Phase D: Technology Architecture
In the ArchiSurance front-office, located at the Home & Away headquarters, there is a general-purpose server and one dedicated to web hosting. The SSC, located at the PRO-FIT headquarters, has its own server for the document management system. Each of the three back-offices has a server for its applications.
A Local Area Network (LAN) connects servers and personal computers at each of the three ArchiSurance locations, which are in turn connected by a corporate Wide Area Network (WAN).
To depict ArchiSurance’s Technology Viewpoint, the ArchiMate Technology Viewpoint can be used.
Infrastructure
Figure 29 shows the main infrastructure components of ArchiSurance’s Technology Architecture, grouped by location and department. Also shown in this view are the networks that connect the different devices, and the (application) artifacts deployed on the devices.
Figure 29: Technology View (Baseline)
Figure 30 shows how the ArchiMate Technology Viewpoint can be used to depict ArchiSurance’s proposed Technology Architecture target state.
Figure 30: Technology Architecture: Technology View (Target)
In a separate set of views, ArchiSurance has visualized the IoT-based data acquisition in Figure 31, as outlined in its new Digital Customer Intimacy strategy. To support this, ArchiSurance establishes a data acquisition gateway that can connect to all kinds of smart devices that generate relevant data. These devices are modeled as equipment. In turn, equipment can be located at a facility; in Figure 31 we see a “home alarm system” and “smart thermostat” within a “smart home”. Finally, the smart thermostat itself is connected to the “energy network”, modeled as a distribution network in the ArchiMate language.
Figure 31: Data Acquisition from IoT Services (Target)
The implementation of ArchiSurance data acquisition is based on a microservices architecture. IoT devices can register themselves with the gateway via a REST[1] API. It also uses services on the API to notify the gateway of the data it acquires. For each registered device, an instance of the data acquisition functionality will run in a container. The gateway itself is supported by a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), providing services for deployment, integration, service lifecycle management, accounting, security, load balancing, storage, virtualization, and more. This is shown in Figure 32.
Figure 32: IoT Device Services (Target)
Technology Gap Analysis
Figure 33 visualizes the results of a global gap analysis for the Technology Architecture. The separate general-purpose back-office servers are slated for removal. The original server cluster of Home & Away is to become the central ArchiSurance back-office service cluster, and an additional back-up server cluster is to be placed in the SSC at PRO-FIT headquarters. There is also a back-up document management server to be placed in the Home & Away back-office. The new back-office suite and the document management system are to be replicated on their respective main servers and back-up servers.
Figure 33: Technology Architecture: Gap Analysis