Landscape design it. Enterprise architecture - a strategic approach to the IT it landscape

There were times when there was no information landscape. Or did they simply prefer not to notice him? Information systems were distinguished by extraordinary arrogance and reigned in a sterile, airless space. As they became more and more difficult, they began to think about their architecture - how to provide themselves, their loved ones, with such attractive qualities as endurance and performance. But they were still distinguished by their unforgivable selfishness.

Each project for the implementation of automated systems (AS) tried to pay less attention to what the enterprise already possessed in the IT field (its current IT landscape), which was quite justified from a commercial point of view. The concept of a landscape in relation to IT was one of the first to be used by SAP when, on a difficult path of self-discovery aimed at obtaining competitive advantages and profit, it discovered that, it turns out, even it does not cover all needs modern enterprise in automation. Looking around, she found many systems, systems and programs that the company does not want or cannot abandon. The well-known methods of transferring, as before, data from one system to another, whether by typing it from one system and entering it on the keyboard into another, copying or writing to Excel and uploading from there, have long been shown to be ineffective. Moreover, they are dangerous for the quality of information. All the efficiency and reliability that could be achieved through the implementation of not the cheapest software with the help of not the most simple and low-cost projects, fell apart with this kind of "integration" or, rather, "disintegration".

First, users began to grumble, followed by business customers. Users - because of the mechanical and meaningless work of information carriers, customers - because of the lack of real advantages that the suppliers of heavy systems promised and the companies implementing these solutions. It was then that the era of "IT landscape design" began. It turned out that there are many speakers, equipment, communication means, living people with their habits and experience around, as well as corporate standards that must be taken into account and with which you have to get along. In other words, the luminous building of the AU has to be built in the real, and not in the abstract world. And here the skyscraper at the summer cottage becomes at least out of place, like the change house in the city center. Of course, bushes can be dug, a puddle can be filled up, a small hill can be leveled, and the building can be destroyed. But the more significant the elements of the information landscape, the more difficult it is to change them to suit a new architectural structure. And at the very least, these efforts and the corresponding costs must be taken into account when analyzing the project.

Landscape and architecture

So, when forming the architecture of the AU, the surrounding landscape must be taken into account, but the question arises: "Why did you need to introduce the concept of landscape when there is already the concept of Enterprise Architecture?" A system of ideas, standards and methodologies has already formed around it. It is difficult to say what the authors from SAP were guided by, but it can be assumed that they needed the concept of landscape to separate the building under construction. new system from the fact that is already present at the enterprise. There is one more aspect. If architecture presupposes a certain openness, intelligibility, formalization, then the landscape can carry more secrets and lend itself to painting with an indefinite degree of reliability. But everything that is called legacy systems is almost always bad or not at all documented. So when enterprise architecture is applied to the landscape, we must be prepared for a lot of gray and white spots. Filling in these spots, where necessary, is a separate science, or rather an art. Quite often, the impossibility of formalization forces companies to abandon existing landscape elements and plunge them into costly projects with a high degree of risk. Therefore, as in nature, the information landscape can be fraught with threats and troubles. However, having mastered landscape design, disadvantages can be turned into advantages, skillfully embedding the structure into the surrounding "nature", skillfully using existing funds IT.

The landscape of a modern enterprise depends quite strongly on the type of enterprise (see Table 1).

Table 1. Types of enterprises and their corresponding information landscape

Classification type	Impact on the landscape	Features of the landscape
Industry	For banks, ABS plays a special role, for telecoms - billing systems, for mechanical engineering, shipbuilding, aircraft construction - CAD / CAM / PDM, for manufacturing enterprises - process control systems and MES, for selling companies - Sales Force Automation and CRM systems.	In some industries, the landscape is built around the central, most significant for the enterprise AU.
Territorial structure	Distributed, highly centralized companies require centralized ASs that support a distributed architecture and are resistant to network disruptions. In addition, it imposes demands on the networking and the entire landscape.	Geographically distributed companies with strong centralization are characterized by high quality communications and software reliability to network failures.
Property type	State-owned enterprises are actively consuming document management systems, commercial - analytical systems.	The type of ownership determines the requirements for document flow and financial management automation tools.
The size	For large companies the performance and scalability of the system, its reliability are important. For small ones, it is easy to install, configure and maintain.	The requirements for the components of an enterprise architecture are different, so the landscape looks very different.

For almost everyone modern companies a motley information landscape is characteristic, and what is called inherited systems play a significant role in it. For a long time no one has suggested cutting it all down and completely transforming it into a single project. Therefore, not only any implementation, but most changes in any of the architectural layers require an analysis of how these changes will affect the entire enterprise landscape. Unfortunately, the quality of change management in most cases leaves much to be desired. Few people think about the landscape. It is good if they limit themselves to at least the adjacent "bushes", or even even plan to implement the AU, as in the good old days - without taking into account the existing information landscape.

Classification of landscape components

Let's try to look (Table 2) at the components of the information landscape, at all these bushes, trees, berries and flowers, and how they fit together.

Table 2. Elements of the information landscape

Terrain element type	Main characteristics	Integration methods
Large corporate systems (ERP, CRM, ...)	Wide range of functionality Competent architecture Implementation methodology Good documentation Well-developed APIs and well-thought-out rework technology	Sophisticated integration techniques, interfaces, adapters described in XML ESB, J2EE Application Servers, .NET, CORBA, XML, EDI
Ready-made systems of narrow specialization (best of bread) (document flow, project management, accounting systems ...)	Systems that occupy one of the leading places in their segment. They usually offer better functionality in their field than large systems.	Integration options are not as diverse as large systems, but the choice of technologies is usually the same.
Functional platforms (BPM, service support, ...)	Systems offering convenient means of speaker assembly in the selected functional area. For the most part, such an assembly does not involve coding, although these systems always have an API. Usually, ready-made solutions are also offered on these platforms, which can be modified.	The integration methods are determined by the technology on which the platform is based. The most common platforms are J2EE and .NET.
Software platforms - development environments (Eсlipse, Visual Studio, NetBean)	Software platforms offer developers convenient tools for building applications with wide functionality and usually do not contain elements focused on a specific functional area. Many platforms offer visual development tools that allow you to partially build applications without coding	The means of integration are determined by the technology used, in this case the programming language
Custom development	Usually custom developments are at least somehow documented.	Integration tools depend on what, in fact, ordered, so if there are any integration plans for development, then it is better to immediately include the corresponding requirements in the TOR.
Own developments	Own developments can also be created on the platform. They are usually poorly or not at all documented and are often a black box that cannot be changed.	The most difficult landscape elements to integrate

In the general case, none of the elements of the table. 2 is no better or worse than the other - it all depends on the specific company and situation. In particular, proprietary programs that are difficult to integrate with a well-established software development process may be more suitable for combination with other components than all other elements. The last conclusion is supported by the example of the largest Japanese telecommunications operator, Docomo. All software in this company is developed independently, for which Docomo maintains a considerable staff of IT specialists. They explain this approach simply: “For us, flexibility is the most important competitive advantage. And business flexibility requires the flexibility of our speakers. Therefore, we are ready to pay for several hundred developers, invest effort and money in their training and motivation, but have “all the changes in our hands” for this. " As far as one can tell, many Japanese companies take this approach, which seems to be the best fit for the Japanese business miracle.

On the contrary, Russian companies are now at the stage of transition from their own development to outsourcing. Many leaders believe that in this case they will be able to completely get out of the management of the process of creating a speaker and will be cured of excruciating headaches. Their illusion is that all other elements, except for their own developments, can not be controlled and systems created by outsourcers, planted on the soil of their own enterprise, will turn out to be quite compatible with each other and with the surrounding landscape. How many times have they told the world: when choosing any component, the requirement for its compatibility should become one of the most important - and, alas, things are still there. It is clear that in order to make such a demand, one must know what to ask - the information landscape must be described in at least some reliable form. Who has it? So non-viable freaks are born - the AU, which do not take root and cannot take root, and wither in the corporate landscape under the indignant lamentations of those who tried to instill them.

Terrain combining tools

There are two "news": good and bad. The good news is that modern IT allows you to integrate anything with anything. It is a matter of resources (effort and money), the reliability of what will be the result, and the effort that will be required to maintain and support an integrated solution. Moreover, the latter issue has clearly not been studied. When they talk about the natural landscape, they remember that without proper care it will very soon turn into a wild thicket. When they talk about the information landscape, they believe that it is important to use it once, and then everything will be fine. Like many delusions, this is hidden in the depths of the subconscious, so it is difficult to deal with it.

The bad news is that any integrated solution is an order of magnitude more complex, more difficult to maintain and develop, more expensive and at the same time much worse sold to a business. The latter is very important. This problem is faced by both CIOs and integrators and consultants. After all, this very integration cannot be shown or implemented separately from what is being integrated. And it is rather difficult to explain that now the information will be of a different quality, since the concept of information quality is not at all developed in our country, unfortunately.

So integration projects are being attached to implementation projects, they are financed on a leftover basis and are made "on a live thread", implying that then, somehow, when the time and budget appears, we will do everything right. However, nothing is more permanent than temporary. Therefore, the incompleteness of the integration reverberates to the enterprise for many years, not allowing either to receive the promised benefits, or to competently implement the necessary changes. As an illustration, one can cite the reasoning of one IT manager, who persuaded the management to implement at least integration and thus show the success of the project: “Well, can we connect the two systems? Ah, something is already working! Well, let's show it! " Obviously, it was necessary to show only a virtual bridge between two systems that are not yet working.

Systems for combining elements of the information landscape can be conditionally divided into two groups: ribbon and umbrella.

Tape cables are usually built on the basis of the ESB bus, to which separate speakers are attached to "suction cups" - standardized interfaces, which interact with each other through the bus. These systems grew out of CORBA technology and messaging systems.

Umbrellas, which are also often based on ESBs, provide access to disparate systems in the information landscape, covering them like an umbrella. In its simplest form, these are corporate portals that provide access to a variety of corporate systems. The BPM systems that are actively gaining popularity today are of the umbrella type.

Both tape and umbrella integrated systems most often require reworking of integrated speakers, unless the latter had a large number of predefined adapters or interfaces. As this becomes more and more important in an integrated landscape world, many manufacturers are trying to provide their offspring with a set of convenient and reliable integration properties. They not without reason believe that this is one of the important competitive advantages. I would like consumers, in turn, to learn how to evaluate these efforts.

On the other hand, manufacturers only care about their "bushes and trees" in the information landscape. It is unlikely that they can be required to act as gardeners of the entire information landscape of the enterprise - this is a field for system integrators, both in name and in essence. However, so far, domestic integrators do not seek to take on this honorable, but very difficult role. With the clouds threatening to take over large chunks of the IT market, system integrators must dive into this still half-empty area of ​​the business.

If the Network unites people in different parts of the world, then it is also perfect for bringing together companies, for building what is called the Supply Chain - a supply chain for organizing interaction between suppliers and consumers, for collaboration and crowdsourcing (attracting a crowd to production and sale volunteers). All of this presupposes a completely different information landscape compared to the one we spoke about earlier. Perhaps even the term "landscape" is not entirely appropriate here, but "information world" or "business Internet" is more suitable. Obviously, the requirements for integrating tools will only grow.

However, while the interaction of companies, surprisingly, is still often based on ancient EDI, when one speaker put the file, and the second took it. It's another matter that now these files are in XML format, in particular, it is on EDI that the interaction of the largest automobile concerns with suppliers of components is usually built. By the way, those who have not yet realized that integration has already ceased to be something that can be easily dismissed, you should know - without providing operational information about the passage of the order, without integration with the AU used by the auto giant, the company will not even be considered as a supplier. auto components.

Integration, issues of creating and maintaining the information landscape are increasingly taking over banks and telecoms, industrial and retail companies... In any case, the future is associated with such an information landscape that will make it easy to integrate new elements, remove and replace existing ones, and treat the IT enterprise as a whole.

Marina Anshina([email protected]) - Chairman of the Standards Committee of the Russian Union of IT Directors (Moscow).

The implementation of ERP- or CRM-systems is impossible without building an information landscape that combines the concepts of deploying engineering, network, computing infrastructures, backup and recovery systems, management and administration. The concept of the IT landscape is not only the basis for the development of IT services, but also shapes the approaches to building architectures that meet the present and future business needs of growing companies.

Inkom Corporation, which has extensive experience in systems integration and business consulting, considers the IT landscape as the fundamental basis for automating business processes. PC Week / UE talks about approaches to architecture design and practical implementation of the system landscape with Sergey Tikhonov, head of the server solutions implementation and maintenance department, Dmitry Kruchinin, director of the data storage and processing department, and Eduard Savushkin, director of IT consulting.

PCWeek / UE: Who usually initiates the question of building the landscape - the customer or the integrator? Does the customer always understand the importance of landscaping?

Dmitry Kruchinin: Both the customer and the integrator are equally involved in the design and construction of the landscape. For first-time ERP customers, the term “IT landscape” may seem new. In this case, we explain the necessity and importance of proper landscape design. We tell you that their competitiveness and success depend on the interaction of servers, network equipment, control software - those components that are the core of the business of many companies today. As the ERP system becomes a critical element of the entire business, it must be treated with appropriate attention.

Sergey Tikhonov: With customers who have already encountered ERP systems, the conversation is conducted in the same language. In any case, we, as integrators, present our vision and approaches to the client, after which we discuss the specifics and wishes.

PCWeek / UE: For what size companies is the landscape design issue relevant?

Eduard Savushkin: Building an IT landscape is necessary for companies of all sizes. Even in solutions that are designed for 20 people, implementation starts with landscape design. It is very important at the first stages to define the concept of the system vision at the top level, to form a vision - a strategic document that defines the rules for building the company's IT infrastructure, basic architectural solutions and standards, a model and requirements for management processes. In fact, the concept of construction is an idea of ​​the future of the system, which determines the ways, methods and plans for its development, which makes it possible to assess the necessary resources. The design itself takes into account four phases of implementation - development, testing and stabilization, commissioning and further support.

PCWeek / UE: What components are the IT landscape divided into according to your concept?

E.S .: At the logical level, the infrastructure model consists of basic architectures:

. network architecture;
. application architecture;
. architecture of management systems and IT services;
. architecture of security systems;
. storage architecture.

The principles of building the IT landscape are the same for everyone. The architectural approach, which Incom adheres to, is maximally adapted to our conditions - we try to go down to earth and speak with the customer in the language of practitioners. To a large extent, our approaches are based on the Microsoft System Architecture, on the basis of which a system of components is created that describe:

. approaches to building information infrastructure;
. IT services - technological systems solving business problems;
. logical model of IT infrastructure.

For example, considering the network architecture, we can talk about the physical layer that describes the channels and equipment, and about the services, which include encryption, routing, mail, etc.

PCWeek / UE: Where does the practical filling of the landscape begin? Is there any specificity depending on the type of activity of the company or its structure?

D.K .: Our first task is to find out from the customer his expectations from the ERP-system, to determine what kind of equipment will be required to build certain layers of the landscape. At this stage, consultations of various levels are held, business and technical requirements.

S. T .: Then we proceed to the sizing procedure - based on the data on the number of operations, the amount of functionality, the number of users, the requirements for the software and hardware are formed. The sizing procedure is performed according to generally accepted techniques developed by software manufacturers. They are agreed with the equipment suppliers, who can answer what set of technical means is required for the system to function with the given performance and reliability parameters. For example, SAP issues requirements tailored to the hardware of the world's major A-brands. After the load becomes clear and the hardware necessary to ensure the operation of the systems is determined, we begin to form the filling of the landscape.

E.S .: The IT landscape is designed as a complex. Some customers are trying to start right away with the network, without considering other aspects. As a result, after the deployment of services, it becomes clear, for example, that there is not enough bandwidth. Therefore, at the first stage, it is very important to analyze the system, to understand how its architecture as a whole will look like. Only after the information flows and structure are clear, the provided IT services are formalized and measures for their availability, security and manageability are provided, it will be possible to start implementing one or another part of the landscape.

PCWeek / UE: What criteria are customers guided by when choosing an equipment manufacturer?

D.K .: According to the requirements formed as a result of the sizing procedure, A-brands offer solutions that are approximately equivalent in their essence. At this stage, the integrator, together with the client, begins the selection of equipment, taking into account additional parameters - service, response time and recovery.

Since many clients have already faced an inadequate vendor service in Ukraine, today more and more attention is paid to the integrator's ability to provide quality service and technical support implemented system. The vendor response time, in which the customer will be called and sympathized with the problem, may be quite acceptable, but the recovery time is not. In such a situation, an integrator comes to the rescue.

If we try to evaluate various factors influencing the choice of the customer on a 10-point scale, then I would give 6 points to the service, 3 points to the price, unique technical features — 1.

PCWeek / UE: In practice, the implementation of ERP systems in an enterprise is often carried out in stages. How, in this situation, to correctly assess the hardware requirements if the final scale of the system is unknown?

S. T: Systems are always designed taking into account further development - large customers represent the scale of business growth in the foreseeable future. Of course, no one immediately buys capacity for many years in advance, but the design of the landscape and its constituent systems is initially designed with a certain margin for expansion.

D.K .: A-brands offer different implementations of horizontal and vertical performance scaling. To put it quite simply, vertical scaling implies the installation of a large server, into which, over time, you can add boards with processors, memory, etc. Horizontal means the installation of several systems of the same class, i.e. a similar device is placed next to an existing device (server, storage, etc.). Blade servers are a typical example of a horizontal approach. At the same time, the purchase of a blade-system in the minimum configuration will cost more than a set of several servers, but the potential, manageability and ease of expansion of such a solution will allow the customer to subsequently save significant costs. The system integrator offers customers different scaling methods for consideration, but the final choice is made by the client himself. Some prefer and have the opportunity to make a large initial investment, while others find it more convenient to gradually expand the system by adding new modules. This is an age-old dilemma: save today but pay tomorrow, or invest today and save tomorrow.

PCWeek / UE: Is there a practice of using existing terrain features on the client?

E.S .: Often a client can provide systems for development and testing, but a productive system is almost always purchased new. The adaptation of the existing fleet of equipment to the productive system is not practiced, since the operation takes place under a high load. In some cases, we can only talk about the use of legacy technology for other tasks related, for example, to building hierarchical storages, using backup sites, etc.

According to our estimates, in about 30-40% of cases, a customer needs to build a system from scratch. Such projects are now typical for retail chains that are actively developing regional networks, and Western companies opening activities in our country. In other cases, it is necessary to build a system by adapting the existing elements of the landscape - this is important when introducing new management systems into existing structures. Such customers usually already have some kind of network infrastructure, less often engineering.

PCWeek / UE: Is it possible for a landscape to exist without one of the layers?

D.K .: This is one of the issues that sometimes have to be discussed for a very long time with a client. Companies have different levels of decision making. IT professionals quickly understand the need to deploy all layers and accept our arguments. At the financial level, they start counting money and try to abandon certain systems. On the highest level we can meet either full understanding - if the manager realizes the importance of ensuring the continued operation of the business - or rejection. Each of the levels needs its own arguments.

S. T .: In theory, SAP, Oracle, Siebel and other systems do not need a backup and recovery layer to function. Systems will work without it ... until a certain point, after which there will be a disaster. Without building backup and recovery systems, which are not the result of sizing software vendors, work in practice is impossible. This understanding comes to clients when discussing such important points, as the cost of information processed in information systems Oh.

PCWeek / UE: Isn't geoclustering a one-stop solution for maximum protection and availability?

E.S .: Fundamental questions - what, how and where to store. A specific implementation of a storage system can be, among other things, a geocluster. It is important for the customer to understand that the cost of the backup is the cost of the equipment and the cost of the restoration is the cost of the business. That data loss is a crash. Information management concepts throughout life cycle, the very ones that A-brands love to talk about are now being implemented in real systems.

Customers need to properly build fast backup and archiving systems, form and practice backup recovery procedures. It is imperative for existing systems to align the value of the information, applications and data in the enterprise with the supported technologies and service levels in complex data centers. Defining rules and policies for the presentation and implementation of ILM, improving the quality of service can reduce the cost of ownership of the system and optimize the use of resources. An integrated approach to management information resources business is focused on directly supporting the most important goals of the organization. Well-designed backup and disaster recovery systems will make it possible to resume the operation of systems even in the event of physical destruction of storage in one of the data centers.

D.K .: ITIL says - create backups, practice data recovery. For datacenters, it is generally recommended that you perform a six-month service switchover workout every six months to see if the procedures are working or not. You don't have to do this, but when a critical situation comes, it turns out that this was not written in vain. If the client refuses to deploy this or that layer - he himself must be responsible for this.

In general, disaster-resistant systems are no longer a rarity and not a tribute to fashion. Ukrainian companies have come to understand that data is a key business asset. The first geocluster system was built by Inkom specialists back in 1999 at Bank Aval using the technology of those years. Channel-forming equipment today has become so powerful and capable of providing such speed and functionality that it has become quite easy to build a geocluster and implement replication between sites.

PCWeek / UE: How willing are customers to spend money on security?

E.S .: At the stage of preliminary audit, it often turns out that the customers themselves do not know what equipment they are using. An inventory is being carried out, a map of the customer's infrastructure is being drawn up.

Then the system architecture and its components are designed, for example, a communication system: mail, voice communication, portals, and other services. After and in parallel with these processes, the deployment of the security system begins, the formation of requirements for personnel, processes and technologies.

D.K .: Clients whose business is built on information - banks, Insurance companies, financial institutions- are well aware of the importance of safety. To a lesser extent, as practice shows, retail chains and industries think about safety. Unfortunately, our market has not yet developed an understanding of integrated security; generally accepted approaches to the construction of such systems are not always present.

E.S .: After the formation of the general concept of security, the conversation begins about the software part, about ensuring teamwork above documents, etc. Often on the periphery, the staff of companies does not have enough qualifications, so they turn to us on management issues, down to elementary things - how to unify software and workstation management.

PCWeek / UE: Are the services for the design and construction of the landscape engineering infrastructure in demand?

D.K .: Nobody will create infrastructure for their own sake. Serious customers understand that systems need to be built in a complex, and not separately - power supply, SCS, server system. Otherwise, it is impossible to predict the mutual requirements of the systems and provide the necessary expansion margin. The demand for building the right infrastructure is huge - these questions are important both for companies deploying a business from scratch and for those looking to expand or modernize their systems.

S. T .: Some companies attach a third-rate importance to the issues of building engineering infrastructure - power supply, air conditioning, limiting physical access to premises, fire safety, radiation. We have to argue the importance of these components. There are frequent cases when equipment fails due to dustiness, overheating in the server room, unstable power supply. All these problems are being solved the right organization engineering sector. A whole structure of requirements has been developed, which branch out and determine the degree of protection of the engineering layer and, accordingly, data from external influences. The cost of organizing a server room is sometimes higher than the cost of a director's office with all the expensive furniture and an aquarium.

PCWeek / UE: Are there any peculiarities of the IT landscape for different business segments - manufacturing, telecommunications, banking?

E.S .: Features of the landscape are determined by the architecture of the implemented control system. An important role is played by the number of users who will work with the system, business requirements for fault tolerance, data availability, services. The specific specifics are determined not by the industry in which the company operates, but by the business requirements.

D.K .: A certain specificity can be talked about in the banking sector. It is conservative and focuses mainly on Unix systems. A segment retail to some extent disposed towards Windows solutions. However, the choice of platforms is mostly individual, here it is difficult to talk about any predefined positions.

E.S .: In the banking sector, the issue of the security of retail services is relevant. It is necessary to service hundreds of remote points of presence, ensure the safe operation of various services on site, create a system of centralized storage and access to data. Some customers prefer to store data in the field, but most still tend to consolidate. This approach allows you to significantly increase the level of security and provides more tools for organizing business continuity, reducing the cost of data storage while increasing the efficiency of the storage infrastructure. There is noticeable interest in building corporate infrastructure in accordance with international standards (British Standard 7799 and its development by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Standard 17799). Policies developed in accordance with these standards can provide the necessary level of personnel, process and technology requirements to ensure the correct use of assets by authorized users.

PCWeek / UE: Which industry is better equipped technically?

D.K .: We consider the banking segment to be the most technologically mature. NBU long ago forced commercial banks to switch to electronic system payments to close the balance every day. It is impossible to imagine a bank that has not closed its balance sheet at the end of the day, which cannot be said about companies that may not know their own balance sheet for six months. Banks often have well-developed management and administration layers. The telecommunications sector, retail chains, where they realized that data management is a competitive advantage, are catching up.

PCWeek / UE: Is there a specificity of building layers in geographically distributed companies?

E.S .: Retail trade networks put forward increased requirements for channel width. Depending on the location of the point of presence, cable, radio or satellite channels are used. Ukraine has whole line companies operating through a satellite channel, due to the underdevelopment cable networks... If the company is growing rapidly, then often the satellite channel is the optimal solution. For example, a retail chain opens a store, but it is impossible to have time to lay a cable before the opening. The satellite channel will come to the rescue. It will not be superfluous and subsequently - as a backup.

PCWeek / UE: How does the integrator team and the ACS service interact during the implementation phase? When does the team split take place?

E.S .: After the completion of the sizing procedure, the customer is determined with the equipment - servers, network devices, data storages, etc. The equipment "arrives" in the server room. After that, the integrator starts implementing the system for development, and at the same time, the transfer of knowledge to the customer's specialists begins. The further the implementation project progresses, the more functions are transferred to the customer's specialists. The integrator conducts trainings, the client sends his specialists to courses on the vendor's products, on the ERP system. This is often stipulated by the terms of the contract. The customer gains knowledge of the ERP system, hardware, network, DBMS and other components.

Often the customer installs a productive system on his own, the integrator only supervises and provides assistance if necessary. After the completion of the project, a package of documentation appears, which describes the system in detail and fixes its final state.

PCWeek / UE: What factors determine the composition of the implementation team? How many people does it usually include?

S. T: Firstly, the ability of the enterprise to select the necessary specialists. Secondly, the scale of the project and the required speed of implementation. Thirdly, the plans of the enterprise for the further development of the system. In some cases, it is enough that the administrator only maintains the built system, while in others the customer intends to expand it on his own. Sometimes the enterprise does not have the opportunity to allocate personnel for the development of the system - in this case, this work is transferred to us.

PCWeek / UE: Is it possible to talk about the average time for building a landscape?

E.S .: The optimal period from the start of the project to the commissioning of the system is from 3 to 9 months. But it is necessary to understand that the development of the landscape never stops. The enterprise grows, new business processes appear, for the maintenance of which it is required new technique, infrastructure, control modules of the system. An ERP system must always meet the requirements of the business.

Project management ,

Product management

What is the problem of everyone without exception Russian companies? The business has its own understanding of what is happening, its own requirements and tasks, but it is very difficult to translate them into the language of specific IT actions, and these requirements do not always reach IT in an understandable way.

The second traditional problem is legacy IT. In the past years, there have been many chaotic purchases and implementations, which creates a great complexity of the IT landscape. It takes a lot of time for any CIO who comes to a company to understand the situation. On the other hand, a business invests money in IT and wants to see where it goes, what projects and initiatives, and how it moves the company towards strategic goals.

In Russia, the direction of corporate architecture has not yet been developed. Companies are in great demand for the development of architectures for specific solutions, but no one is seriously involved in linking architecture components within an organization. At best, spreadsheets are used for this purpose, where information is stored in an unformalized form, and when a manager leaves the company, knowledge goes away with him.

The most important consequence of this approach is the suboptimal spending of funds on IT, sometimes even their direct waste. That is why companies abroad are increasingly demonstrating a strategic approach to IT management, and the vector is increasingly leaning towards streamlining and standardizing corporate IT landscapes.

Words into actions

The problem is obvious: it is necessary to link business with IT, build a bridge between them, ensuring transparency. The strategy needs to be translated into requirements and actions that need to be communicated to people. Each department must understand the essence of the work and the general direction of IT development.

The HPE Enterprise Maps system is designed to solve this problem. What is important, this is the company's own development, and not an acquired solution, which in recent times has become a rarity. This is good: HPE, as a systems supplier, has come to understand what is necessary and necessary in the market, and has taken the initiative to develop such a product. As a proprietary development, Enterprise Maps seamlessly interacts with other HPE systems and is enriched with data from them, turning into a holistic, powerful solution.

Rather than reinventing the wheel, Enterprise Maps uses the TOGAF methodology that architects can understand and show how to approach enterprise architecture management. The ArchiMate 2.0 notation is used as a language for describing the interaction of architecture elements with each other.

The main tasks of the developed system are to reduce the risks and confusion associated with IT, to ensure compliance with the IT strategy. It is extremely important to be able to translate "beautiful" words into concrete actions. In addition, the meaningful management of the "zoo" of existing systems is becoming a non-trivial task: there are a lot of vendors on the market with their own licensing policies, product updates and the withdrawal of old solutions from circulation.

Almost in any company you can find software for which support is paid, although it is really not needed, or, moreover, the system has already been removed from support. It also happens the other way around: the company plans to build a new system, not realizing that the platform used is very outdated.

For IT and business

Who might be interested in this? If the company has such a position as a corporate architect, then he will become the main interested person.

Usually, “drawing programs” are used to describe the architecture - for example, Microsoft Visio... It is important to note that Enterprise Maps is not about drawing, but about creating models associated with the real world and during their development, compliance with various policies will be monitored. It is impossible to create an object divorced from reality.

Architects are an audience that understands the benefits of the system and is able to appreciate its capabilities. However, unfortunately, they often do not manage budgets, and decisions will be made above.

The next important group of users are CFOs and CIOs. Their tasks are different. Let's say CFO may not understand too much what is going on in IT, but it is important for him to see where investments are going and how much this area is prioritized in terms of strategy. He will receive information about this not in the form of a report edited by employees, but with the help of a real slice of information. For the CIO, the transparency of the IT department's activities and additional justification of their decisions before the top management are important.

Of course, big business that has reached a certain maturity is interested in solutions of this class - people who have understood that it is necessary to restore order in the economy. Most importantly, Enterprise Maps, unlike heavier solutions that require a fundamental approach, offers a “quick wins” path: quickly implement a separate scenario to prove itself, and then gradually increase the power of the solution.

For example, the system is "hard-coded" with the script "Five steps to move the application to the cloud." Have such ready scripts very important for the implementation of quick projects that show the business the benefits of the solution.

Not only reporting

There are three typical directions that Enterprise Maps covers. The first is to combine existing data (architecture models, business strategies) in a single repository, where all elements are related to corporate architecture, designate people responsible for slicing information, set up synchronization with various data sources.

Secondly, seeing the current situation, you can build a plan for the transition to the target state by identifying the missing elements using the Gap analysis. This is the key difference from the configuration management database (UCMDB), which reflects only the current situation and only at the infrastructure level. The third important area is the standardization of the approach to IT assets, systems and functions.

At the output of the system, the company receives slices of information for different users... Each of them will see the information they are interested in. With the help of Enterprise Maps, you can answer a variety of questions: for example, you can find out how much it costs to maintain an application, whether the investment is in line with the strategy, where the funds are going, what can be done with the allocated budget.

Usually, after seeing the capabilities of Enterprise Maps, many people ask: is this a reporting system? Yes, the similarity is great. But the solution is not only responsible for presenting data in a beautiful graphical form, but also becomes the main working tool of the architect - a means of creating and maintaining enterprise architecture models.
It is important that within the system it is possible to lay down policies for the development of architecture (both the infrastructure part and applications), which will be monitored. Prohibited actions will not work, and further compliance with the rules will be rechecked. Thus, the architect does not just "draw pictures", but rather deliberately approaches the solution of problems.

Data sources

In order for the system to be functional, it must be filled with data. This can be easily accomplished using Excel spreadsheets and files, and is sufficient for most customers — this is how corporate architecture information is usually stored. More advanced customers have UCMDB systems that are also becoming a valuable data source.

Another important source is the project portfolio management system. This is where goals, programs, projects come from. Based on these data, it is possible to show the place of ongoing projects in the overall strategy.

Finally, to fill systems, you cannot do without modeling tools - for example, Sparx Enterprise Architect, one of the most popular systems due to its low cost. Moreover, in some cases, the use of such specialized tools is preferable. If a new system is being developed that becomes a major architectural element, it is better to take design tools intended for this and familiar to users, and then load the built models into Enterprise Maps, where they will be linked to current systems, infrastructure, plans and design activities.

Objective picture

An important part of the system is built-in reports - slices of information that become a valuable source of knowledge when making decisions about IT development. There are several key ones among them.

One of these is the Application Portfolio Business Opportunities report. Based on his data, one can say where the company should invest in accordance with its strategy, highlighting strategically important decisions, or vice versa - identifying candidates for the transition to the cloud. The next step is to identify critical business applications that support key processes and therefore require special treatment.

The Strategic Investments report allows you to see the gaps between real investments and business priorities. For example, based on financial information from a portfolio management system, over-investment in non-priority areas can be identified. This gives the financial transparency that the business so wants to see. Reviewing the cost of applications also provides food for thought about their business value and the real costs of them.

Platform Usage is a report that can also be very useful. It allows you to understand, for example, that a third of applications use an unsupported platform, and if you plan to implement a new system, then you should think about it.

One of the most important features is the creation of a "dependency tree" that shows the relationship between specific infrastructure elements and business services. Situations are not uncommon when the operation of a system that is significant for a business is supported by one server, which reduces its fault tolerance, or vice versa - an uncritical application runs on unreasonably expensive equipment.

Cleaner

Among the companies most interested in corporate architecture are fairly mature financial institutions. The reasons are obvious: they constantly have to be “at the forefront of IT”, capturing new markets, which is reflected in the IT architecture. They are much more likely to need transparency, including in the process of achieving goals. Finally, in financial sphere Competition is extremely high and major IT mistakes can be costly.

Do not think that corporate architecture management systems are exclusively for giants. If it can be shown to the business that there are platforms out of the box for a long time, or business requirements that have received little attention, the result can be very impressive even for a small company.

Nevertheless, there is still a reasonable limitation on the size of the company. Minimum purchase- 10 licenses, that is, the organization must have at least 10 people who are interested. And a few architects are already a fairly large organization.

But the main thing is that the company must be ready, having bought a lot of equipment and applications in the past years, to put things in order in its IT economy. There are still few of them.

Business evaluates the IT landscape by how easy it is to solve development problems

Managing partner of Neoflex Oleg Baranov answered CNews' questions.

CNews: How have the tasks of informatization of banks changed over the past year in connection with the change in the economic situation?

Oleg Baranov: The crisis will most likely lead to a redistribution of the market, and those who intend to increase their market share are actively developing their IT infrastructure. We are witnessing a surge in activity on the part of state-owned banks. Many of them have stepped up IT projects related to the construction of infrastructure for issuing and servicing mass credit products. This is quite understandable: after all, now the majority of private banks and foreign players have reduced the volume of lending, and state-owned banks, which are not experiencing difficulties with financing, are trying to seize this niche.

Foreign banks, according to our estimates, had little impact on the crisis. As before, they are investing in infrastructure development, considering it as an important component of competitive advantages in the Russian market. They did not step up, but neither did they diminish the intensity of their IT projects. Although, in comparison with state-owned banks, they are more likely to take a wait-and-see attitude.

As for commercial banks, I feel that about 30% of commercial banks in the top 100 have significantly cut their IT budgets. Another part of them kept the same budgets for development projects, but at the same time focused on completing already started projects.

CNews: What are the requirements of financial organizations today for the construction and development of IT landscapes?

Oleg Baranov: The main task of business is development. Businesses typically assess the IT landscape by how easy it is to meet development challenges. A "good" IT landscape quickly and at minimal cost adjusts to changing business and market requirements, allows you to quickly bring new products to the market, easily change their parameters, quickly connect new points of sale, improve the quality of customer service, and save costs. All this provides the organization's IT landscape, built in the service-oriented architecture (SOA) paradigm.

In the analytical block of the IT landscape, the key motive is to change not business processes, but approaches, algorithms and methods for analyzing information. After all, they are also not permanent, respectively, the bank needs to have such analytical IT systems that will allow you to quickly collect and process information necessary for decision-making. And this, with large volumes of business, is well done by solutions implemented in data warehousing technology.

CNews: Does the process of mergers and acquisitions put forward any special requirements for the IT landscape?

This process is directly related to the bank's IT landscape. If a decision is made that the acquired bank will act as an independent unit within the banking group, the bank faces the task of forming consolidated management reporting, and this is a matter of creating or developing an analytical unit in the IT landscape. If the issue of unification is being decided operating activities two banks, then there are serious problems to combine IT systems and / or their integration.

For our company as a supplier professional services for financial institutions the processes of mergers and acquisitions result in projects for the integration of information systems of banks, the creation of portal solutions or the construction of reporting systems in the technology of data warehouses.

CNews: Some time ago, there was an interest in the banking market in replacing domestic automated banking systems with solutions from foreign vendors. Was it justified, in your opinion?

Oleg Baranov: There are known Russian banks that decided to change domestic ABS for foreign ones, but, as it became clear over time, successful projects on such a replacement, quite a bit. At the same time, many foreign banks that came to Russia were able to introduce ABS that support Western accounting standards. There are examples of successful projects in this niche, moreover, our company has several of them.

The secret of success here is quite simple. There are two approaches. The first is an attempt to implement in a foreign ABS all the features of Russian accounting, reporting and legislation. Such projects, unfortunately, in most cases "drown". The second way is to minimize the revision of the foreign ABS by solving localization issues in a third-party software, usually Russian production... This approach is more successful and is recognized by many.

Each banking system has a “core” that can do something, but cannot do something. In order to fully implement Russian specifics in a foreign ABS, its core needs to be redone. Trying to "teach" the kernel to work differently is usually tantamount to rewriting the system. In the second approach, we use a foreign ABS as it was designed. In this case, the share necessary changes when implemented, it will be relatively small. With this approach, almost any foreign ABS (from a technical point of view) can be used in a bank operating in Russia.

CNews: What key competencies, in your opinion, should IT specialists of financial organizations and IT partners of banks possess, taking into account the current economic situation?

Oleg Baranov: I do not see that due to the crisis, some technical competencies have become more or less in demand. It is very important that the IT professional knows the business. At least in our company, this is a fairly fundamental requirement for employees. There are many good programmers on the market, but it turns out that if a programmer does not know the business, he is at least less effective in his work than the one who knows the business.All projects are imbued with business sense, and a specialist who does not fully understand that it is he who automates, makes the wrong decision. It seems to me that it has always been this way - both before the crisis and during the crisis. So industry specialization, industry expertise is a prerequisite.

CNews: What products and services of your company are most in demand now?

Oleg Baranov: Our company weathered the crisis relatively well. We have not had any cuts or reductions in wages. The volume of orders practically did not decrease, although there was no significant growth either in autumn or winter. Over the past 2008, we have grown by 84% compared to the previous 2007. Since late spring - early summer there has been some surge in interest in our services, we are starting to expand a little. This situation is due, in my opinion, to the demand for our services and products.

There are four main areas of activity worth mentioning. The first is solutions for obtaining bank statements in data warehouse technology. We have our own product Neoflex Reporting - a system for generating all types of bank statements based on a universal data warehouse. There are projects for building reporting on the SAP BI platform.

The second area is application integration and building IT landscapes of organizations in a service-oriented architecture. We not only introduce an integration bus and ensure the bank's transition to SOA, but also provide consulting services in this area, we help the bank to create a methodology for the development of the SOA landscape. With the transition to the SOA paradigm, the entire ideology of IT landscape management must change. The principles of development project management must change. In each such project, you need to understand what business services will be used, what systems they will be provided, how to ensure the unification of these business services from project to project.

The third area is front-office solutions based on industrial BPM platforms for automating business processes related to the sale of financial products. Unlike competing systems, our front-office solutions include an industrial BPM engine, where the business processes of a specific customer are described using the standard Business Process Execution Language (BPEL). This approach makes it possible to effectively modify and develop the created solutions.

In addition to the above, we have a direction related to the localization of foreign ABS. There are a number of projects for foreign banks on the implementation of a foreign ABS, where we help customers to design an IT landscape, to determine what functionality will be implemented in a foreign ABS, what functionality will be implemented in localization components and in Russian ABS. Being engaged in localization, we provide banks with a number of our own components: this is the already mentioned banking reporting system Neoflex Reporting, the Russian general ledger Neoflex GL, a module for transforming accounting from a foreign ABS, a module for calculating reserves in accordance with Russian standards, anti-fraud module in accordance with the requirements of the Central Bank 115 FZ. In fact, we offer a bank that has decided to implement a foreign ABS, both IT landscape design services, and a set of components that will reduce the time and cost of implementing a foreign ABS.

CNews: What projects, implemented in 2008, can you mark among the key ones? What work is being done at the moment?

Oleg Baranov: I'll start with a project for Sberbank. This is the Credit Factory project, where Neoflex was responsible for the development of an integration solution that connects the information systems involved in lending processes individuals... This project started at the end of 2008 and was completed quite recently. The solution is currently operational in The central office Sberbank and its North-West Bank and ensures the interconnected operation of 12 information systems of Sberbank and its partners. By the end of 2009, we will extend this solution to seven more regional banks of Sberbank. This is a large-scale project, in 2010, as planned, the created solution will cover the entire structure of Sberbank, all of its 17 terbanks.

We also made an interesting project for HSBC bank. The customer made a decision to introduce ABS in Russia, which is used by the bank's divisions in other countries. Neoflex was chosen as the main integrator. We were responsible for the design and implementation of the IT landscape in which the foreign ABS acts as the main system. All primary information about business operations is entered into this system, and a number of domestically produced systems are used to meet the requirements of Russian regulators. Last fall, the solution started working in terms of the functionality that ensures the work of the corporate block, and in June 2009 we "launched" the retail block.

One more significant project was implemented for a large foreign bank, the name of which I cannot mention due to the terms of the agreement with the customer. In October last year, we began to build a data warehouse for this bank to receive mandatory reporting based on the Neoflex Reporting product. In fact, in 6 months we implemented the system and put it into commercial operation. The project was preceded by a consulting stage, when we helped the bank to determine what IT landscape it needs to solve analytical problems. Now, with this bank, we continue to work on expanding the mandatory reporting project, we are engaged in management reporting and data transformation into a system that keeps records in accordance with US GAAP standards.

The last project that I want to mention is currently being implemented in one of the largest state-owned banks. We create front-office lending solutions for dozens of bank branches scattered across the country. In addition, we are introducing a single integration bus. The bank is large - both in terms of the number of clients and in terms of regional structure. The complexity of the project also lies in the fact that the bank has a Russian-made decentralized ABS. So the implementation of this project is an interesting and non-trivial task for us. I will be glad to tell you about its results in a few months.