Oracle tools in the Enterprise Architecture world - part 2

Oracle tools in the Enterprise Architecture world - part 2

In April I have kept a presentation about the Oracle tools in the Enterprise Architect world on the Hungarian Oracle User Group (HOUG) conference in the database section. 

Topics of the presentation

• Introduction of the Enterprise Architecture 
• What is EA?
• TOGAF
• Oracle EAF
• Oracle solutions
• Oracle products in the Enterprise Continuum
• OAEF data governance
• Data as a Service place
• Solution for system governance

The first post was talked about the introduction of the EA and TOGAF, OEAF frameworks . This post is the second one which is giving examples for categories of the Enterprise Continuum of TOGAF.  The third one will contain all remaining topices

Oracle products in the Enterprise Continuum

So let's begin. First of all I will try to give some examples for the EA-s Enterprise Continuum. Before it I have to introduce what Enterprise Continuum means.

Enterprise Continuum as TOGAF define it: "A categorization mechanism useful for classifying architecture and solution artifacts, both internal and external to the Architecture Repository, as they evolve from generic Foundation Architectures to Organization-Specific Architectures."

The Enterprise Continuum classifies contextual assets used to develop architectures, such as policies, standards, strategic initiatives, organizational structures, and enterprise-level capabilities. The Enterprise Continuum can also classify solutions (as opposed to descriptions or specifications of solutions). Finally, the Enterprise Continuum contains two specializations, namely the Architecture and Solutions Continua.

Of course Oracle data tools could be categorized in the Solution Continuum. Here is it how is it looks like in TOGAF definition.

Foundation Solutions

Foundation Solutions are highly generic concepts, tools, products, services, and solution components that are the fundamental providers of capabilities. Services include professional services - such as training and consulting services - that ensure the maximum investment value from solutions in the shortest possible time; and support services - such as Help Desk - that ensure the maximum possible value from solutions (services that ensure timely updates and upgrades to the products and systems).

Example Foundation Solutions would include

• programming languages,
• operating systems,
• foundational data structures (such as EDIFACT),
• generic approaches to organization structuring,
• foundational structures for organizing IT operations (such as ITIL), etc.

Oracle Solutions

I have put these Oracle tools into this category:

• Oracle Database - this is one of the oldest Oracle tools, which is still the biggest. What else if it is not a foundation solution in the Oracle palette?
• data handling based on Oracle Exadata Machine, but only if all data handling made by OEM at the enterprise so definetly in this case it will be a foundation solution.
• as in the above example, all standard data structures that stored with any kind of Oracle database softwares.

Common Systems Solutions

A Common Systems Solution is an implementation of a Common Systems Architecture comprised of a set of products and services, which may be certified or branded. It represents the highest common denominator for one or more solutions in the industry segments that the Common Systems Solution supports.

Common Systems Solutions represent collections of common requirements and capabilities, rather than those specific to a particular customer or industry. Common Systems Solutions provide organizations with operating environments specific to operational and informational needs, such as high availability transaction processing and scalable data warehousing systems. 

Examples of Common Systems Solutions include: 

•  an enterprise management system product or 
•  a security system product. 

Computer systems vendors are the typical providers of technology-centric Common Systems Solutions. "Software as a service" vendors are typical providers of common application solutions. Business process outsourcing vendors are typical provides of business capability-centric Common Systems Solutions.

Oracle Solutions
Oracle SaaS services is one of the best examples for this category. I don't think so that I had to explain why, there are many, many self-evident reasons.  :)

• IaaS - Oracle's Infrastructure as a Service solution - which is delivers Oracle Engineered Systems hardware and support for a monthly fee, with no upfront capital expenditures. More here
• Iaas Cloud - Oracle's Infrastructure as a services on cloud - Oracle Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offers a set of core infrastructure capabilities like elastic compute and storage to provide customers the ability to run any workload in the cloud. More here and here. Possible services:
• Compute Service
• Storage Service
• Messaging Service
• DBaaS - Oracle's Database as a Service solution - Database as a Service (DBaaS) is a paradigm where end users (DBAs, Developers, QA Engineers, Project Leads, etc) can request database services, consume it for the lifetime of the project, and then have then automatically de-provisioned and returned to the resource pool. More here
• Oracle Database Cloud Service - It provides Oracle Database software services in the cloud.  The customer could choice between a dedicated database instance with direct network connections and full administrative control, or a dedicated schema with a full development and deployment platform managed by Oracle. More here

Industry Solutions 

An Industry Solution is an implementation of an Industry Architecture, which provides re-usable packages of common components and services specific to an industry. Fundamental components are provided by Common Systems Solutions and/or Foundation Solutions, and are augmented with industry-specific components. 

Examples include:

• a physical database schema
• or an industry-specific point-of-service device. 

Industry Solutions are industry-specific, aggregate procurements that are ready to be tailored to an individual organization's requirements. In some cases an industry solution may include not only an implementation of the Industry Architecture, but also other solution elements, such as specific products, services, and systems solutions that are appropriate to that industry.

Oracle Solutions
Of course I could list all Oracle Industries solutions (here) but for database audience this was a very tough nut to find any example. The only one what I could tell to them, that basicly at Hungary on the database market the Oracle has got so big share that we could say that Oracle database software is an industry specific solution for solving the data handling problems. (I know that this is pretty lame example, but please forgive me)

Organization-Specific Solutions 

An Organization-Specific Solution is an implementation of the Organization-Specific Architecture that provides the required business functions. Because solutions are designed for specific business operations, they contain the highest amount of unique content in order to accommodate the varying people and processes of specific organizations. 

Building Organization-Specific Solutions on Industry Solutions, Common Systems Solutions, and Foundation Solutions is the primary purpose of connecting the Architecture Continuum to the Solutions Continuum, as guided by the architects within an enterprise. 

An Organization-Specific Solution will be structured in order to support specific Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to ensure support of the operational systems at desired service levels. For example, a third-party application hosting provider may offer different levels of support for operational systems. These agreements would define the terms and conditions of that support. Other key factors to be defined within an Organization-Specific Solution are the key operating parameters and quality metrics that can be used to monitor and manage the environment.

Oracle Solutions
It was a very hard to find an Oracle software that I could categorzied into Organization specific category. (Don't forget I had to give examples for a database centric audience)
So I tried to go back into my past and fortunatly I found one. Many years ago we got a new task to help for an other implementator company to solve their database handling problem, to fasten the database queries, fasten data "unloading" from the database.
At that time we have already has many experience in fastening SQL queries, to fasten the whole database software performance, but this task was a very new one. At that time the implementator's developers already reached the Oracle database software border (in SQL queries). They had to support a database that size was growing extremly fastly from a machine production line source. Their task was to handle these data to serve a quality assurance system. The production line was a very fast one and sometimes the quality manager persons have to work on real time data. The SQL query engine could solve these real time data report requirements so the company's developers create new query engine modul in PRO*C. These modul was really fast.
These solution was workable only for their customer and only for that database and solve a really specific business demand.  So I think that's way I could leisurely categorized these solution into the Organization-Specific Solution that was based on an Oracle database software.

Hmmm, now I see this post became a very long one again, so I have put all the remaing into an other post:

• OAEF Data Governance
• Data as a Service place
• Solving Architect Governance