Use Solution Architecture as a tool to produce solid solutions that fully meet business needs, within budget, deploy on schedule, easy to maintain, and use fewer resources.

1. Architecture Series 5-4
Solution Architecture
Frankie Hsiang – Enterprise Technologist
FrankieHsiang@yahoo.com
Architecture Series 5 - 4 - Solution Architecture 1

2. Audience & Objectives
Business & IT managers, architects, team leads
, and developers who want to use Solution
Architecture as a tool to produce solid
solutions that fully meet business needs,
within budget, deploy on schedule, easy to
maintain, and use fewer resources.
Assuming audience have certain architecture knowledge
and IT project management skills.
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3. Common IT System Issues
Maintaining as-is system(s) consumes large percentage
of IT budget and technical resources
Very hard to train new developers to work on the
applications
It is hard to add new features
Changes to a system frequently cause breakages on
other parts of the system
No one can really point to the business model
Data integrity is often violated
Duplicate functions on several systems
Low morale in IT department
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4. Solution Architecture Can Help
Solution Architecture is a tool to
produce solid IT solutions that fully
meet business needs, within budget,
deploy on schedule, easy to maintain,
and use fewer resources
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5. One Big Happy Family
Business Model Driven Solution
Architecture Centric Development
Efficient Operations
+ High Quality of Services (QoS)
One Big Happy Family
Happy Business Users
Happy Development Teams
Happy Operation Teams
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6. Solution Architecture Definition
A business use cases driven system architecture.
System Architecture - The fundamental
organization of a system embodied in its
components, their relationships to each other and
to the environment and the principles guiding its
design and evolution - ANSI/IEEE 1471-2000.
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7. Relationship to other IT disciplines
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8. S. A. Methodology - BASE
1. Business Use Cases Driven
Defines a set of unique business functions to fully
address business needs
2. Architecture Centric Development
Analysis, design, development, and deployment are
centered around a layered architecture
3. Streamline Operations
Streamline processes and reuse components for efficient
and cost effective operations
4. Environmentally Friendly
Build with fewer resources to prevent over engineering,
reduce energy and resources footprint
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9. Layered Solution Architecture
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10. Reference S. A. Diagram
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11. SPA Builds High Quality System
• Separation of Concerns
• Patterns driven design and construction*
• Agile development process
Common 80/20 rule - No one size fits all to
avoid over engineering and lengthy analysis and
design time.
* See Reference #4, #5, #6, & #7 for design patterns resources.
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12. Stages of Architecture Maturity
Business Silos, Standard Technology, Optimized
Core, Business Modularity from ref. #1
OMB FEA Assessment Framework: 1 Initial, 2
Baseline, 3 Target, 4 Integrated, 5 Optimized;
from ref. #2
Assess enterprise architecture maturity level.
Different maturity level needs a different
strategy and time frame to bring the
organization to the next level of maturity.
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13. IBM RUP 4 + 1 Views
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14. 1. Business Use Cases Driven
SOA is business transformation. Defines business
processes, systems, actors, and interactions among them.
CRC still works: Class, Responsibilities, & Collaboration
Identify business use case & realize business use case to
system use case.
Build LOB level service catalogue with unique business
functions
Exchange canonical information among business
services.
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15. SOA Essential
Autonomy: Service is self-contained, and can be used
individually.
Flexibility: Flexible to accept unusual request.
Interoperability and reusability via standard based
technology and LOB level business object model
Composability: Able to build new services from
existing services. Support fast evolving business
environment.
Model Driven: Model defines Service Contract
among services, including, interfaces, interaction and
information as defined in the model.
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16. SOA Implementation Strategy
Capture core business functions, processes, activities,
data, key users, and why they are important.
Define Canonical Business Object Model. Use the
BOM to drive the LOB business process flow.
Produce business driven roadmap and IT architecture
Use roadmap and architecture to guide implementation
Select SOA platform and utilize SOA platform
functions to implement and manage services.
Identify and promote SOA showcase project.
Implement enterprise SOA one project at a time.
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17. Canonical Business Object Model
A Line Of Business level BOM uses logical relational data
model (Entity Relationship Diagram - ERD) and XML
Schema (XSD) to define complete and detailed business
entities down to individual attribute level and the exact
business relationships among those business entities
The core SOA business objects (vocabulary) for systems
information exchange and integration in a particular LOB
business domain.
Helps to reduce the number of data transformation among
data producers and consumers.
Helps to integrate operational data onto data warehouse
XSLT, XPath based BOM transformation utility
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18. Develop Business Object Model
Starts with LOB ERD – provides LOB level semantic
and uniqueness check.
Evolves to XML Schema – facilitates cross platforms
inter-systems information exchange and integration
Builds BOM incrementally.
Increase communication & demonstrate value –
Routinely display updated business object model in
users workspace.
Adopt industry standard if available. SWIFT – ISO
15022, FIX-FIXML, XBRL, MISMO, NIEM, …
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19. 2. Architecture Centric Development
*1 - high technical risk or high business value
*2 - Business use case to system use case realization
- Architecture Elaboration in 4+1 view UML
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20. Promote Show Case System(s)
Use Show Case System to demonstrate
good architecture quality on
Use Case View
Logical View
Process View
Implementation View
Deployment View
Note: A good example is one of the best way to provide easy to follow instructions.
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21. RUP - Deployment View
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22. Benefits of Agile Development
Identify and manage key risks early
and iteratively
Promote users & developers
interaction
Adopt change of requirements
Measure progress objectively
Demonstrate business value early
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23. 3. Streamline Operation
Streamline processes with out-of-box
thinking process analysis, and leverage new
technologies to automate time consuming
or labor intensive tasks.
Establish standard operating procedure
Promote standard based technologies
Reuse components for efficient and cost
effective operations
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24. 4. Environmentally Friendly
Build with fewer resources to prevent over
engineering
Reduce energy and resources footprint
Establish well defined common IT runtime
environment Service Level Agreement.
Routinely conduct SLA audit or test to
ensure SLA quality.
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25. Next - Architecture Management
Enterprise Architecture Guidance – Web accessible
enterprise architecture principles, preferred platforms,
standard runtime environment, and design patterns.
Well defined SDLC process
Embed EA guidance onto SDLC process and design
document template.
Architecture and Design Review Process.
Code Review to ensure alignment to architecture
guidance.
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26. Architecture Review Board
ARB is a group of architects with technical
authority to
Review & approve major IT program architecture
Provide technical guidance to project teams
Enforce architecture governance
Verify Business – IT architecture alignment
Share business domain and technical knowledge
among reviewers
See Reference #8 - Effective Enterprise Architecture Action Plan
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27. Architecture Validation
A structured and consistent approach to evaluate
a system’s quality before it is built.
Completeness – complete and detailed SDLC
required information
Compliance - complies with Enterprise
Architecture guidance & follows SDLC process.
Consistency – Same scope on business,
system, interfaces with consistent terminology,
data integrity, and predictable results.
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28. Key ideas to take away
Solution Architecture - BASE methodology -
Business Use Cases Driven, Architecture Centric
Development, Streamline Operations, &
Environmentally Friendly
Layered Architecture – SPA approach with 4+1 views
SOA is business transformation – LOB level Canonical
Business Object Model
Architecture Management - provide up front
architecture guidance, and after fact architecture
assessment.
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29. Reference
1. Enterprise Architecture as Strategy ISBN 1-59139-839-8
2. Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) -
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/e-gov/fea/
3. The Open Group – TOGAF 8.1.1 http://www.togaf.org/
4. Service Oriented Architecture by Thomas Erl – ISBN 0-13-142898-5
5. SOA Design Patterns by Thomas Erl, & web site-
http://www.soapatterns.org
6. Sun – Java Blue Print - http://java.sun.com/reference/blueprints/
7. Enterprise Service Bus – David Chappell, ISBN 0-596-00675-6
8. “Architecture Series 5-5 - Effective Enterprise Architecture Action
Plan.ppt” – Frankie Hsiang
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