Polley's original charge

We should designate at least one person from each operating division (S&O, NCS, IS, ATSUS, Security) to serve as the chief architecture planner for that division.  These people should serve together on a CIT Cross Divisional Architecture Team, to be chaired by the Director of Advanced Technology and Architecture.  This team will be tasked with developing our architecture plans, standards and vetting cross-divisional IT issues.   It is expected that the divisional architecture representatives will engage technical experts within their divisions as necessary to work on projects and issues.

Current Status

Week Ending

Description

8/1/2008

Architecture Report presented at SRM.   SRM likes the report and approved adding information about the architecture inventory to the QBR process starting with the FY09 Q1 QBR.    CCDAT will need to work on refining the process by which this data is collected!
Additionally, CCDAT is being asked to take part in vetting the architecture design for the Ensemble (formerly PEP) project.   More information will follow as it becomes available!

July-August 2008

During these two months I have worked with the Architecture Committee to draft an "Architecture  Report" from the data obtained in the Architecture Inventory exercise.  The focus is on identifying (and grouping) technologies in their various stages of "support" so we can get a better picture of "where we are".  The report currently focuses on four areas:

  1. What technologies are we "fully invested in" for the next three years?
  2. What technologies are we "fully maintaining" for the next three years?
  3. What technologies are being phased out in the next three years?
  4. What technologies are being deployed in the next three years?

Refinements

Scope:

Architecture is the high-level definition of the structure of a system, which is comprised of parts, their interrelationships, and externally visible properties.  This team will focus on Enterprise Technical Architecture which is defined as the description of the current and/or future structure of an organization's:

  1. Hardware, platforms, and hosting: servers, and where they are kept
  2. Local and wide area networks, Internet connectivity diagrams
  3. Operating Systems
  4. Infrastructure software: Application servers, DBMS, etc..

Architecture should not be approached in isolation. It is intended to address important Enterprise-wide concerns, such as:

  1. meeting stakeholder needs
  2. aligning IT with the business
  3. seamless integration and data sharing
  4. security and dependability
  5. data integrity, consistency
  6. reducing duplication

Goals:

  1. Develop, publish maintain a model of our current Enterprise Technical Architecture
  2. Develop, publish and  evolve a model of the desired future state
  3. Articulate evangelize a shared vision of the future
  4. Encourage architectural consistency and coherence across divisions

Organizational Impact:

  1. Each Director will be responsible for  reviewing their division's program plans in the context of contributions to moving us towards the desired future.
  2. When making decisions on resource allocation SRM will place considerable weight on whether or not the project or proposal moves us towards our desired future state.

Team Makeup:

One representative from each operational division will be designated Chief Architecture Planner for that division and be the primary representative on the Cross Divisional Architecture Team (CDAT).  Each representative is expected to  dedicate at least 10% of their time to this effort. They will be responsible for acquiring and maintaining knowledge of the technical and product architectures used across their division.  They will also be responsible for informing CDAT about any projects or decisions that effect the enterprise technical architecture.  A division may contribute additional resources to CDAT, however, there will be a single Chief Architecture Planner  for each division.  The division  Chief Architecture Planner is expected  tap other members of their division when specialized knowledge is required. 

The CCDAT Architecture Team consists of:

Suggested Approach:

Start with a product, such as BlackBoard, and trace the  architectural dependencies.

Other teams

Peer Institutions

Current CIT Architecture Information

Architecture Inventory Representatives