Togaf Series Guide
Togaf Series Guide
Togaf Series Guide
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Contents
1 Overview ................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Background ..................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Components of the Model............................................................................... 1
1.3 Relationship to Other Parts of the TOGAF Framework ................................. 2
1.4 Key Business and Technical Drivers .............................................................. 2
1.4.1 Problem Space: The Need for Boundaryless
Information Flow............................................................................. 2
1.4.2 Solution Space: The Need for Integrated Information
Infrastructure ................................................................................... 3
1.5 Status of the III-RM ........................................................................................ 4
2 High-Level View....................................................................................................... 6
2.1 Derivation of the III-RM from the TRM ........................................................ 6
2.2 High-Level III-RM Graphic............................................................................ 7
2.3 Components of the High-Level III-RM .......................................................... 8
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Preface
The Open Group
The Open Group is a global consortium that enables the achievement of business objectives
through technology standards. Our diverse membership of more than 600 organizations includes
customers, systems and solutions suppliers, tools vendors, integrators, academics, and
consultants across multiple industries.
The Open Group publishes a wide range of technical documentation, most of which is focused
on development of Open Group Standards and Guides, but which also includes white papers,
technical studies, certification and testing documentation, and business titles. Full details and a
catalog are available at www.opengroup.org/library.
®
The TOGAF Standard, a Standard of The Open Group
The TOGAF standard is a proven enterprise methodology and framework used by the world’s
leading organizations to improve business efficiency.
This Document
This document is a TOGAF® Series Guide to the TOGAF Integrated Information Infrastructure
Reference Model (III-RM). It has been developed and approved by The Open Group.
For more than 15 years, The Open Group has been acting on a vision of Boundaryless
Information Flow™, achieved through global interoperability in a secure, reliable, and timely
fashion.
For too long, IT customers have had to pay for the failure of IT suppliers to get their products to
work together effectively. To avoid negatively impacting business, IT customers have often had
no choice but to pay for “integration services” that simply consume development budget today
and increase maintenance costs down the road.
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To further this aim, in 2001-2, The Open Group developed a business scenario1 that described
the problem caused by the lack of interoperability.
This document describes the III-RM in terms of its concepts, an overview, and its detailed
taxonomy.
This Guide is a historical record of the model developed in 2002. The underlying principles of
Boundaryless Information Flow and the III-RM remain sound, but the detailed taxonomy
described in Chapter 3 is no longer complete or representative of the IT landscape in 2017.
®
About the TOGAF Series Guides
The TOGAF® Series Guides contain guidance on how to use the TOGAF framework. They form
part of the TOGAF Body of Knowledge.
The TOGAF® Series Guides are expected to be the most rapidly developing part of the TOGAF
document set. While the TOGAF framework is expected to be long-lived and stable, guidance on
the use of the TOGAF framework can be industry, architectural style, purpose, and problem-
specific. For example, the stakeholders, concerns, views, and supporting models required to
support the transformation of an extended enterprise may be significantly different than those
used to support the transition of an in-house IT environment to the cloud; both will use the
Architecture Development Method (ADM), start with an Architecture Vision, and develop a
Target Architecture on the way to an Implementation and Migration Plan. The TOGAF
framework remains the essential scaffolding across industry, domain, and style.
1
Interoperable Enterprise, Business Scenario (K022), October 2002, published by The Open Group (see Referenced Documents).
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Trademarks
ArchiMate®, DirecNet®, Making Standards Work®, OpenPegasus®, Platform 3.0®, The Open
Group®, TOGAF®, UNIX®, UNIXWARE®, and the Open Brand X® logo are registered
trademarks and Boundaryless Information Flow™, Build with Integrity Buy with Confidence™,
Dependability Through Assuredness™, Digital Practitioner Body of Knowledge™, DPBoK™,
EMMM™, FACE™, the FACE™ logo, IT4IT™, the IT4IT™ logo, O-DEF™, O-PAS™, Open
FAIR™, Open O™ logo, Open Platform 3.0™, Open Process Automation™, Open Trusted
Technology Provider™, SOSA™, and The Open Group Certification logo (Open O and
check™) are trademarks of The Open Group.
All other brands, company, and product names are used for identification purposes only and may
be trademarks that are the sole property of their respective owners.
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Acknowledgements
The Open Group gratefully acknowledges past and present members of The Open Group
Architecture Forum for their contribution in the development of this Guide.
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Referenced Documents
The following documents are referenced in this Guide.
Interoperable Enterprise, Business Scenario (K022), October 2002, published by The
Open Group; refer to: www.opengroup.org/library/k022
The TOGAF® Technical Reference Model, TOGAF Series Guide (G175), September
2017, published by The Open Group; refer to: www.opengroup.org/library/g175
The TOGAF® Standard, Version 9.2, a standard of The Open Group (C182), published by
The Open Group, April 2018; refer to: www.opengroup.org/library/c182
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1 Overview
1.1 Background
With the emergence of Internet-based technologies and cloud computing, the main focus of
attention for many organizations, and the main return on investment in architecture effort, has
shifted from only being Application Platform space to include Application Software. The
TOGAF Technical Reference Model, described in the TOGAF Technical Reference Model
(TRM) Guide,2 focuses on the Application Platform space.
This Guide describes a reference model that focuses on the Application Software space, and
“Common Systems Architecture” in Enterprise Continuum terms. This is the Integrated
Information Infrastructure Reference Model (III-RM).
The III-RM is a subset of the TOGAF TRM in terms of its overall scope, but it also expands
certain parts of the TRM – in particular, the Business Applications and Infrastructure
Applications parts – in order to provide help in addressing one of the key challenges facing the
Enterprise Architect today: the need to design an integrated information infrastructure to enable
Boundaryless Information Flow™. These concepts are explained in detail below.
This introductory section examines the concept of Boundaryless Information Flow; why an
integrated information infrastructure is necessary to enable it; and how the III-RM can help the
architect in designing an integrated information infrastructure for their enterprise.
The III-RM model assumes the underlying existence of a computing and network platform, as
described in the TRM; these are not depicted in the III-RM model.
2
The TOGAF® Technical Reference Model (TRM), TOGAF Series Guide (G175), September 2017, published by The Open Group
(see Referenced Documents).
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Although the III-RM is intended as a useful tool in the execution of the TOGAF Architecture
Development Method (ADM), it is important to emphasize that the ADM is in no way dependent
on the use of the III-RM (any more than it is dependent on use of the TRM). Other taxonomies
and reference models exist in this space that can be used in conjunction with the ADM, and
indeed may be preferable for some organizations.
In General Electric, Jack Welch invented the term "the Boundaryless Organization", not to imply
that there are no boundaries, but that they should be made permeable.
As each overall activity progressed through the organization, passing from department to
department (for example, from Design to Production to Sales), each department would take
inputs from the previous department in the process, apply its own business processes to the
activity, and send its output to the next department in line.
In today's world where speed, flexibility, and responsiveness to changing markets make all the
difference between success and failure, this method of working is no longer appropriate.
Organizations have been trying for some time to overcome the limitations imposed by traditional
organization structures. Many business process re-engineering efforts have been undertaken and
abandoned because they were too ambitious, while others cost far more in both time and money
than originally intended.
However, organizations today recognize that they need not abandon functional or departmental
organization altogether. They can enable the right people to come together in cross-functional
teams so that all the skills, knowledge, and expertise can be brought to bear on any specific
problem or business opportunity.
But this in turn poses its own challenges. CIOs are under enormous pressure to provide access to
information to each cross-functional team on an as-required basis, and yet the sources of this
data can be numerous and the volumes huge.
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Even worse, the IT systems, which have been built over a period of 20 or 30 years at a cost of
many billions of dollars, and are not about to be thrown out or replaced wholesale, were built for
each functional department. So although it may be possible to get people to work together
effectively (no minor achievement in itself), the IT systems they use are designed to support the
old-style thinking. The IT systems in place today do not allow for information to flow in support
of the boundaryless organization. When they do, then we will have Boundaryless Information
Flow.
In this scenario, the customer’s problem statement says that I (as the customer enterprise) could
gain significant operational efficiencies and improve the many different business processes of
the enterprise – both internal processes, and those spanning the key interactions with suppliers,
customers, and partners – if only I could provide my staff with:
Integrated information so that different and potentially conflicting pieces of information
are not distributed throughout different systems
Integrated access to that information so that staff can access all the information they need
and have a right to, through one convenient interface
The infrastructure that enables this vision is termed the “integrated information infrastructure”.
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One of the key challenges for the architect in today’s enterprise is to work out, and then
communicate to senior management, how far disruptive technologies and new trends might have
an impact on business and on the way the different elements of the organization’s ecosystem
could be connected and interchange information (Boundaryless Information Flow).
The Open Group follow-up analysis of the Interoperable Enterprise Business Scenario has
resulted in the development of an integrated information infrastructure model (the III-RM),
which depicts the major components required to address the Boundaryless Information Flow
problem space, and can help the architect in this task.
The III-RM thus provides insights related to customer needs for Boundaryless Information Flow
in enterprise environments. The model also points to rules and standards to assist in leveraging
solutions and products within the value chain.
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The Business Scenario and the Reference Model thus represent a problem and a solution
approach that The Open Group membership as a whole fully endorses.
It is hoped that publication of the model as part of the TOGAF Framework will encourage its
widespread adoption and use, and provide a channel of communication whereby experience with
use of the model can be fed back, improvement points assimilated, and the model refined and
republished as necessary.
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2 High-Level View
This chapter provides a high-level view of the III-RM, including derivation of the model, high-
level graphic, and components.
Consider Figure 2 where two views of the TOGAF TRM are presented. The left side is the
familiar view of the TOGAF TRM; it is a side view, where we look at the model as if looking at
a house from the side, revealing the contents of the “floors”. The top-down view on the right-
hand side depicts what we might see if looking at a house from the “roof” down.
Qualities Qualities
Software Engineering
Security
Transaction Processing
International Operations
User Interface
Data Interchange
Data Management
Network Services
Application Platform
Communications Infrastructure
The subset of the TRM that comprises the III-RM is depicted in Figure 3, in which those parts of
the TRM not relevant to the III-RM are “grayed out”.
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Qualities Qualities
Software Engineering
Security
Transaction Processing
International Operations
User Interface
Data Interchange
Data Management
Network Services
Application Platform
Communications Infrastructure
Figure 3 illustrates that the focus is on the Application Software, Application Platform, and
Qualities subset of the TOGAF TRM.
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Application Platform
As explained previously, the model assumes the underlying existence of a computing and
network platform, and does not depict them explicitly.
Although the computing and network platforms are not depicted, there may be requirements on
them that must be met, in addition to requirements on the components of the III-RM, in order to
fully address the Boundaryless Information Flow problem space.
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3 Detailed Taxonomy
This chapter provides a detailed taxonomy of the III-RM, including detailed graphic, platform
service categories, and external environment sub-entities.
Application Platform
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The overall set of Brokering, Information Provider, and Information Consumer Applications
collectively creates an environment that provides a rich set of end-user services for transparently
accessing heterogeneous systems, databases, and file systems.
Brokering Applications access Information Provider Applications using the open interfaces
provided by the Information Provider Applications (as described above); they integrate
information from multiple Information Provider Applications and pass the integrated
information to Information Consumer Applications using open interfaces.
Brokering Applications also enable access to information within the enterprise by strategic
partners.
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Figure 7: Liberate Data Silos to Meet Information Needs of Cross-Functional Enterprise Teams
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Figure 8: Information Provider Applications Liberate Data by Providing Open Interfaces to Data
Silos
Figure 9 depicts the Information Consumer Applications with the security services depicted as
the brick pattern.
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Note that each set of tools will be logically connected through a directory, allowing one tool to
be driven by data from another. The following sections describe the requirements for
components of Development Tools. The tool set also includes a repository.
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The Business Modeling Tools category covers tools for the modeling of business rules and
business process rules.
Business modeling describes and documents the business in a comprehensive knowledge base. It
establishes a consensus among general management of the business direction, organization,
processes, information requirements, and the current environment of the business. Perhaps most
importantly, this understanding is documented in a common, business-oriented format to be
utilized for subsequent enhancement.
The Design Modeling Tools category covers tools for designing, defining, and documenting the
most pertinent IT elements of the business based upon the business and business process rules.
Examples of elements to be designed include: connections between people, organizations,
workflows, and computers; data and object models; physical data translation and translation
rules; and constraints.
Deployment Tools
Deployment Tools are necessary to move implemented software from the development
environment into the operational environment.
Libraries
The Libraries component includes re-usable libraries of software that use the standards of the
operational environment.
The OA&M Utilities component covers traditional systems management and administration
utilities that manage business rules and information objects. Examples include: utilities for
installation, copyright, and license management; and miscellaneous administration,
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configuration, and registration functions. Additionally there are utilities for the control of service
billing, service triggering, and account management.
Quality of Service Manager Utilities include health monitoring and management utilities.
Copy Management Utilities are those that manage data movement from any given operational
system to necessary distribution points in the enterprise, in order to ensure the maximum
leverage of operational systems data. They also include tools that detect and flag poor quality
data.
Storage Management Utilities provide least-cost data storage management. Storage Management
Utilities support the wide variety of storage mechanisms and are connected to file, object, and
database systems.
The Application Platform component of the III-RM comprises a subset of all the services
defined in the TOGAF TRM – the subset that pertains to integrated information infrastructure.
Specifically, it comprises all those services in the TRM Application Platform that allow
applications to focus on understanding and processing the information required, rather than
understanding the form, format, and/or location of the information.
The services of the Application Platform component can be used to support conventional
applications as well as Brokering, Information Consumer, and Information Provider
Applications. When used as part of an overall Application Architecture in this way, such an
approach enables maximum leverage of a single operational environment that is designed to
ensure effective and consistent transfer of data between processes, and to support fast and
efficient development, deployment, and management of applications.
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Figure 10 depicts the juxtaposition of Location and Directory Services to the other components.
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Information access services provide the ability for an application to access an integrated view of
data, regardless of whether the data exists in a mainframe system or in a distributed system. The
information access services ensure that data integrity is maintained among multiple databases,
and also provide online data cleansing (whereby data is checked against data rules for each
access).
Data access services provide open interfaces to legacy data, provide new applications for
standard database access services to vast amounts of existing data, and provide standard access
services to new data types.
These additional services enable the flow of information, as depicted in Figure 11.
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Workflow denotes the concept of automating processes by facilitating user interactions and
executing applications according to a process map. Workflow services enable integration of
enterprise applications, resulting in applications of extended value.
Workflow services also address the needs of managing an environment where legacy systems
are prevalent.
Workflow services also provide a means to encapsulate existing applications, thereby supporting
customer needs to leverage existing assets.
3.5 Qualities
The Qualities component of the model is supported by quality of service services, including the
various services required to maintain the quality of the system as specified in Service Level
Agreements (SLAs).
Included in this are the services to post conditions to, and react to requests from, the Quality of
Service Manager.
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Index
Application Platform .......... 1, 6, 9, 16 Infrastructure Applications......... 9, 14
Application Software ........................ 1 integrated information infrastructure
Boundaryless Information Flow ....... 2 ........................................... 3, 7, 16
Brokering Applications ........ 8, 10, 11 Interfaces .......................................... 9
Business Applications ................ 8, 10 Libraries ......................................... 15
Business Modeling Tools ............... 15 Location and Directory Services .... 17
Copy Management Utilities............ 16 Management Utilities ........... 9, 14, 15
Data Interchange Services .............. 19 OA&M Utilities ............................. 16
Data Management Services ............ 19 Operating System Services ............ 19
Deployment Tools .......................... 15 Qualities ..................................... 9, 20
Design Modeling Tools .................. 15 Quality of Service Manager Utilities
Development Tools .................... 9, 14 ................................................... 16
directory ......................................... 15 repository ....................................... 15
enterprise portal ................................ 3 Security Services ............................ 17
Human Interaction Services ........... 18 SLA ................................................ 20
III-RM components .......................... 8 Software Engineering Services ...... 16
III-RM graphic ............................. 1, 7 Storage Management Utilities ........ 16
Implementation and Construction taxonomy .......................................... 1
Tools .......................................... 15 TOGAF ADM .................................. 2
Information Consumer Applications TOGAF TRM ............................... 1, 6
.......................................... 8, 11, 13 TOGAF® Standard, Version 9.2.... viii
Information Provider Applications .. 8,
10, 12
®
The TOGAF Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model (III-RM) 21
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