 Hello, I'm Steve Nunn, President and CEO of the Open Group. Welcome to Toolkit Tuesday, where we highlight the various components and leading experts of the Architects Toolkit, a collated portfolio of the most pertinent technology standards for enterprise architects. During the series, I'll be calling on a number of recognised experts who will bring their particular insights on how to most effectively use the various tools in the Architects Toolkit. We'll have a mix of interviews, panel sessions and pre-recorded presentations along the way. While all standards of the Open Group are designed so they can be adopted independently of one another, the greatest value for an organisation can be derived when they're used in unison, for some of the parts should be greater than the whole. In the Architects Toolkit, we have collated a portfolio of the most pertinent ones for architects, together, all in one place. For most of these tools, certification from the Open Group is also available, so practitioners can demonstrate that they have the skills required and recruiters can take the guesswork out of the recruitment process, all backed up by our Open Badges programme. V-I-E, my personal mantra, viability, integrity, extensibility. Three words that sum up the responsibilities of an architect in any solution mode. One, is it viable? Will it work? Will it do what it needs to do? Not worrying about how well it does it or how beautiful it is, or if others would even do it differently, just does it meet the requirement? Our fundamental purpose. Two, integrity. How well will it perform from an integrity perspective? Does it damage anything else, any data, any processes, any customer experience, or any other systems it interfaces with? We have an obligation to protect our current estate and operation. And finally, extensibility. Have we left enough doors open so we don't prevent ourselves from things we may want to be doing in the future? Have we closed anything off unnecessarily that could potentially build building harmful technical debt? So that's it. V-I-E, viability, integrity, extensibility. Well, welcome, everyone. Welcome. And a great intro there from Paul Herman of IBM, reminding us of the importance of V-I-E, viability, integrity, and extensibility. So welcome to you all. Thank you, Paul. We'll have another short video at the end of the session today, one of Terry Blevins' Toolkit Tuesday tips. But first of all, welcome, as I said, wherever you are in the world. I hope you're well. And thank you for joining us. We are moving down the path nicely on our Toolkit Tuesdays now. And every other week, so put it in your calendars. But today we are going to focus on one presentation and then another tip at the end. But before we get there, just so that you can get the most out of your experience today on the WebEx platform, I want to tell you how to ask questions here. So the Q&A channel is the way to ask questions. And if you can't see the Q&A channel, if you go to the bottom right of your screen, you'll see three dots. And if you click on those, you'll have the opportunity to open the Q&A channel. And that is where I would ask you to put questions for our speaker today. Please. And use the chat channel to talk about yourselves. And we quite often get people saying where they're joining us from, which is great to see because it's all over the world. But without further ado, we're going to move on today. And we have an interesting topic today, which is the use of formalization and visualization as part of the decision-making process. And to talk us through this, we have Anoush Shahi. Welcome Anoush. He works as an enterprise architecture consultant with EAT LLC. And as part of this, he's involved with performing work in the enterprise architecture area, including digital transformation and delivering training on Togath 9.2, IT for IT, and Alchemyte 3.0, all standards of the open group. So thank you for spreading the word, Anoush. He has extensive experience on enterprise architecture modeling projects, particularly using the iServer 2015 EA tool for large banks in the United Arab Emirates. And who specializes in analyzing the foundation and the operating model of the business for which enterprise architecture is deployed. And he is also an in-panel. There's a lead expert enterprise architect with the National E Governance Division and Digital India with the Indian government, which is the work that the open group is being very involved in as well. So it gives me great pleasure to give a warm virtual welcome from the open group to Anoush Shahi. Over to you, sir. Thank you very much for the kind words. I am just loading up my screen. So one very important thing about enterprise architecture tools is that it makes our life very much easy to communicate what we want to communicate. And we can do a lot. So RQ tool is an open source tool. You can download its Windows version or you can download its Mac version. Both of them, it works very well. At the right-hand side of the tool, you can see the pilot using which we can do the architectural modeling. So in very short, in a very quick way, I'll just show you how to use this tool so that you will have no problem using this tool. So you can see I have created a diagram here. It tries to tell a story, which you can see. I'm going to explain that in a second. But how to create a diagram like that? So you just use a pilot at the right-hand side. You use a particular instance and instantiate it. So I just took the location notation and instantiated it. I can just say that this location is new. And then I want that a device or let's say a server should be established over here. In current times, we can talk about cloud. But cloud also has got a location, maybe Asia cloud, Europe cloud or America cloud. So that, you know, it can be told as a node or any other entity of that nature. So here I'm just instantiating a device which I want to call as New York server. This is how the infrastructure team gives a name to those servers. So now I have got an interest that because this server is there, what if I am interested in knowing the TCP IP number for this? And the cost which we incurred in order to procure this server. So you can always get into the properties option of that particular entity and we can add attributes to them. So attributes means, you know, like all of us have got it like attributes. My name is Anu. So that's an attribute for me. I have got, you know, I am five feet, six inches high. So those kind of elements are attributes and that we can use in the visualization as well. So I just want to give two names over here. One is TCP IP and this TCP IP number, those who are not from infrastructure background, this number is something like 172.12.13.14. Infrastructure team understands it very well what it means that it is not required for, you know, just for an enterprise to know that much, but be aware with that is a good idea. Now this server, it has got a cost and we want to put a cost attribute over here. The cost attribute can be different for every server which we have in our organization. Press enter and it has been accepted. Now you can see just at the bottom I am showing to you that this is the device I have given attributes for. The earlier device I have not given any attribute value. That means if I can, over the period of time in the practice of enterprise architecture, if I can continuously update this kind of attribute for every server, for every application component when the license is started, when the license is ending, that means we can get huge amount of information about how our business is being supported by the IP infrastructure which we have in place. So you can very well understand these tools can be like they can export all these values into an Excel sheet. We can do a pivot table, etc. Or a bit high end tool we have got an option called application report for new management. So that also can be done and we can get huge amount of information as to what is the cost of my infrastructure, what is the application landscape and you can see the hit map by the tracker option because you have got the start date of the application and licensing life cycle of the application so we can see all those things in the tools, etc. This is a basic tool so here in RTV we don't have that option but the point is the basic ingredients is here we can see that here in a big different way by transforming into an Excel sheet. One more technique I want to show you you see this is a device I can move over here I can move to the left I can move to the west and again I come back over here no one in the world here what this device is going around but relationships are very important so here in the palette you can use the magic connector and just you know just you want to connect it so I just click on this one and click on this one and you see the tool itself shows as that these are the valid relationships possible between these two entities relationships are very important so here they are all argument relationships if this is not an argument class so I will just say use the relationship which is the easiest one associated relationship for example we are like as a human being we are all associated with each other we can say that way that is a straightforward relationship so now you see the value of relationship when I move this device over here when I move this device over here when I move this device over here we know that this device belongs to a location called New York just like we have in our in our world we have passport system your passport decides which country you belong to no matter where you go so that is the value of the relationship that we just now completed how to create a diagram using the entities etc. we are done with that now here I have shown a diagram to you that a particular location where a server named PRC is there on that that realizes a particular application component application component serves the need of an application service and what is an application service for it creates or it supports a business service so you can create a diagram a storyline is perfectly fine and then another diagram where location is the same which I copied from the previous diagram and the server name is different so we can have multiple diagrams like this means different state folder perspective can be captured like this under the same folder in the tool and then just look at this I click on this location and I am clicking on the visualization so what do we see here is that this tool is able to connect many things together based upon the commonality of the element so it shows that at no other location there are two servers one server is not being used for anything while the other server is being used for a credit card business service so isn't that a great information you can have 20 diagrams and this tool will quickly connect of them connect all of them based upon the common elements and we can see a connected view the last thing I would like to show is a business perspective of the diagrammatic representation so this is a banking organization it is a $7 billion company and then it has got 35% of the business comes from the credit card services which is being realized from a location called Nevada and having application components and application services in between now the CIO who joins has been given the induction in the induction here like you formed about the uses of this tool and since she has become conversant with that down the line she realizes that oh she is the owner of 35% of the business so obviously it will hit her that she should know more about how the business is managed she just clicks on the credit card she just clicks on the credit card services and clicks on the visualization and what she sees is something very much amazing again that is know that credit card services is actually being supported in the credit card service and it is using the settlement application service application component and this is server which is being kept at a particular location called Nevada location so she books like comes to Nevada and signs out that all the servers are perfectly taken care of they are very secure and safe but she realizes that Nevada comes under the seismic zone and every quarter on the reactor scale of 4 earthquake happens so well it is not stable so maybe if we can do some other location and have a BCP plan that will be better so she recommends to the board after going back to the head office in Mumbai that you know if we can have a disaster recovery plan maintain a mirror image of this entire scenario so that in case something goes wrong at this location to our server we can switch over to our alternate mechanism within 5 minutes time so that way the board is likely to approve that request very much because this is the internal proof being owned by the organization and the board knows that these are the genuine diagram and giving information and hence the likelihood of approval for the budget for disaster recovery plan is very high so that way these tools can be used to take the strategic decision and it helps the board also and the top management also understand the value and being produced by the enterprise and the ease of communication of that so that's all I wanted to communicate thank you very much Steve Anush thank you very much that's quite difficult to demonstrate modelling in such a short period of time but thank you for doing it so succinctly and so clearly so I don't know if you're able to join us on video Anush at this point for some questions but if not don't worry we can do it without seeing you there you go nice to see your face so welcome again and thank you very much for doing that so few questions for you I mean all your experience in modelling is there one kind of golden rule that you'd share with people that you've learned over the years to guide you on how to go about modelling and enterprise architecture our modelling is as confident as our storyline when we are talking about that to the board or to our recipient so our storyline must be very much clearly understood it should be simple, succinct and it should have a business outcome inherent in that it need not be complex it should be simple, understandable but picture and visualisation is the thing which matters more in the modelling right and one thing we've heard over the years is sometimes when it comes to enterprise architecture the use of terms particularly with senior management is so important you may not actually tell them you're doing architecture is that the same with modelling do you kind of say I'm not going to tell you I'm not going to use the technical description of modelling here but I'm going to enable visualisation for you is that the kind of approach you I mean the idea is between the one who has to make the decision and the one who is prompting them to make the decision is communicate what is in my as far as an idea into the other minds and in other minds so if I can choose a very simple language to understand but if the content has got a good value rest is just using the workforce etc that people may get confused but if we just want to say the simple things you know it's a capability is very much understood those terms are not complex also and I think but you know if we want to be skilled a bit that I want to say that this is the ability of the organisation and and it is providing a particular service so a complexity of the term is not the point here if we have a storyline and simplicity of communication then visual will certainly describe that right okay and when it comes to when it comes to doing the models are you basically hoping that one size fits all that one model will work for the different stakeholders in an organisation or do you have to tailor and do separate models actually that is where the enterprise architecture tools come very much handy that is suppose we are creating a top management architecture roadmap in that we are only showing the high level milestone and the key gaps that are being updated and the work packages projects that we are showing suppose someone interested hey in that PLM governance project that you are showing over here how many activities are there how many different processes are involved in that a click down child diagram so I can just attach a detailed diagram to that and click it at the time when the question has come so I can dive into details for someone from the middle management or operational level who wants to know more and again dive back and come back to the top level diagram so this enterprise tool then called flags and visuals of the tool was clear the tool more with the flags but that is the purpose of the enterprise tool to simplify the communication and at the same time maintain that within the organization so that we can refer to it again and again which is called a blueprint okay okay that's good so if you were in a situation in a consultancy situation and you only had time to model one perspective where would you go would it be for the builder or the guy or lady who's financing the enterprise architecture or the CEO where would you target oh that is very straightforward design is top down if top has agreed just do only one diagram for top and the top says you are talking self we will use you again in the future your target is done by one diagram right right so if it doesn't have top level support then it's always going to be a challenge we've heard that in our respect yes I will say this again and again if a project manager thinks that I will do one hundred organization it will be shot down because the person might not have thought about the operational details and the cost involved etc and the budgeting itself has not been done the decision of that meter happens from top down that has been there today it was there a thousand years ago right now today your demonstration was using a tool called Archie which some of our attendees will know is an open source modeling tool there are other much more sophisticated kind of commercial tools and you've mentioned some of those so when would you kind of need to go from one to the other what kind of functionality do the more commercial tools bring yes so you know for example in Archie does not support the open group standard repository structure open group recommends that we must show preliminary phase, architecture, vision VCBDFDF and the artifacts for individual phases must be maintained in that whereas Archie is more weird towards Archie made it doesn't have that architecture often also we can create some artifacts just to prove our point but it does not give the like option like that but the tools like iServer, BeesDesign Abacus, Adwire they give a standard because they are approved tools by the open group as well so they like they give those kind of architecture repository and also you know beyond that the virtual control because these are architectural diagram and it takes huge amount of effort to freeze the diagram after talking to the stakeholder so configuration management must be there in the tool Archie doesn't have it as far as in project I doubt it has it but you know iServer and for example mega and plan view they have got much robust this configuration management like options etc and beyond that for example in mega you can add risk to each and every element and calculate the total risk of the project instead those kind of threats and risks are available in the high end tool that's great so we're running short on time but one more question I personally think this is a great thing but here at the open group we have a way of exporting files from one tool to another can you mention that to our folks please yeah data exchange is a universal option in all the tools with a high end or low end even Archie also we can transform the diagram which we made as a learner into high end tools by converting into XML file by exporting into XML file and importing into the recipient tool so it's very easy to transform and you know export and import diagrams and from one tool to another yeah the exchange file format it's a great thing so we will leave it there for today Anusha I very much appreciate you sharing your experience with us on modelling and there'll be some people I'm sure who will have a much better understanding of how to go about it as a result of your talk today so warm virtual round of applause for Anusha thank you for joining us today Anusha thank you very much everyone thank you so now we will move to as I said earlier in the show we'll move to one of Terry Blevins toolkit Tuesday tips so Terry is the owner and operator of Enterprise Wise LLC where he provides strategic enterprise architecture services he's worked in the computer industry for over 40 years and he's currently sits on the open group governing board as a director he's also a fellow of the open group so over to you for this week's tip hi my name is Terry Blevins with the toolkit Tuesday tip architects in general typically enjoy modeling that's good however you must ensure that you don't model just because you enjoy modeling this toolkit Tuesday tip is to always model with purpose from a specific perspective doing this helps ensure the enterprise moves forward based on better informed decisions so what are the implications of modeling with purpose well first focusing attention on specific perspectives when modeling means you have to understand the pertinent perspectives which change as time goes by early on your focus may be on the perspective of those faced with making decisions on a huge change that decision may be a go no go decision later maybe after a go decision was made your focus may be on the users impacted by the change even further down the line your focus may be on the developers there are other perspectives of course customers operators maintainers etc each of which may require specific models that are home to address specific concerns timing is important so address specific perspectives and do so at the right time your purpose is to ensure you have the right models for the right audience at the right time as perspectives are key the first thing that you might want to model are the concerns of the perspectives this does two very important things one it helps you understand and gain the trust of those sharing the perspectives as you use that model to assure them you understand their concerns and two make sure you are on the right track do this quickly and stay in touch with the cadence of the organization so using models to communicate concerns and get agreement on those concerns is the second area your purpose is to ensure those relevant to the perspectives trust that you understand their concerns third once you have modeled concerns model just enough of the approach for moving forward relative to that perspective you understand their concerns now model the solution to address those concerns and use those models to get concurrence on moving forward your purpose is to ensure those relevant to the perspective are willing to take the steps forward implied by the architecture as you are modeling ensure the models are congruent this is hard to do and something that may be only of interest to the enterprise architect but here is the importance of tying things together which is the purpose of this area ensure that the enterprise perspective is addressed and you as an enterprise architect can ensure that that happens for more information please check out the TOGAFRA library keep architecting for enterprise value thanks for watching thank you Terry for your insights as usual as you say model for purpose model with purpose your usual mantra of architect for enterprise value fits right in there so thank you for those words on modeling today so that's it for today's episode folks I very much appreciate you joining us I hope you got something out of it and it's we'll be keeping doing these every other week so the next one is November 30 so please join us on November 30 where we'll be looking at a topic that is near and dear to my heart it's wonderful it'll be a great event it's how to leverage open standards to accelerate digital transformation and we'll be joined by Stephanie Ramsey of Raytheon and Keith Fandenbrink and Sylvan Marie so they are going to they have together written a novel called Turning Point a novel about architects building a digital foundation and it really puts into a practical perspective an approachable perspective how you might go about using different standards open standards different times in your digital transformation journey so really want to tune in for and meanwhile if you wanted to do some homework you can download the novel that I've spoken about from the open group press area of the open group library so please go to the website and look for that it's called Turning Point a novel about architects building a digital foundation it's a good read and an easy read as well even better for now that's it thank you for joining us today hopefully see you in two weeks time on November 30 but for now I'm Steve Nunz thank you for watching Togeth Toolkit Tuesday bye bye for now