From Open Sustainability
Activity: Continuous Improvement - Architecture
Objective
There will be many opportunities to increase the business value delivered by the technology and information architecture . Besides the approach outlined in the Technology Blueprint, which is focused on delivering new capabilities, there should be a structured approach to looking at the existing environment and continuously improving the core capabilities that already exist.
From a sustainability perspective, continuous improvement of the architecture is done to:
- Remove issues that lead to energy inefficiencies
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This has the benefits of:
- Reducing cost
- Reducing risk
- Improving software quality
- Improving manageability
Continuous improvement of the technology infrastructure environment involves closely monitoring the current-state environments and instituting tactical changes that are inline with the strategic vision.
Major Deliverables
- Improvements to integration infrastructure through re-configuration or re-design
- Changes to hardware
- Changes to Software Development approach
Tasks
Re-factor Integration Infrastructure
Objective:
Most integration processes are unnecessarily complex and difficult to mange. Organisations should strive to continuously improve their integration environment towards a reusable architecture based on principles of:
- Reuse of common components
- Modularity and loose-coupling between services
- Improving quality and manageability
- Improving performance
- Reducing complexity though adoption of standards
Revisiting existing integration infrastructure should be a planned part of the overall programme – reviewing "working" components for quality and efficiency is still a valuable process. Feedback from the operation and monitoring lifecycle should act as the key input towards re-factoring.
Input:
- Design and software artefacts from existing integration environment
- Results from monitoring integration environment
Output:
- Re-factored Integration Infrastructure
Progressively Automate Processes
Objective:
Manual business processes dominate most organisations. These manual processes, often the main avenue of performing work, have no ability to scale. Lack of end-to-end visibility into business processes result in "black holes" across organisational or departmental boundaries that breed a non-disciplined organisation. To monitor the business activity, generating reports and Key Performance Indicator(s) is a heroic effort.
Most of these processes are unnecessarily manual, providing opportunities to significantly improve business capabilities. Automation of business processes helps to address such as supply chain
These processes can be automated in a progressive fashion, focusing first on either the most inefficient processes or those that are easiest to automate.
Input:
- Strategic Business Requirements
- BusinessTime Model for Information Integration
- Design and software artefacts from existing integration environment
Output:
- Improved integration infrastructure to progress towards BusinessTime model
Review and Recommend Physical Infrastructure Changes
Objective:
Upgrading physical infrastructure related to hardware, network and platforms will provide a means to improve performance, reduce cost and scale to meet new business demands for higher volumes. Physical infrastructure changes can often be implemented reasonably easily, with major benefits to the business. Physical infrastructure changes should always be framed in terms that show business benefits, even if these benefits are non-functional.
Upgrading physical infrastructure shouldn’t just focus on the production environment. There are often major opportunities to improve efficiencies in the SDLC by improving infrastructure in the development and test environments. As even minor improvements in developer efficiency can greatly reduce cost and improve time-to-market, this is an area that should receive considerable focus.
As cost/physical resource assets are continually decreasing, organisations should be intimately aware of changing physical infrastructure costs. There are often significant advantages that can be gained through consolidation or moving off legacy platforms. Infrastructure contracts should be reviewed at least every 6 months.
Input:
- Strategic Business Requirements
- Design and software artefacts from existing physical infrastructure environment
- Results from monitoring physical infrastructure environment
Output:
- Improved Physical Infrastructure
Move to a Information-Driven Architecture
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Objective:
Organisations should be continuously moving towards a information-driven approach for solutions. Taking an information-driven approach also means:
- Being able to make evidence-based and predictive decisions based on available information
- Maximizing automation in documenting of data relationships and flows, and subsequent changes
- Being able to assess the impact of changes in definitive terms and understand the impact of changes in design time
The strategic architecture Blueprint should provide at least a long-term moving towards a information-driven architecture.
Input:
- Overall Blueprint Architecture
- Design and software artefacts from existing physical infrastructure environment
Output:
- Changes in architecture towards a information-driven approach
Core Supporting Assets
Yellow Flags
- Resistance to re-factoring on the premise that the software already is in production
Key Resource Requirements
