Reference Architecture Models and Frameworks
Overview
No single reference architecture, framework, or model will apply to every situation a network designer encounters. In most cases, aspects of multiple frameworks must be merged or adopted to guide both the designer and the business toward success. This chapter covers the most common reference architectures, models, and frameworks that inform network design decisions, starting with the business and enterprise architecture concepts that sit at the top of the design hierarchy.
Business Architecture
Business architecture (BA) enables everyone, from strategic planning teams to implementation teams, to get on the same page, enabling them to address challenges and meet business objectives. The people, processes, and technology that align with business priorities enable business outcomes. A business solution is a set of interacting business capabilities that delivers specific, or multiple, business outcomes. A business outcome is a specific measurable result of an activity, process, or event within the business, traditionally following the SMART principle: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound.
For a deeper dive into Business Architecture, see the Cisco Live session BRKARC-2036.
Here are a few examples of real business outcomes that business leaders have had in production environments:
- Increase same-day order shipments by 20 percent by Q1
- Improve customer lifetime value by 10 percent in 24 months
- Accelerate new product time to market by 25 percent by Q3
- Drive sales growth of solution by 10 percent in the current fiscal year from the previous fiscal year
- Enable an increase of delivery efficiency by 25 percent in the current fiscal year
Where you are located within the organization, or at what level you are partnering with another organization, will determine what type of business architecture scope you will have. There are four levels of alignment:
- Technology specific: A domain-specific architecture. Within this scope, the business requires help finding and purchasing the right product or group of products in an architecture focus area. This might be data center, security, or enterprise networking focused, but it does not cross between the different architecture focus areas.
- Technology architecture: A multi-domain architecture (MDA), also referred to as cross-architecture. In this scope the business needs help understanding the benefits of multi-domain technology architecture and how to show the value it provides to the business. Two or more architecture focus areas are incorporated.
- Business solutions: A partial business architecture scope for a business that requires expertise to help solve its business problems and determine how to measure the business impact of its technology investments (CAPEX, OPEX, ROI, TCO, etc.).
- Business transformation: A business-led architecture scope for a business that requires help with transforming its business capabilities to facilitate innovation to accelerate the company’s digitization.
Review Questions
1. Which of the following options enables everyone from strategic planning teams to implementation teams to be synchronized, enabling them to address challenges and meet business objectives?
- Business architecture
- Enterprise architecture
- Business solution
- Business outcome
a. Business architecture enables everyone, from strategic planning teams to implementation teams, to get “on the same page” or to be synchronized, enabling them to address challenges and meet business objectives.
3. Which of the following options is a set of interacting business capabilities that delivers specific, or multiple, business outcomes?
- Business architecture
- Enterprise architecture
- Business solution
- Business outcome
c. A business solution is a set of interacting business capabilities that delivers specific, or multiple, business outcomes.
4. Which of the following options is a specific measurable result of an activity, process, or event within the business?
- Business architecture
- Enterprise architecture
- Business solution
- Business outcome
d. A business outcome is a specific measurable result of an activity, process, or event within the business.
5. Within Business Architecture, which of the following levels of alignment is a domain-specific architecture?
- Technology specific
- Technology architecture
- Business solutions
- Business transformation
a. Technology Specific is a domain-specific architecture. Within this scope, the business is requiring help with finding and purchasing the right product or group of products in an architecture focus area. This might be data center, security, or enterprise networking focused but doesn’t cross between the different architecture focus areas.
6. Within business architecture, which of the following levels of alignment is a multi-domain architecture?
- Technology specific
- Technology architecture
- Business solutions
- Business transformation
b. Technology Architecture is a multi-domain architecture (MDA), also referred to as cross-architecture. In this scope, the business needs help understanding the benefits of multi-domain technology architecture and how to show the value it provides to the business. With this scope, two or more architecture focus areas are incorporated.
7. Within business architecture, which of the following levels of alignment is a partial business architecture?
- Technology specific
- Technology architecture
- Business solutions
- Business transformation
c. Business Solutions is a partial business architecture scope for a business that requires expertise to help solve its business problems and determine how to measure the business impact of its technology investments (CAPEX, OPEX, ROI, TCO, etc.).
8. Within business architecture, which of the following levels of alignment is a business-led architecture?
- Technology specific
- Technology architecture
- Business solutions
- Business transformation
d. Business Transformation is a business-led architecture scope for a business that requires help with transforming its business capabilities to facilitate innovation to accelerate the company’s digitization.
Business Architecture Guiding Principles
Figure 1 highlights how the business architecture Guiding Principles, which is a combination of The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) and Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), work together within business architecture.
The business architecture guiding principles are:
- Strategy and vision: Aligns architecture capabilities to business objectives and outcomes
- Business architecture: Consistent with the business model being leveraged and the corresponding market/vertical (healthcare, financial, manufacturing, retail, government, etc.) perspective overlaid on top of it
- Application architecture: Co-existent with the hybrid cloud model (SaaS, PaaS, IPaaS, ERP, CRM) and supports composite three-tier, N-tier, architecture standards and capabilities
- Technology architecture: Supports automation, provisioning, orchestration, analytics, and telemetry capabilities
- Infrastructure architecture: Supports data center, cloud, collaboration, security, SASE, enterprise networking, and IoT capabilities
- Physical architecture: Supports the compute, storage, and virtualization aspects of the business
- Data architecture: Supports business intelligence, data integration, data security, business information, and data administration and operations capabilities
- Operational architecture: Supports ITIL service capabilities aligned to day 0, day 1, and day 2 managed services
- Architecture Governance: Supports architecture management office services aligned to the plan, design, implement, and operate life cycle
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
How do we know when something is successful from a framework, reference architecture, or model perspective? We cannot arbitrarily state that a network design is successful. We have to have a process with proper metric thresholds that, when reached, validate the success of leveraging a specific construct. This is where key performance indicators (KPIs) come in. The following list provides some example KPIs from different businesses in different markets:
- \(x\%\) decrease in IT CAPEX and OPEX
- Increase speed to market and business agility by \(x\%\)
- \(x\%\) reduction in time to market of new IT services
- Reduction in secure Ops MTTD from \(x\) days to \(x\) hours
- Reduction of secure Ops MTTR from \(x\) days to \(x\) hours
- Business ROI contributes to IT solutions
- Product and service pull-through ROI
- ATR, ARR, AOV, and pull-through ROI
- \(x\) services attach rate \(\%\) upside
- Growth extends into multi-architecture solutions
- Growth extends into multi-architecture services
- Architecture automation margin \(\%p\) profitability influence on as-sold vs. as-delivered margin
- Architecture simplification and standardization margin \(\%\) influence on as-sold vs. as-delivered margin
Enterprise Architecture
Enterprise architecture (EA) is a process of organizing logic for business processes and IT infrastructure reflecting the integration and standardization requirements of the company’s operating model. With this perspective, an EA outcome might be reducing complexity, simplifying deployment, or being perceived as a service from an industry perspective. The direct business benefit an enterprise architecture provides is the ability for that business to respond to new market opportunities, justify its investments, reduce costs (CAPEX and OPEX), and enable quality. Figure 2 highlights the different aspects of enterprise architecture.
| Enterprise Architecture |
|---|
| Business Architecture |
| Data Architecture |
| Application Architecture |
| Technology Architecture |
Review Questions
2. Which of the following options is a process of organizing logic for business processes and IT infrastructure to reflect the integration and standardization requirements of the company’s operating model?
- Business architecture
- Enterprise architecture
- Business solution
- Business outcome
b. Enterprise architecture is a process of organizing logic for business processes and IT infrastructure reflecting the integration and standardization requirements of the company’s operating model.
Enterprise Architecture Methodology
Figure 3 walks through the Enterprise Architecture methodology steps.
The first step in this process is to identify the business requirements, which is achieved by aligning stakeholders and determining the operating model.
Aligning Stakeholders
There are four groups of stakeholders to align in this process: the IT steering committee, architects, finance and purchasing, and enterprise-wide process owners.
- IT steering committee: Could include members of an architecture management office (AMO), vendor-agnostic groups, and senior management within the business
- Architects: Could include business architects, technology-specific architects, and enterprise architects
- Finance and purchasing: Could include the chief finance officer (CFO), the procurement team (or a team member as a liaison), and supplier relations
- Enterprise-wide process owners: Could include any sort of chief of fill-in-the-blank, user groups, business unit leaders, and business lines of effort owners
These are example roles and titles, not a pre-scripted or all-inclusive list. As a network designer, it is ultimately up to you to identify what stakeholders you need to include in this process.
Identifying the Operating Model
Identifying, aligning, or defining the business operating model is the next step in identifying the business requirements. The following focus areas help identify the operating model being leveraged and what needs to change in the future state:
- Standardization and integration: To what extent does one business’s success rely on the availability, accuracy, and timeliness of others’ data? To what extent does the company benefit from having business units run operations similarly?
- Coordination: High integration with little standardization of processes. Data is shared across the portfolio. Business units releasing innovation.
- Unification: Centralized management and process design, centrally mandated databases, and centralized IT organization.
- Diversification: Independence with shared services, few common customers or business practices, and shared IT services for economies of scale.
- Replication: Autonomy to business units, running operations in a standardized fashion, and growth through acquisitions.
Identifying the Current State
The second step is to complete a current state analysis, which means defining the data. What goes into data is called attributes, and where the data is stored is called a configuration management database (CMDB). The CMDB is the single repository that stores information about all hardware and software assets in the environment. The attributes that make up the data are derived from incident management systems, escalation engines, reports, and service-level agreements. Additional resources that can be leveraged include:
- Hardware inventory
- Software inventory
- Contract management
- Network discovery
- Administrative data
- User data
- Event management data (IT Operations Management [ITOM])
Having identified the business requirements in step one and completing a current state analysis in step two, we have a blueprint of the current state on top of which we can align the processes (create a common operating language), people (create the artifacts), and technology (the standard tooling that should be used) as an overlay.
Architecture Frameworks for Consideration
This section briefly highlights some of the most common reference architectures, frameworks, and models at the time of writing.
The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF): TOGAF is an enterprise architecture methodology that incorporates a high-level framework for enterprises that focuses on designing, planning, implementing, and governing enterprise information technology architectures. TOGAF helps businesses organize their processes through an approach that reduces errors, decreases timelines, maintains budget requirements, and aligns technology with the business to produce business-impacting results. Figure 4 provides a high-level view of the steps in this framework.
Zachman Framework: This framework provides a means to classify a business’s architecture in a structured manner. It is a proactive business tool used to model a business’s functions, elements, and processes to help the business manage change throughout the organization. Table 1 highlights the elements that this framework covers.
| Why | How | What | Who | Where | When | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contextual | Goal List | Process List | Material List | Organizational Unit and Role List | Geographical Locations List | Event List |
| Conceptual | Goal Relationship | Process Model | Entity Relationship Model | Organizational Unit and Role Relationship Model | Locations Model | Event Model |
| Logical | Rules Diagram | Process Diagram | Data Model Diagram | Role Relationship Diagram | Locations Diagram | Event Diagram |
| Physical | Rules Specification | Process Function Specification | Data Entity Specification | Role Specification | Location Specification | Event Specification |
| Detailed | Rules Details | Process Details | Data Details | Role Details | Location Details | Event Details |
Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF): FEAF is the industry standard framework for government enterprise architectures. Within this framework, the focus is on guiding the integration of strategic, business, and technology management architecture processes. One of the primary benefits of this framework is that it focuses on a common approach to technology acquisition within all U.S. federal agencies.
Risk Management Framework (RMF): The RMF, created by NIST, focuses on the integration of security, privacy, and cyber supply chain processes into the system development life cycle. This risk-based approach to control the selection process considers effectiveness, efficiency, and legal constraints and directives. Managing organizational risk is critical to the security, safety, and privacy of information systems. The RMF can be applied to new and legacy systems, leveraging any technology, and within any specific market or sector. Figure 5 shows the RMF step-by-step process.
Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DODAF): DODAF defines a common approach for presenting, describing, and comparing DoD enterprise architectures across organizational, joint, or multinational boundaries. DODAF leverages common terminology, assumptions, and principles to allow for better integration between DoD elements. This framework is suited to large systems with complex integration and interoperability challenges. One element of this framework that is unique is its use of views. Each view offers an overview of a specific area or function and provides details for specific stakeholders within the different domains.
Business, Operations, Systems, and Technology (BOST): The BOST framework provides the structure for enterprise models, their elements, and relationships. Each of the four elements of BOST has its own views. In this framework, the requirements flow downward through the four views. The capabilities flow upward in response to these requirements, creating a mapping between the requirements and capabilities. The success of this framework is based on the ability of a business to align its capabilities with the constantly changing requirements in all four views. Figure 6 highlights the four views and how the requirements move downward while the capabilities flow upward.
ITIL: Information Technology Infrastructure Library is a set of best practice processes for delivering IT services to your organization’s customers. ITIL focuses on ITSM and ITAM, and includes processes, procedures, tasks, and checklists that can be applied by any organization. The three focus areas of ITIL are change management, incident management, and problem management.
Table 2 compares the most common advantages of the previously mentioned architecture frameworks.
| Framework | Advantages |
|---|---|
| TOGAF | Reduce cost, time, and risk in the development of enterprise infrastructure architectures. Realize quick benefits from implementation due to improved flexibility and freedom. Allows for consistent business growth and simple restructuring. |
| Zachman | Improves communications around systems and processes. Provides an informed decision-making process that includes a holistic view of the organization. Increased efficiency from standardization. Reduced costs by increases in system performance. |
| RMF | Minimize risk. Protection of assets. Reputation management. Optimization of data management. |
| FEAF | Collaborative planning process. Common approach for complex environments. Leveraged within and between all U.S. federal agencies. |
| DODAF | Perspectives for every aspect. Common terminology, semantics, and viewpoints. |
| ITIL | Improves service quality. Cost optimization. Higher customer satisfaction. Better risk management. Alignment of business goals. |
| BOST | Four architecture views. Interlinked planning models. IT investments are tracked to ensure they map to a business requirement and capability. Business capabilities are aligned to the current state. |
Review Questions
9. Which of the following options is an enterprise architecture methodology that incorporates a high-level framework for enterprises that focuses on designing, planning, implementing, and governing enterprise information technology architectures?
- ITIL
- RMF
- TOGAF
- FEAF
- DODAF
c. The Open Group Architecture Framework is an enterprise architecture methodology that incorporates a high-level framework for enterprises that focuses on designing, planning, implementing, and governing enterprise information technology architectures. TOGAF helps businesses organize their processes through an approach that reduces errors, decreases timelines, maintains budget requirements, and aligns technology with the business to produce business-impacting results.
10. Which of the following options is a set of best practice processes for delivering IT services to your organization’s customers?
- ITIL
- RMF
- TOGAF
- FEAF
- DODAF
a. Information Technology Infrastructure Library is a set of best practice processes for delivering IT services to your organization’s customers. ITIL focuses on ITSM and ITAM, and includes processes, procedures, tasks, and checklists that can be applied by any organization. The three focus areas of ITIL are Change Management, Incident Management, and Problem Management.
Summary
Typically, no single reference architecture, framework, or model will apply to the situation you are in as a network designer. In most cases, you may have to merge or adopt aspects of multiple frameworks to help guide you and the business to success. As you continue this journey, here are three guidelines to leverage when dealing with frameworks:
- Encourage architecture reviews regularly
- Avoid big-bang implementations (doing everything at once)
- Use your operating model as a North Star, following a path toward a strategic goal
This chapter started by covering business architecture, defining what business priorities, drivers, outcomes, and capabilities are and, more importantly, how they interact with one another. In this same context, the different levels of alignment, or scope, that business architecture includes were described along with how to identify which scope applies to a given situation. Key performance indicators were introduced as the mechanism for validating whether a network design is successful.
Then enterprise architecture was covered, where business requirements are determined by identifying stakeholders and the operating model being leveraged. Finally, the current state was identified by defining the data and creating a blueprint.
The end of this chapter provided a list of the most common reference architectures, frameworks, and models at the time of writing. This list is a summary and is not meant to be inclusive of all the different components within each of these frameworks listed, nor is the list a fully inclusive list of all frameworks leveraged today.
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