ITANA F2F -- Case Studies

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Jim Hooper convened the Case Studies portion of the Face-to-Face. It consisted of three presentations by three institutions on how their IT Architecture groups work.

Mark McCahill and Kevin Miller, Duke University

Tech Architecture Group (TAG) at Duke

* identify and track Emerging Technologies (policy issues for CIO)
* review major decisions -- tech resource for sr OIT leadership (2nd opinion)
* champion appropriate technologies
* pay attention to OIT efforts

created in 5/2007

Curret issues:

Identify and track: IPv6 , load/perfom metrics, Exhcange

review decisions: Campus event cal, storage/SAN, Pinnacle,

integrated into proj man lifecycle

champion appropriate tech -- issue reviews, arch principles

Why principles?

yardstick for tech system decision making
tool for strategic leadership
catalyst for setting cultural norms
align w/ Dukes mission
sustainable tech for current and future infrastructure

principles address 4 areas:

data:
infra:
services:
support:


Five Principles:

1. Robust, secure systems
2. Link, don't duplicate (systems of record, modular systems)
3. Design for scalability
4. Design for information lifecycles
5. Adapt to realities of people and technology

Principle Development process

* TAG drafted
* focus groups refined
* OIT-wide staff survey
* evangelism via communications plan
* practical application via case studies

http://www.oit.duke.edu/tag/

TAG's onging work

tech review/accept from major projects
continuing influence on OIT culture

case studies
ongoing eval
ongoing communication
technical advocacy

Michael Enstrom -- UW-Milwaukee

Enterprise Arch group.

Focus on:

-- Academic excellence
-- Research excellence
-- Administrative excellence

Unit technolgy reps and unit business reps

Finding Common ground with decentralized IT

Providing a solid base for planning.

How EA team formed

* aquire/repurpose staff w/ EA experience
* define scope
* analyze current state with strongest focus on developing our future state
* Plan EA team strat.

EA TEam

* Chief Process arch
* Enterp data arch
* Operations arch
* Application inte
* Security
* Network tech arch
* Web arch
* Deputy CIO

Foundations

commitment from CIO/Provost
straddle "IT space" and "End User space"

Developed guiding principles

Focus on Business , data, application, technology principles

Early discoveries:

Even if all stars align solution only as good as depteh of our understanding
most common problem has been misalign with common solution.

root cause is rigorous requirements.

Initiatives:

* BPI methodology development
* Process Management office
* IIBA requirements managment (see their website) training for both IT staff and business-unit stakeholders (develop common language)
* Adapting to "emerging/accepted/best practice" approach.

iIn house process dev vs. best practice

Project Management (PMI)
Program management (PMI/PgMgmt)
Requirements and practices (IIBA)

Using COBIT possess o

Successes

Facility services doing BPI
enrollment management PMI
Security team doing requirements based approach


Challenges

Number of newly-implemented shadow systems is decreasing
still need to implement Business Analysis staffing trainig

"Governance" will become sig initiative. Integrate "future state" arch
across HR, Finance, Student Admin, and Research Systems.

On radar for next year:

PeopleSoft HRIS implementation
Upgrade PS Student
future PS Financials

major expansion of campus
2 new schools pub heath , fresh water sciences
formalize EA processes and documentation methodology
Data Warehousing/BI planning

FYI: just hired director for research computing.

Jim Hooper -- U St. Louis

Enterprise Architecture at SLU

Part 1: Where we were:

A few good successes

Recent network redesign
Billiken info shield (that's their mascot -- the St. Louis Billikens)
IP allocation
Banner upgrade

Part 2: Birth of EA:

Show me ROI
mitigate risk
accounting requirements

Approach

show some quick results
build value
Establish governance
get ITS house in order

Purpose of EA

Set up some governance with Architecture review board
aggressive timeline to insert ourselves into key projects

Part 3: What worked

people, processes technology,..

The PIM (see earlier blog on tools)

IT Business Office relationship
ex-officio ARB seats
EIWG -- Ent Infrastructure WG
Training Vendor relationship

Procurement -- Saving Money

RFI/RFP for servers and storage
standards/eCommerece for commodity servers
host review problem survey/approvals
build permit before procurement

Persuasion:
* James Madison story (behind the scenes at creation of country)
* Leveraging Across Projects
* Strategic Planning Task Force

Part 4: Where do we go from here?

* Architecture gaps
* Governance gaps
* Executive buy-in
* organizational placement

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This page contains a single entry by Jim Leous published on July 10, 2008 3:36 PM.

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