some models may be too focused on a single stakeholder and so not enforce

a more re-useable separation of concerns• There could be inconsistency in how models are visually presented• There could be a lot of unnecessary work from elements being redundantly

modeled in multiple other models• Some valuable concepts might “fall through the cracks” and be covered by

no model in particular

• The negative impacts grow more significant as the number of models rises, and model “silos” develop

• These issues are addressed by the Modeling Framework

4

The Modeling Framework

• The Modeling Framework consists of three components:

1. A Stakeholder Framework: a library of Stakeholders and their Concerns (i.e. topics of particular interest)

Business Sponsor

PM

TechServices

Developer

Affected Users

Business Info

Locations

Confidentiality &Security

Deployment

Apps/Functions

Interfaces

5

Note: The Stakeholder Framework is a foundational framework that is leveraged in multiple activities; for example, for strategy creation, constructing a roadmap framework, identifying solution stakeholders, etc.




2. A Viewpoint Framework: a library of Stakeholder-conscious Viewpoints that:• are structured to provide an overall

separation of concerns while ensuring to cover all architectural perspectives

• are associated to each other via robust conceptual linkages

6




2. A Viewpoint Framework: a library of Stakeholder-conscious Viewpoints that:• are structured to provide an overall

separation of concerns while ensuring to cover all architectural perspectives

• are associated to each other via robust conceptual linkages

3. Modeling Standards that define:• what entities can be included in each

model• the visual representation of each model• standardized tiers or levels of

representation for each model type

Top

Level

Level 2

Level 1

Logical

Landscape

Model

Entities

Business

Process

Model

Entities

System

System-System Logical Interface

System Applications

App-App Logical Interface

Application Functions/Modules

Function-Function Logical Interface

Value Chain

Event/Trigger

L0 Process

ControlOutput

L1 Process

Services

7


• The Modeling Framework improves the practice of modeling:

• It helps the modelers by defining exactly what goes in each model

• It provides a consistent overall conceptual structure that allows end users to navigate from model to model in a way that makes sense

• It divides up the solution space in a way that maximizes focus on the right things in each model, and minimizes needless overlap

• It packages areas of content in a way that aligns with end users’ perspectives

Driver

Measure

is realized by achieving

inspirestactically

confirms achievement

Action/Work Package

Goal

guidesguides

influences influences

supports

Concern

is realized by executing

Principle

Mission

Vision

influences

inspiresstrategically

Objective


Things important to

the Stakeholder

Current issues and

challenges

Aspirational long-

term future-state

Concrete current-

state and near-

future-state target

High-level targets

to achieve Mission

Mid-level targets with

clear success criteria

to achieve Goal

Defined targets with

concrete deliverables

and outcomes to achieve

Objective

KPIs, Success

Indicators

guides

Guiding

fundamental values

for decision-making

confirmsachievement

confirmsachievement

confirmsachievement

Best Practice

Proven Industry and

Enterprise processes,

standards and methodsinfluences

Strategy

authorizes and constrains

Mandate

Conferred authority and

responsibility within a

specific domain

TIP: Not everything you might want to create a visualization for necessarily should be a formal Model.

8

From Modeling to Analytics

• Architecture analytics are derived just like any other type: from queries on a database.

• A repository tool provides the database that contains architecture content, as well as built-in support for creating analytics and reports on the content

• The database needs a schema, which defines semantic rules that govern the entities in the database

• Just like any database schema, to avoid Garbage-In-Garbage-Out, the semantic rules themselves must be conceptually rigorous, while also being flexible to support new analytic scenarios

• These semantic rules are defined by the Repository meta-model

• Stakeholder-aligned, well-organized and consistent models are necessary to codify knowledge about the enterprise.

• However, a major value proposition for modeling the enterprise is the ability to generate new insights through analytics.

9

•An important source for populating the repository database is the library of architecture models.

• The models will be well-formed and consistent because they comply to the Modeling Framework

• To successfully import to the repository database, the elements within a model must comply to the database schema (the Meta-model)

From Modeling to Analytics

Driver

Measure


inspirestactically

confirms achievement

Action/Work Package

Goal

guidesguides

influences influences

supports

Concern

is realized by executing

Principle

Mission

Vision

influences

inspiresstrategically

Objective


Things important to

the Stakeholder

Current issues and

challenges

Aspirational long-

term future-state

Concrete current-

state and near-

future-state target

High-level targets

to achieve Mission

Mid-level targets with

clear success criteria

to achieve Goal

Defined targets with

concrete deliverables

and outcomes to achieve

Objective

KPIs, Success

Indicators

guides

Guiding

fundamental values

for decision-making

confirmsachievement

confirmsachievement

confirmsachievement

Best Practice

Proven Industry and

Enterprise processes,

standards and methodsinfluences

Strategy

authorizes and constrains

Mandate

Conferred authority and

responsibility within a

specific domain

10

The Modeling Framework & Meta-Model in the Big Picture

• The Modeling Framework consists of the Architecture Modeling Standards and the Viewpoint Framework, and leverages the Stakeholder Framework

• Modeling Standards govern the look and feel of all architectural models

• The content of the architectural models (the elements and their relationships) are governed by the meta-model

The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF)

Stakeholder Framework

Strategic Alignment Framework

Roadmap Framework

Repository

Architecture Principles

Models(Capabilities,

Strategy Maps,Processes,

Landscapes,

Deployments)

Stakeholder Concerns

StrategicAlignment

Criteria Strategy

RoadmapRoadmapRoadmap

RoadmapAttributes

Solution Architecture Description Solution Guidance

Viewpoint Framework

Standardized

Viewpoints

Architecture Modeling Standards

ModelingGuidance


Inter-dependencies

Enterprise Landscapes(created directly in Repository)

Roadmaps

Enterprise Capability Model(created directly in Repository)

CapabilityModels

Capabilities


Strategy

APM Framework

Capabilities

Strategy

StrategicAlignment

Criteria

ModelingGuidance


Meta-model

Bulk Data (from CMDB)

LandscapeModels

LandscapeModels

APM Models

ModelingGuidance

StakeholderConcernsMeta-model

11

Considerations When creating a Meta-model• Think about what are the important concepts to be able to

model or to generate analytics about?

• Is based on your Stakeholders and their Concerns

• Avoid going maverick: what do respected authorities have to say regarding the concepts you want to model? For example:

• Organizations: TOGAF, ITIL, ISO, Archimate

• Industry segments: BPM, B Arch, Strategic Planning

• Well-known “voices”: Tom Graves, Avancier

• No Surprise: they don’t agree on many things!

• Maintain Architectural “rigour” (i.e., conceptual clarity)

• You will likely merge concepts from more than 1 framework: you must align and rationalize concepts (for example, “Service” in ITIL vs TOGAF)

• Good analytics is impossible without architectural rigour

• Ultimately, do what addresses your organization’s needs12

Constructing the Meta-model – Step 1

13

1. What are the important concepts to be able to model or to generate analytics about?

• Based on your Stakeholders (roles, not people) and their Concerns (i.e. topics of particular interest)

• The right way to enumerate Concerns is through interviews: a lot of work, but is heavily reusable because Concerns tend to be pretty persistent

• When interviewing isn’t possible, you can identify standard types of Concerns (for example, a PM is always interested in time, risk and cost)

What Bus.Processes are affected?

What Capability is affected?

What are the required Service levels?

What Applications are involved?

What InformationIs Processed?

How is the Org Structure affected?

Is this Strategically Aligned?

What Systems are involved?

Strategy

BusinessProcesses

Capabilities

Services

SystemsInfo Entities

Org Structure

Applications

Stakeholders Concerns Concepts

(entities)


14

2. What do various “authorities” say about these concepts?

• The foundation is built on an architecture framework, such as TOGAF

• Other frameworks may also be relevant, like ITIL

– Or, you may need to beef up the meta-model somewhere (for example, with BMM or EBMM)

• Select ideas that align to addressing your requirements

• Will have to make decisions when concepts don’t align

– Which concepts are crucial to a given framework (eg. “Service” in ITIL)

Strategic Alignment

BusinessProcesses

Capabilities

Services

SystemsApplications

InformationRelationships

Organiza-tional Structure

TOGAF

Archimate

Business Motivation Model

ITIL


15

3. Define the Entities for each concept and the Associations between them

• Leverage the short-listed reference frameworks

• May need to customize at the boundaries where the frameworks get merged

• Minimal best practices exist

– is a type of data modeling

– a “complete” meta-model will have between 30-50 entities

– a “balanced” meta-model will have between 40-60 associations (approx. 1.5/entity)

• Getting the meta-model wrong will undermine your Analytics and lead to bad guidance

Business Function

Functional purpose of a

Business Unit

Organization Unit

Enterprise

Actor

Role

0..*

1..*

1

0..*

1

1

1

1..*

Location

1..*1

1..*

contained in

contained in

contained in

1..*

1..*

1..*

Technology

An intro to building an architecture repository meta model and modeling framework