The Oracle Enterprise Architecture Framework: Aligning Information Technology to Business
The Oracle Enterprise Architecture Framework: Aligning Information Technology to Business
Enterprise architecture is an organizing
O Application strategy: The applica- principle that aligns business objec-
framework is designed to provide quick,
tion architecture principles (build or buy, tives and strategies (including capital
incremental results and consists of seven
hosted or in-house, open standards or planning, project management, asset
core components.
proprietary), application governance and management, resource allocation, and
Business architecture aligns an
portfolio management, and the reference strategy formulation) with an IT strat-
organization’s operating model, strate-
application architectures egy and execution plan. The Oracle
gies, and objectives with IT; creates a
O Application services: An inventory enterprise architecture framework can
business case for IT transformations;
of the application services exposed to provide the guidelines that make this
and provides a business-centric view
internal and external audiences that alignment possible.
of the enterprise. It provides informa-
support the business services “The Oracle enterprise architecture
tion about business strategy (business
O Application processes: The processes framework includes processes, meth-
requirements, objectives, performance
that support the business processes in odologies, tools, and repositories of
indicators, and business risks), business
the business architecture best practices to help customers create
function (business services, processes,
O Logical components: An inventory of enterprise architectures and solution
and capabilities), and business orga-
the product-agnostic systems that are architectures,” says Mark Salser, senior
nization (structures, decision-making
relevant to the business objectives vice president of the Enterprise Solutions
process, and budget information)
O Physical components: Products Group at Oracle. “We have certified enter-
Application architecture ties business
that support the logical application prise architects throughout North America
functions and services to application
processes and services to application
components
to help customers use this framework.”
Technology architecture describes The Oracle enterprise architecture
components. The application architec-
ture has five aspects:
how the infrastructure underlying the
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“Our goal is to solve the tactical issues while incorporat- ing a strategic focus, providing tailored solutions that deliver maximum business value and benefit with a rapid ROI [return on investment] and a reduced TCO [total cost of ownership].”
Perkins says that Oracle’s modernization process begins with a business and technical discovery to document a company’s current business processes, IT environment, strategic future goals, and business requirements, followed by an assessment of its challenges and issues. With this information, the enterprise architecture team develops a modernization road map based on best practices that satis- fies the customer’s modernization requirement.
Based on the outcome of Deutsche Leasing’s discovery process, Oracle modernization partner Hexaware recom- mended rearchitecting the company’s legacy systems. This involved recovering and reassembling business-relevant code from legacy applications while eliminating as much of the technology-specific code as possible. Deutsche Leasing began by inventorying all of the legacy software assets, creating a model of the 3,000-plus programs that made up the overall system. The goal of the rearchitecture was to leverage existing business processes, data models, and pre- sentation logic as much as possible within a new Java EE architecture. Data from Btrieve, VSAM, DB2, and Microsoft “We have a well-defined vision for what we are trying to accomplish, and Oracle’s enterprise Access databases was then cleansed and migrated into an
architecture enables us to think long term and to integrate new capabilities over time,” says
Oracle Database; the new applications were deployed on
Al Foster, acting CIO of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Oracle WebLogic Server. Deutsche Leasing used its SOA to enhance its contract
management module for managing all partners and products,
DA VID DEAL
termination module. The company created a unified partner
a management module for defining product offerings, and a
business, application, and information
of architecture development, mainte- architectures is organized. It provides a
business strategy to ensure its alignment
nance, implementation, and governance. technical reference model that is used to
with the enterprise architecture during
Process is the adherence to architectural align technology purchases, infrastruc-
solution implementations. Enterprise
processes that maximize the chance of a ture, and solution implementations with
architecture governance includes people,
successful implementation and minimize the enterprise IT strategies, architecture
processes, and policies; technology infra-
resource expenditure. Modeling (Oracle principles, standards, reference architec-
structure; and financial management.
Business Process Analysis Suite), port- tures, and governance model.
Enterprise architecture repository
folio management (Oracle’s Primavera Information architecture provides an
is an Oracle internal repository for all
solutions), and architecture asset reposi- information- and data-centric view of
the architecture artifacts and deliver-
tories (Oracle Enterprise Repository) an organization. It focuses on informa-
ables that are captured and developed
tools and technologies accelerate the tion strategy (information architecture
throughout the lifecycle of an enterprise
process of developing and managing principles, governance and compliance
architecture, including a library of refer-
enterprise architecture. requirements, data models, and dissemi-
ence architectures, models, and prin-
“Enterprise architecture covers every- nation patterns) and information assets
ciples that describe the desired state of
thing in the enterprise, from data center (business datatypes and the relation-
the architecture and Oracle enterprise
modernization to legacy modernization,” ships between those business datatypes
architecture intellectual property.
Salser says. “It brings together the busi- and the services and processes that
People, process, and tools identifies
ness side of the enterprise and aligns it interact with that data).
the people, processes, and tools used to
with the IT side of the enterprise to help Enterprise architecture governance
define enterprise architectures and solu-
customers leverage information to gain a provides the structure for implementing
tions. The people have enterprise archi-
tecture responsibilities from perspectives
strategic advantage.”
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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010
Web-based system for lease- is extremely important given and hire-purchase products.
the agency’s diverse mission, It also centralized its security
which includes everything from directory. “All the business
education—Indian Affairs runs services are implemented as
a federal education system for discrete business functions
more than 40,000 students—and that operate independently of
law enforcement to fiduciary the state of any other service
responsibility for the trust assets defined within the system,”
of Native American tribes. Two says Otto Schmitz, CIO at
million tribal members count on Deutsche Leasing.
the Indian Affairs Web site for Each service has a well-
information. Currently, 5,000 defined set of interfaces that
employees use the new intranet exchange data with each other
site, a number that will grow using Oracle Enterprise Service
“We wanted to take advantage of Oracle’s direction, and we wanted a
to about 10,000 within a year. Bus. The business service layer
service-oriented-architecture approach,” says Karen Gunderson (right), pictured with Mary Hillstrom and Todd Hill of the University of Wisconsin.
“We needed an architecture that also provides a mechanism to
would allow all these parts of the take enterprise-scale components, business-unit-specific com-
organization to communicate effectively,” he says. ponents, and in some cases, project-specific components, and
Finally, the new infrastructure had to sync up technically externalize a subset of their interfaces in the form of service
with the rest of the federal agencies.
descriptions. “The enterprise components provide service real- In planning for all these constituencies and planning for the ization at runtime using the functionality provided by their
future, Foster and his team had to be sensitive to the need to interfaces,” Schmitz says.
empower information owners to manage their own content. This enterprise architecture provides the performance and
“We initially wanted to do this to remove IT from the content flexibility Deutsche Leasing needs while opening access to a
management workflow, and this, in turn, has positioned us to large pool of developers. “It’s much quicker to make changes,
respond to the new administration’s plans for open and trans- create innovative business services, and maintain the environ-
parent government,” Foster says.
ment,” says Kox. Indian Affairs chose Oracle products because when the agency evaluated the market, Oracle offered the best combina- FROM THE VISION TO THE PLAN
tion of capabilities. “We were interested in speed, security, and
A successful enterprise architecture is woven into the enter- simplicity to achieve our outcomes,” says Foster. “We wanted prise’s culture and evolves over time, maintaining flexibility for
Enterprise 2.0 capabilities as part of an IT environment that future change. But to get to an enterprise architecture, the U.S.
could integrate with other federal agencies under the auspices Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs had to
of the U.S. Department of the Interior. We were interested in start almost entirely from scratch, incorporating its constituen-
green computing, which our secretary and the new administra- cies’ demands as well as federal goals and mandates as guide-
tion support. This is what Oracle delivered.” lines for technical innovation.
Goals for communication and collaboration were enhanced “We had been off the intranet for six years as a result of a
by the Oracle WebCenter Suite Spaces feature, which has social court order,” says Al Foster, acting CIO for Indian Affairs. “We
computing services, certified Oracle application integrations, didn’t have direct internet access. We didn’t have BlackBerrys
and Microsoft Office desktop integration to improve the usabil- for wireless access to e-mail. We had a very basic external Web
ity and productivity of personal and group work environments. site. We were not able to use many of the tools most corpora-
“Users can customize the site to determine what they see on tions and government agencies had access to,” he says.
their portal and how to arrange their personal workspaces,” That didn’t stop Indian Affairs from planning for the future.
Foster says. “This gives us the best of both worlds: a secure, “What we needed after the court order was lifted was an
centrally administered infrastructure that gives people indi- infrastructure that would allow us to join the rest of the Web-
vidual control.”
connected world,” he says. The Oracle solution, while giving the agency the function- The agency’s planning was guided by four primary issues.
ality it needs now, also gives Indian Affairs an opportunity to “We looked for an integrated product suite because we didn’t
grow. “The core infrastructure is there to allow us to add other want to reinvent the wheel,” Foster says. “Next, we wanted
capabilities that are of interest to us, including, for example, something that would provide us with agility, because that’s a
Oracle Identity Management and Oracle Records Management,” goal of the new [Obama] administration—to deliver capabili-
Foster says. “Those two areas present significant challenges for ties quickly.”
many federal agencies.”
Foster says the agency also wanted the new infrastructure to Indian Affairs weighed the cost of its enterprise architec- provide capabilities for communication and collaboration. This
ture using Oracle against the long-term benefits. “This was an
MARK LUINENBURG
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