Issue 2

{{post_terms.hashtags}}

Streamlining IT Application Selection and Integration with a Standard Modeling Language

IT customers, application providers, and system integrators generally do not use standard representations to describe either application requirements or proposals to satisfy them. The resulting ambiguity exposes application selection and integration processes, however well-structured and executed, to error and delay. Adoption of the ArchiMate® visual modeling language, an Open Group standard, would therefore increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the business application marketplace.

Using Enterprise Architecture Models and Bayesian Belief Networks for Failure Impact Analysis

The increasing complexity of enterprise information systems makes it very difficult to prevent local failures from causing ripple effects with serious repercussions to other systems. This article proposes the use of Enterprise Architecture models coupled with Bayesian Belief Networks to facilitate Failure Impact Analysis. By extending the Enterprise Architecture models with the Bayesian Belief Networks we are able to show not only the architectural components and their interconnections but also the causal influence the availabilities of the architectural elements have on each other. Furthermore, by using the Diagnosis algorithm implemented in the Bayesian Belief Network tool GeNIe, we are able to use the network as a Decision Support System and rank architectural components with their respect to criticality for the functioning of a business process. An example featuring a car rental agency demonstrates the approach.

Are You Solving Today’s Problems With Yesterday’s Thinking?

A senior information technology leader with over three decades of military, government, and industry experience believes that much of our traditional, professional information technology thinking lags contemporary challenges. Information-on-demand and the social networking phenomena create new office worker expectations regarding universal information access and mobility. Yet, many information technology managers remain mired in “network think” and labelled by their organizations as the “office of no.” The author challenges contemporary security and enterprise architecture thinking to go beyond network borders and look for solutions in a “trusted cloud” to address the information needs of users, customers, and partners.