Information Systems IFS 362

Architecture and Infrastructure

Session 1
Orientation and Introduction
Introducing your lecturers and tutors
◈ Dr Carolien van den Berg (module coordinator)
◈ Dr Malcolm Garbutt
◈ Ms Delina Pretorius
◈ TA is Zizipho
◈ Your tutors are Ryan, Jonas, Xolani, Mary, Siyambonga and
Zandile
Name Dr Caro van den Berg Dr Malcolm Garbutt Delina Pretorius

E-mail [email protected]

Consultation Mon 10:00 - 11:00 Tues 14:00 – 16:00 Mon 08:00 - 09:00
hours
Tues 11:00 - 12:00 Wed 13:30 – 15:30 Wed 12:00 - 13:00

Fri 14:00 - 15:00 Fri 10:00 -12:00 Fri 14:00 - 15:00

2
Module Outcomes
◈ Apply modern architecture and its relationship
and application to infrastructure.
◈ Apply concepts in the roll-out of a systems
development project.
◈ Systems, Infrastructure and Security
architecture
◈ Agile project management.
◈ Understand future trends and the impact
thereof on organisations.

3
Locate yourself

4
 Weekly Schedule

WEEK DATE TOPIC PER WEEK ASSESSMENTS LECTURER

1 24 July Orientation to the module and CvdB
introduction of the lecturers
• Overview of business and IT
• Contextualising architecture
• Frameworks – Old and New
2 31 July Scaled Agile Framework Quiz CvdB
• Team and technical agility
• Agile product delivery
• Enterprise solution delivery
• Lean portfolio management
• Organisational agility
• Culture and leadership
3 7 August Plan and Design Quiz CvdB
• Essential SAFE
• Team and Technical Agility
• Agile Product Delivery
• IT as a Service
4 14 August Design and Build Group CvdB
• The implementation roadmap Assignment Part
• Roll-out of software development 1 (20/08)
5 21 August Build and Implement MG
Systems Architecture
6 28 August Systems Architecture Term Test 1 MG
(01/09) @ 14.30
Term Break
7 11 September Infrastructure Architecture Quiz MG
8 19 September Security Architecture Quiz MG
9 25 September A Deep Dive into Industry Perspectives Group DP
Assignment Part
2 (01/10)
10 2 October Service Management Frameworks Term Test 2 DP
(07/10) @ 09:00
11 9 October BCP and IOT Quiz DP
12 16 October Looking toward the future Special DP
Assessments

5
The Journey that we will take
◈ In this course you are entering the world of IT
software delivery
◈ We will apply the principles of Agile and LEAN
to prepare you for the future

6
 In This Lecture
★ Overview of business and IT

★ Contextualising architecture

★ The concept of enterprise architecture as a

potential solution to the problem of alignment

★ Frameworks – Old and New The problem of

achieving business and IT alignment
Those who master large-scale software
delivery will define the economic
landscape of the 21st century.
—Mik Kersten

©©Scaled
Scaled Agile.
Agile, Inc.
Five technological revolutions
Installation Period Turning Point Deployment Period

1771 1793-1801

Industrial
Canal Mania (UK) Great British Leap
Revolution
1829 1848-1850

Age of Steam
Railway Mania (UK) The Victorian Boom
& Railways
1875 1890-1895

Age of Steel & London funded global market Belle Epoque (Europe)
Heavy Engineering infrastructure build-up Progressive Era (USA)

1908 1929-1943

Age of Oil & Mass

The Roaring Twenties Post-War Golden Age
Production
1971 2000-?

Age of Software & Dotcom and internet mania;

?
Digital Global finance and housing bubbles

Adapted from Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital, Carlota Perez

9

© Scaled Agile. Inc.

Production capital follows financial capital

► Installation Period – New technology and financial capital combine to create

a ‘Cambrian explosion’ of new market entrants, disrupting entire industries
from the previous age

► Turning Point – Existing businesses either master the new technology or

decline and become relics of the last age

► Deployment Period – Production capital of the new technological giants start

to take over

Installation Period Turning Point Deployment Period

1971 2000-?

Age of Software Dotcom and internet mania;

?
& Digital Global finance and housing bubbles

10

© Scaled Agile. Inc.

What stage are we in?

► "BMW Group’s CEO expects that in their future more than half of its research and
development staff will be software developers." (Mik Kersten, Project to Product)

► The market cap of Tesla ($464B market cap, $24B revenue) now exceeds the market
cap of Ford ($33B market cap, $156B revenue) at a 14:1 value ratio (November
2020)

► Apple is now the biggest watchmaker in the world (Investopedia 2019)

© Scaled Agile. Inc.

 Competing in the age of software

The problem is not with our organizations realizing that

they need to transform; the problem is that organizations
are using managerial frameworks and infrastructure
models from past revolutions to manage their
businesses in this one.
—Mik Kersten

©©Scaled
Scaled Agile.
Agile, Inc.
12
 Rethinking the organization
The world is now changing at a rate at which
the basic systems, structures, and cultures
built over the past century cannot keep up
with the demands being placed on them.

—John P. Kotter

©©Scaled
Scaled Agile.
Agile, Inc.
13
 ◈Environment. Influences that are external to the organization, such
High-level perspective as customer perceptions, changing needs, and changes in
technology, and the organization’s ability to adjust to them.
◈Strategy. The business strategy defines how the organization adds
value and acts as the rudder to direct the organization.
Creating an effective practice Organizational strategy defines the character of the organization,
involve s ma ny moving pa rts . what it wants to be, its values, its vision, its mission, etc.
◈Core Process. The flow of work through the organization.
◈Structure. How people are organized around business processes.
Culture Includes reporting structures, boundaries, roles, and responsibilities.
The structure should assist the organization with achieving its goals
rather than hinder its performance.

Environme nt
Strategy
Systems
Re s ults ◈Systems. Interrelated sets of tasks or activities that help organize
Leadership and coordinate work.
◈Culture. The personality of the organization: its leadership style,
attitudes, habits, and management practices. Culture measures how
Core well philosophy is translated into practice.
Structure
Processes
◈Results. Measurement of how well the organization achieved its
goals.
◈Leadership. Brings the organization together by providing vision and
strategy; designing, monitoring, and nurturing the culture; and
S ource : The Ce nte r for Orga niza tiona l De s ign fostering agility.
 IT Systems Are Becoming More Powerful

• Over the time, information systems become more

powerful, ubiquitous, diverse and affordable
• The computing power and storage capacity of IT systems
are increasing exponentially
• Business applications now can be deployed on
dedicated servers, hosted in the cloud, run in web
browsers and even installed on handheld mobile devices
• Packaged systems available today include various ERP,
CRM, SCM, BI, ECM, KM and other offerings
• The relative price of information systems is gradually
decreasing making different IT systems more accessible
 The Use of IT Systems in Organisations
• The productive use of information systems for
improving the quality of business processes in
organisations is not equivalent merely to installing
the appropriate software and hardware
• Instead, the productive use of information systems
always requires consistent and coordinated changes
in three broad organisational aspects:
– People
– Processes
– Technology
 People, Processes and Technology
• People aspect:
– Providing the necessary education and training to system users
– Explaining benefits of the new system, coping with resistance
– Dealing with political, cultural and power redistribution issues
• Processes aspect:
– Introducing new business processes enabled by the system
– Modifying existing business processes affected by the system
– Modifying relevant decision-making procedures and rules
• Technology aspect:
– Setting up the new IT system and required infrastructure
– Making the new system available to its end users
– Providing technical and help desk support to end users
 Business Benefits of IT Systems
• The proper use of information systems can deliver
numerous business benefits and open multiple
innovative opportunities to organisations:
– Improve or automate business processes
– Reduce costs and delays
– Enable analytical capabilities
– Support executive decision-making
– Enable information sharing with partners, e.g. in supply
chains
– Facilitate effective knowledge exchange between
employees
– Provide new customer communication channels
– Create new innovative products and services
– Develop entirely new business models
 IT Systems and Competitive Advantage
• Information systems can help organisations execute their
business strategies and gain strategic competitive
advantage:
– Operational excellence and cost leadership – IT systems can be
used to automate operations, eliminate delays and deviations,
avoid manual labour and achieve predictable business processes
– Product differentiation and leadership – IT systems can be used
to facilitate the design of new products, support teamwork and
creativity or provide unique innovative products and services
– Customer intimacy and focus – IT systems can be used to collect
and store customer data, analyse customer preferences, target
specific customer groups and develop highly customized offers
 The Problem of Achieving
Alignment
• To achieve alignment, an organisation should act
as a single “big brain” always making best
globally and locally optimised business and IT
decisions
• However, no actors are competent enough to
make such optimal planning decisions alone and
powerful enough to enact the subsequent
implementation of these decisions
• Business and IT alignment requires collective
decision-making with the involvement of multiple
organisational actors
Main Groups of Actors and
Boundaries
 Enterprise Architecture as a
Solution
• A set of special documents is used in organisations to
facilitate communication between different groups of
relevant actors, improve information systems planning
and thereby achieve business and IT alignment
• These documents are collectively titled as enterprise
architecture (EA)
• In other words, enterprise architecture is a collection
of documents helping establish effective
communication between all relevant actors involved in
strategic decision-making and implementation of IT
systems
 The Value of Enterprise
Architecture
• For each group of relevant actors EA documents
provide the necessary information that satisfies
their interests, reflects their concerns and
answers their questions
• EA documents help different actors collaborate
and achieve mutual understanding despite their
disparate roles, interests and expertise
• Enterprise architecture helps close the
communication gaps existing between all groups
of actors and eliminate the three boundaries
preventing effective collaboration
EA as an Instrument for
Communication
Domains of Enterprise Architecture
• The informational contents of enterprise architecture
typically encompass the following common EA domains:
– Business domain – covers customers, capabilities, processes,
roles, etc.
– Applications domain – covers programs, systems, custom
software, vendor products, etc.
– Data domain – covers data entities, structures, sources, etc.
– Integration domain – covers interfaces, connections,
interaction protocols, integration platforms, etc.
– Infrastructure domain – covers hardware, servers, operating
systems, networks, etc.
– Security domain – covers firewalls, authentication
mechanisms, identity and access management systems,
encryption, etc.
 EA Domains as a Stack
• The set of common EA domains can be represented as
a multilayered stack of domains, where lower layers
underpin higher layers:
– Applications automate business processes
– Data is used by applications
– Integration mechanisms link all applications and data
together
– Infrastructure hosts all applications, databases and
integration platforms
– Security mechanisms permeate all other EA domains
• The business domain is non-technical in nature, while
all other EA domains are technical domains directly
related to respective technologies
 The Stack of EA Domains

Generally, enterprise architecture can describe any

domains considered as important from the perspective of
the relationship between business and IT
Key EA Frameworks
• The Zachman framework is the original framework and
it consists of a matrix. The rows and columns helps
organisations classify all of their information into the
correct layers/views of EA.
• The TOGAF (The Open Architecture Framework) is a
METHODOLOGY and a Framework. It is more recent
than Zachman.
• The GWEA framework was developed to define the
minimum standard by which to use an Enterprise
Architecture approach to develop and construct
National and Departmental ICT Plans and Blueprints in
the Government of South Africa. It was developed
using Zachman and TOGAF
Traditional vs. Agile approaches
Traditional Enterprise Architecture Next-Generation Enterprise Architecture
Scope: Technology focused Business transformation (scope includes both business and
technology)
Bottom up Top down
Inside out Outside In
Point to point; difficult to change Expandable, extensible, evolvable
Control-based: Governance intensive; often over-centralized Guidance-based: Collaboration and partnership-driven based
on accepted guardrails
Big up-front planning Incremental/dynamic planning; frequent changes
Functional siloes and isolated projects, programs, and Enterprise-driven outcome optimization (across value streams)
portfolios

Info-Tech Insight
The role of the architecture in Lean (Agile) approaches is to set up the needed guardrails and ensure a safe environment where everyone
can be effective and creative.

Info-Tech Research Group | 31

Business Agility requires
technical agility and a
business-level commitment
to product and value stream
thinking.

And it requires that

everyone involved in
delivering business
solutions use Lean and
Agile practices.
32

©©Scaled
Scaled Agile.
Agile, Inc.
32
 33

© Scaled Agile. Inc.

The Seven Core Competencies of Business Agility

© Scaled Agile. Inc. 34

To do………..
◈ Register your groups on iKamva
◈ Review the contents for week 1
◈ Complete the Quiz (on iKamva closes Monday
31 July @ 23:55
◈ Give us some feedback