www.monash.edu

Enterprise Architecture in Higher Education, CSU
Nathan Bailey, Enterprise Architect, Monash University ITS
1st November 2006
Monash IT Architecture
Identifying and adopting ‘reusable best practice’ www.monash.edu

Defining the outcome
• Why architecture?
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The dode www.monash.edu
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Architecture
• reduce implementation and maintenance costs
• improve responsiveness and service
• align university-wide activity (economies of scale)
• define growth paths (dept => fac => uniwide) www.monash.edu
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Is architecture about…
• the design activity (‘design’)
• the implementation activity
(‘engineering’)
• the maintenance activity (‘service management’)
• all + more?
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Top-down
• Governance (Okay)
• Strategic Planning (Good)
• Capital Projects (Good-ish)
• Procurement / acquisition (Good)
• Changing 30 major and 300 minor fiefdoms (Mmm…)
• => Ensuring consistency www.monash.edu
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Bottom-up
• Source code control
• Design and maintenance documents
• Service management documents (ITIL)
• => Improving reproducibility www.monash.edu
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In the middle
• Information management
• Application portfolio
– Duplication of solutions (shared services)
– Technology and skills register
– “as is” => “to be” impact www.monash.edu
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Data
• RQF
• LTPF
• AUQA
• => Increased focus www.monash.edu
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Data
• Unified and cleansed
• Building data-mart approach (client facing)
• Building BPEL/SOA approach (back end)
• Still need data model, data dictionary, data business owners and rules, etc. (eg. who owns ID numbers and how can they be used?) www.monash.edu
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How are we doing?
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Measuring maturity
• By CMMI
• By artifacts (roadmaps, blueprints, etc.)
• By activity (eg. review + sign offs, consults, sponsorships, proposals, etc.) www.monash.edu
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Still worry about
• Getting ITS to change (silos and control)
• Identity management
• Data governance
– Risks in compliance (records, IP management, etc.) www.monash.edu
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We have thousands (tens of thousands?) of these bespoke solutions…
• A dozen or more groups managing networks
• Dozens of storage management solutions
• Over 100 groups managing servers
• Hundreds of separate data models stored in hundreds of separate databases
• Hundreds of application servers running hundreds of separate application frameworks
• Thousands of separate applications written in a dozen or more separate languages
• Dozens of different ways of identifying, analysing, designing, building, implementing and maintaining solutions to business problems www.monash.edu
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Preferred architecture… www.monash.edu
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Focus: Consolidation and reuse www.monash.edu
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Big picture www.monash.edu
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Big picture www.monash.edu
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Commoditise compute and storage (cf.
‘grid’) www.monash.edu
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Commoditise data models www.monash.edu
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Build discrete, reusable business components www.monash.edu
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Deploy in user-centred, audience targeted, homogeneous environment www.monash.edu
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