Draft Minutes: ITANA Call 21-July-2012

Attendees

• Piet Niederhausen, Georgetown University (stand-in Chair)
• Dan Brint, State University of New York - ITEC
• Glenn E. Donaldson, The Ohio State University
• Phil Robinson, Cornell University
• Vinay I. Varughese, Cornell University - Weill Medical College
• Scott Fullerton, University of Wisconsin - Madison
• Paul Erickson, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
• Emily Eisbruch, Internet2 (scribe)

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Carry Over Action Items

AI (Jim) will write up his thoughts on the Gartner EA Summit and post to the wiki.
AI (Jim) will send a link to the SOA survey to the list.
AI (Colleen) will send a link to the Case Western architecture diagram to the list.
AI (All interested) in the higher-ed peer group, contact Chris Eagle.
AI (All) Think about topics for potential Educause session(s).

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DISCUSSION

Face2Face

The Face2Face meeting will be on Tuesday, November 6, as a pre conference seminar (#06F) at the EDUCAUSE national conference in Denver, Colorado. Please be sure to register.

http://www.educause.edu/annual-conference/seminar-06f-itana-face-face-2012-enterprise-business-and-technical-architects-peer-group-separate-registrat

Feedback from the 2011 Face2Face meeting
• More case studies
• More Enterprise Architecture 101 for new architects
• More opportunities to interact and meet others (eg, mixing up tables during the session)
• More practical stuff to take home

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Comments on Face2Face Planning

• Would be great to tape the Face2Face so those who cannot attend can see all or parts.

• Abstract submitted to EDUCAUSE on SOA was not accepted for presentation or panel.
• But would like to share findings on SOA at the Face2Face.
• "Using SOA as a model" is on the agenda for the morning.
• Also in the afternoon, in the section on Applied Architecture, we cover "SOA as a way of dealing with disruptive change"

• It was agreed that a section on Leadership (such as Jim did last year at the Face2Face) will be important/valuable.
• A lot of being successful involves taking responsibility and going out and engaging with people

• Use cases are being sought for the afternoon section on Applied Architecture.

• There is some discontinuity to the elements of the program. Would be good to carry the "disruptive change" theme into the afternoon, to pull that through to the case studies if possible.

• Balance of group work versus presentations in the agenda seems good

• In thinking about reference architecture:
  Could be hard to have a focused discussion since we won't have a draft of reference architecture ready yet
  Perhaps get people's input on what they'd expect in the reference architecture
  Would be good to have something to refer to as a jump start (find out what Kuali has?)

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Agenda Build for Face2Face at EDUCAUSE

Additions to/comments on the draft agenda during the call are preceded by asterisks. (**)

A. Disruptive Change in Higher Education - Why does architecture matter?
• Fundamental changes that are coming to higher education
• CIO’s view on Enterprise Architecture and change management
• Break-out session on disruptive change
• What disruptive changes to you see or foresee at your institution?
• See Diana Oblinger’s free e-book at http://www.educause.edu/game-changers

— Break —

B. Enterprise Architecture 101 - How do architects get started?
• Architects at all levels are leaders
• Questions you should be asking as an EA
• Case studies as an example of how you get things done
• ** Scott: What is the domain, who are the consumers?
• **Is it for conversation among key stakeholders?
• **Is the goal to create new capabilities?
• **Examples of different ways for an architect to engage, and what gets produced
• **Adapting these tools to specific contexts and consumer needs
• Lifecycle Analysis as a framework for EA
• Starting conversations that wouldn’t normally start
• Connecting people who normally wouldn’t connect
• Linking initiatives that people haven’t thought about the linkage
• Focusing on the customers
• Highlights governance issues
• Forces you to frame your argument in business terms
• Capability Mapping
• A way to bring out the capabilities for a business unit
• A way to think about People, Process and Technology in neutral terms
• Using SOA as a model
• You need to be able to communicate value in each of the tiers of the enterprise
• You need to justify even technical work in business terms
• **Dan: Examples of documentation, tools you use to do your job
• Break Out / Workbook Activity:
• Think of a something that you tried to sell that didn’t go well and how you might have sold it differently. (influence and other dimensions)
• You have seen some higher level artifacts, how would you have used them

C. Report out from morning session
• How do you add value as an architect
• How do you manage cost / reduce risk
• Gartner’s idea that you drive Fiscal Efficiency and Business Execution
• Disruption drivers vs. university reality.

— Lunch —

D. Applied Architecture - How do we practice architecture?
• Case studies (this a list in progress of potential case studies)
• DEM IT Services Capability Mapping and IT Realignment as an example
• Advising Architecture Review Board and their Core Diagram
• SOA as a way of dealing with disruptive change
• Storage - general purpose storage, regulated data and explosion of personal data
• Data architecture in an ERP implementation (Workday HR/Benefits/Payroll)
• **Dan: Real world example of documentation/artifacts and how they were used; or things that didn’t work
• **Scott: How can we create thematic continuity through the day? Pull through items from earlier in the agenda – examples of disruptive changes and how they were resolved in real life case studies
• Exercise in personal landscape scanning and planning a response

• Given a change scenario, how will you lead through that change?
• Various scenarios including distance education, BYOD, outsourcing of various university operations, big research data, business process changes
• **Scott: Enterprise data management; as a necessary step toward SOA; control of research data; integration of ERP data; data bus – as a response to:
• **Need to open university boundaries, across internal and external solutions
• **Clarity about security and privacy
• **Quicker time to market, responding quickly with data
• **New data that is digital-native; how to maintain, curate, preserve it
• **Need for business intelligence in response to various drivers
• Each table gets one of the disruptive scenarios and think about how you would approach the problem
• Context, drivers and next steps
• Fiscal Efficiency and Business Execution

— Break —

E. Current and Future ITANA Work - How can ITANA help?
• Reference architecture development
• What questions would a reference architecture answer for you? What kinds of questions would you like it to answer
• What is does a reference architecture for HE look like to you?
• **Glenn: Starting point for those with no architecture yet
• **Scott: Layered; have to keep focus in the discussion
• **Systems
• **Business processes
• **Common core business systems and boundaries
• **Integration, middleware
• **Data models
• **Strategic goals
• **Scott: Does Kuali have a starting point?
• Enterprise Data Management and BI
• SOA working group materials (other than included above)
• Report on current working group activities

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Common Solutions Group (CSG) Meeting report-out

Overall CSG meeting agenda (June 13-15 at the University of Iowa)
http://www.stonesoup.org/meetings/1206/
• Workshop on Projecting Institutional Infrastructure Into the Cloud http://www.stonesoup.org/meetings/1206/agenda.html#adda
• Workshop on Virtual Desktops http://www.stonesoup.org/meetings/1206/agenda.html#addb
• Attendee list in case you want to reach out to someone who presented http://www.stonesoup.org/meetings/1206/att/wrapatt.html

Highlights - Cloud
• Most institutions present are executing on a portfolio of cloud solutions with multiple solutions from SaaS to Paas to IaaS
• A few institutions are considering replicating critical infrastructure in the cloud, such as SSO, DNS, email routing – mainly to ensure continuous service
• No good general solutions for provisioning and de-provisioning user accounts and groups across cloud solutions; discussion of OAuth
• Progress on operationalizing cloud services, for example using Boomering and JMeter to monitor user experience

Highlights - VDI
• In all case studies, there was significant concern about cost and ROI
• Most case studies lean toward application-specific virtualization rather than full or persistent desktop virtualization, to limit costs
• For the same reason most case studies lean toward a few applications that need to be virtualized for security or because of special platform requirements
• BYOD is both a challenge and a promise; users are increasingly just interested in applications, accessible on any device, and virtualization can help support new devices such as tablets

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LINKS:

ITANA wiki is https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/display/itana/Home

Google Docs Whiteboard for this call https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J-WZMKKZauiqeHnuQyzUFNcsMTDyjmz_f0FvtiJJ6A4/edit#

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Next ITANA Call: Thursday, July 5, 2012, 2pm ET