the togaf architect’s guide to cisco sona · pdf filethe togaf architect’s guide...

White Paper

© 2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information. of 18

The TOGAF Architect’s Guide to Cisco SONA

The increasing complexity of enterprise solutions requires a more disciplined approach to IT. Enterprise

architecture (EA) provides such an approach to understanding the big picture, optimizing IT at the

enterprise level, and focusing IT on meeting business goals and requirements. For these and other

reasons, the industry is seeing a rapid adoption of enterprise architecture, but with mixed results.

Implementing EA is complex and requires good processes and well-defined deliverables. Often, in an odd

paradox, although EA is responsible for the direction of enterprise technology, it has limited visibility into

the infrastructure itself and how different components are combined to provide proven qualities of service.

The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) is one attempt to improve the success of architectural efforts by

providing standard, reusable building blocks, reference models, and proven processes for creating architecture. But,

like any generic framework, TOGAF must be adapted to meet the needs and environment of each organization. As a

vendor, Cisco enables organizations to quickly adopt technologies that conform to TOGAF reference models, provide

enhanced enterprise qualities, and support the TOGAF development methodology.

This paper describes the intersection between TOGAF and Cisco’s offerings. It starts with a brief overview of TOGAF,

but assumes that the reader is already familiar with the basics. Then it describes how Cisco supports TOGAF through

a set of building blocks, including its Service Oriented Network Architecture (SONA) framework and a collection of

Cisco Validated Designs (CVDs) that focus upon both horizontal technologies and vertical solutions. Although both

The Open Group and Cisco focus on architecture and technology, they come at it with different, but complementary

perspectives. We illustrate how this combination provides benefits such as completeness, structure, reliability, and

performance while we look at how Cisco helps to support the different phases of TOGAF’s Architecture Development

Method.

In the detailed comparison, we start by describing specific aspects of TOGAF. Then, we follow the generic TOGAF

description with an explanation of the Cisco capabilities and how they support that particular aspect of TOGAF.

TOGAF descriptions are in normal text, followed by italicized descriptions of Cisco building blocks. To begin, let’s look

at the overall structure of TOGAF and some of the new features of the recently released TOGAF Version 9.

TOGAF Version 9

TOGAF provides a framework for thinking about, creating, and maintaining enterprise architecture. Although the

framework has been around for many years, TOGAF v8.1 was the release that began to enjoy widespread adoption.

This occurred due to a confluence of factors that continue today: the increased need for architecture in the IT

industry, the increased awareness of architecture, and the increased maturity and scope of TOGAF. TOGAF 9

represents a major step forward in both maturity and scope of the TOGAF framework.

This paper focuses on some specific aspects TOGAF 9. Figure 1 shows the major components of TOGAF. Those

areas highlighted in red are new for version 9.

White Paper


Figure 1. Components of TOGAF Version 9

● Architecture Development Method (ADM): The ADM describes an overall process for the complete lifecycle

of enterprise architecture including visioning, development, implementation, and maintenance.

● ADM Guidelines: These guidelines provide for adapting the ADM to a particular organization, including

techniques for development of the architecture such as iteration, risk management, business transformation,

and readiness assessment.

● Architecture Content Framework: The content framework is a new and significant addition to TOGAF aimed

at leading to greater consistency of results. It contains checklists of outputs, standards for how architecture

should be described, architectural building blocks, sample deliverables, and most notably, the formal content

metamodel. The metamodel describes the concepts and relationships required to define the following areas of

EA: architectural principles, values, requirements; business architecture; information systems architecture;

technology architecture: and architecture realization.

● Enterprise Continuum and Tools: The enterprise continuum describes a broader perspective of the

architectural landscape, both within an individual enterprise, and beyond the enterprise and industry. This

includes the concepts of partitioning, which allows for management of costs and complexity by dividing up the

enterprise and assigning appropriate roles and responsibilities to each partition.

Architecture can be supported by tools such as an architecture repository containing the metamodel, reference

library, standards information base, and governance log.

● TOGAF Reference Models – Two related reference models describe a generic layered structure to the

technology of IT applications. A communications layer supports the application platform which in turn supports

the applications. The layers are joined to each other through programming interfaces. The entire technology /

platform /application space is characterized by a set of architectural qualities (such as availability or security).

The reference models are:

1. The Technical Reference Model (TRM) lists detailed capabilities that are required in the communications

and application platform layers to support generic applications. These capabilities are categorized by

service groups and tied to an associated set of qualities.

White Paper


2. The Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model (IIIRM) is a subset of the TRM applied to the

specific requirements for TOGAF’s concept of “boundaryless information flow” between applications,

divisions and enterprises.

● Architecture Capability Framework: The capability framework, another major new addition to TOGAF 9, It

describes an architecture program in terms of the organization, process, skills, roles, and responsibilities

necessary to establish and implement an architecture function.

Building Blocks

TOGAF uses the concept of building blocks, or standard components that can be used and assembled to address

different overall architectural requirements. TOGAF says, “A building block represents a component of business, IT,

or architectural capability that can be combined with other building blocks to deliver architectures and solutions.”

TOGAF defines two types of building blocks. Higher-level Architecture Building Blocks (ABBs) provide capabilities

that can be assembled together to meet business requirements. Solution Building Blocks (SBBs) provide lower-level

capabilities that can be assembled to create architectural building blocks.

The following section describe the intersection of ADM, Reference Models, and Architecture Capability Framework

with Cisco building blocks and services.

Cisco Building Blocks

Although Cisco is best known as a provider of networking equipment, it does this with an eye toward architecture.

Figure 2 illustrates four aspects of Cisco’s capabilities that are highlighted in this paper. These capabilities directly

support the idea of architectural and solution building blocks.

Figure 2. Cisco Building Blocks and Architecture Capabilities

White Paper


Cisco SONA Services: SONA is Cisco’s architectural approach to designing advanced network capabilities into your

infrastructure. Cisco SONA provides guidance, best practices, and blueprints for connecting network services and

applications to enable business solutions. SONA Core Common Services provide an extensive library of network-

based service categories, including:

Real-Time Communication Services that offer session and media management capabilities, contact center

services, as well as presence functions

Mobility Services that provide location information and device-dependent functionality

Application Delivery Services that use application awareness to optimize performance

Security Services that help protect the infrastructure, data, and application layers from constantly evolving

threats, and offer access-control and identity functions

Management Services that provide configuration and reporting capabilities

Virtualization Services that deliver abstraction between physical and functional elements in the

infrastructure, allowing for more flexible and reliable service operations and management

Transport Services that help with resource allocation and deliver on the overall QoS requirements of the

application, as well as routing and topology functions

Core Common Services are centered on two principles: application-focus and reusability. These services use a

variety of open protocols and published APIs to provide new capabilities and improved reliability and performance to

enterprise solutions. Cisco SONA identifies two types of services:

● Exposed Services are explicitly invoked by an application through a well-defined interface (API).

● Transparent Services are not explicitly invoked by an application, but rather activate themselves on an as-

configured, as-needed basis. The functions of the service are performed by the platform automatically

whenever a flow qualifying for that service passes through. Although no program invocation is involved,

architects must be aware of and know how to work with transparent services. These services are particularly

important in achieving the architectural qualities defined in TOGAF.

Cisco Validated Designs (CVDs) describe systems and solutions that are developed, tested, and documented to

facilitate faster, more reliable, and more predictable deployments. Cisco Validated Designs are provided in three

formats: Design Guides, System Assurance Guides, and Application Deployment Guides.

Design Guides are comprehensive, design and implementation guides. The validated systems and solutions have

undergone thorough architectural design, development, and lab testing. They provide guidance for the introduction of

new technologies or emerging architectures, and the enhancement of the customer's network. In particular,

deployment, operation, and management of components within the system are repeatable processes. Detailed

system design and implementation guidance includes:

● Examples that define the problems solved by the design

● List of software used for each component of the design

● List of products that were validated as part of the testing

● Configurations used to support the design

● Limitations that were discovered during testing

System Assurance Guides deliver the results and findings of intensive, ongoing system assurance test programs

targeted at major network architectures or technologies. These provide:

● Assurance baselines aimed at a particular network architecture or technology

● Evidence that solution requirements have been successfully tested in a scaled environment

● Proof that there are no observable defects within the scope of the recommendations

White Paper


● Software release recommendations, and associated platform and network roles

● Configuration guidance and examples

Application Deployment Guides detail how specific third-party applications interoperate within a Cisco network

environment. Featured applications have undergone interoperability testing within the recommendations of Cisco

Validated Design Guides.

Places in the Network (PINs) are specific solutions designed to address common geographical requirements,

including products and technologies, lifecycle services, and partner solutions and services. PINs provide a set of

infrastructure building blocks that have been configured for specific requirements and described as a set design

guidelines. PINs enable an intelligent network that fully integrates and optimizes the networked infrastructure,

interactive services, and applications across your entire enterprise, from data center to campus, MAN, WAN, branch,

and teleworker locations.

Advisory Services: Cisco offers a variety of consulting services to help customers achieve their business goals. The

Advisory Services group provides strategic, transformational consulting services that link business and technology.

The group’s architectural consulting helps customers work from the business level, through the application

complexities, and down into the details of the technology platform. Consultants are well versed in TOGAF and can

help clients through the different phases of architecture development.

TOGAF ADM and Cisco

The TOGAF Architecture Development Method (ADM) is an eight-phase iterative process for developing and

maintaining an enterprise architecture. Each phase is defined in terms of:

● Objectives: The overall objectives of the phase. For example, one objective of the architecture vision phase

(A) is “To define the scope of, and to identify and prioritize the components of, the Baseline Architecture.”

● Approach: The overall tactics taken during the phase. For example: “Phase A defines what is in and what is

outside the scope of the architecture effort and the constraints that must be dealt with.”

● Inputs: The inputs that are required to complete the phase. For example, again from Phase A: “Business

principles, business goals, and business drivers.”

● Steps: The specific steps taken during the phase to execute the approach, achieve the objectives, and

produce the outputs. For example: “Define the Target Architecture value propositions and KPIs.”

● Outputs: The specific deliverables, such as: “Baseline Technology Architecture, Version 0.1.”

Figure 3 illustrates the TOGAF ADM in yellow, sometimes known as the “crop circle diagram.”

White Paper


Figure 3. TOGAF ADM Relationship to Cisco Building Blocks and Services

DTechnologyArchitecture

FMigrationPlanning

HArchitecture

ChangeManagement

BBusiness

Architecture

AArchitecture

Vision

GImplement

Governance

CInformation

SystemArchitecture

EOpportunities

&Solutions

RequirementsManagement

CiscoBuildingBlocks

Places in the Network

SONAApplication

and NetworkServices

Design Principles / Capabilities

Cisco Validated Designs

Business Objectives

Preliminary

CiscoAdvisoryServices

Design Principles / Capabilities

Keep Architecture Living

Comformance strategies

Incremental Value

Delivery

Indentify and satisfy

opportunities

EA Program Design,Organizational Alignment

Phases A through H are carried out iteratively over the lifecycle of the architecture program, through several versions

of the architecture. Preceding the first iteration is the preliminary work that must be done to define sponsorship,

organizational structure, governance, principles, tools, and methodology (adaptation of ADM). Tying all of the phases

together is requirements management, which assures that each phase is meeting and aligned with requirements and

that the requirements are kept current.

Figure 3 highlights some of the important relationships between the ADM and Cisco capabilities. There are two

important aspects to this relationship:

● Cisco Building Blocks: Cisco SONA (architecture building blocks) provides a collection of exposed and

transparent services at the infrastructure and application level. PINs (infrastructure building blocks) provide

proven solutions for specific technology deployment requirements. CVDs (solution building blocks) provide

detailed, tested designs and corresponding product configurations for industry solutions. Together, the Cisco

building blocks provide solutions for many of the steps and deliverables of the ADM process.

● Cisco Advisory Services: In addition to building blocks, Cisco has a complete range of consulting services

that can help an enterprise to carry out any and all of the phases of the ADM or to assist the customer to go

through the entire ADM to define its enterprise architecture.

The intersection of all these areas is substantial and won’t be covered in detail in this paper. Rather, we outline the

general relationship of each phase. The TOGAF aspects of the phase is explained first, followed by the Cisco

contribution to the phase in italics.

White Paper


Phase A: Architecture Vision

The first phase of the ADM cycle sets the architecture vision. “The Architecture Vision provides a first-cut, high-level

description of the Baseline and Target Architectures, covering the business, data, application, and technology

domains which are then elaborated on in subsequent phases.”

Cisco SONA provides a set of capabilities that are critically important to the function and quality of enterprise

applications. To provide their full business value, these concepts need to be incorporated into the architectural vision

at the outset. In addition, some SONA capabilities, such as collaboration, presence, location, and virtualization are

beyond the awareness of typical EA thinking, making their inclusion in the vision even more important. The overall

SONA principles and capabilities illustrate the relation of both exposed and transparent services to the total

architecture process. These should be incorporated into the Phase A outputs of Baseline and Target architectures,

and are particularly important to the Data, Application, and Technology architectures later on in the process.

Phase B: Business Objectives

Phase B ensures that business objectives are met by the architecture. The goal of Phase B is to develop a Target

Business Architecture that describes the product and/or service strategy, the business environment (organizational,

functional, process, information, and geographic aspects), business principles, business goals, and strategic drivers.

Several aspects of the business environment have significant impact on both the application and technology

architectures. For example, what are the geographical topology aspects of the enterprise and application? What are

the required performance and availability characteristics? What type of security or regulation is required by the

business environment? How will these impact each other?

The Draft Architecture Requirements Specification identifies, categorizes, and prioritizes the implications for the

remaining architecture domains. One powerful technique is the use of a dependency/priority matrix, for example,

guiding the trade-off between speed of transaction processing and security. The draft specification also includes high-

level technical requirements to identify and prioritize tradeoffs made in subsequent phases.

In examining these questions, the Business Architecture defines the service contract at the business/functional level,

which is expanded on in the Application and Technology Architectures. Cisco building blocks provide a proven

architectural foundation that can incorporate solutions to these requirements into the architectural vision. Because

these building blocks have been developed with business requirements in mind, it is easier to link the business

architecture to the technology requirements specified in the Draft Architecture Requirements document.

Phase C: Information Systems Architecture

Information Systems Architecture focuses on identifying and defining the application and data considerations that

support the enterprise’s Business Architecture. Notice that this phase is not concerned with the design of specific

systems. Rather, the goal is to define the types of application that are relevant to the enterprise, and what those

applications need to do to manage data and execute business processes.

As inputs, this phase uses the initial, high-level baseline and target architectures of the vision phase, as well as the

Architecture Requirements Specification from the business objectives phase. Together, during this phase, these are

elaborated on to produce:

● Baseline and Target Data Architectures, Version 1.0.

● Baseline and Target Application Architectures, Version 1.0.

● Architecture Requirements Specification, including requirements and constraints on the Technology

Architecture (about to be designed). The specification also addresses questions of impact, such as: Are there

opportunities to leverage work from the Application Architecture in other areas of the organization?

The recommended TOGAF process for developing an Application Architecture is:

White Paper


● Understand the list of application components that are required, based on the baseline application portfolio

and the business architecture scope.

● Identify building blocks (new, existing, and deprecated).

● Identify gaps and classify as those that should be developed and those that should be procured.

Conveniently, the services of Cisco SONA provide an advanced, robust set of application-level services that can

serve as building blocks across the entire enterprise. We can readily identify which platform services are required to

support the business architecture. And, given that most architectures embrace a “buy where available, build only for

competitive advantage” principle, a gap analysis of SONA capabilities should lead to a well-defined adoption

roadmap that takes advantage of the inherent interoperability and upward compatibility of SONA.

Phase D: Technology Architecture

The Technology Architecture phase maps the building blocks defined in the Application Architecture into a set of

technology components that represent software and hardware, available from the market or configured within the

organization, into a technology platform. The Technology Architecture defines baseline and target views of the

technology portfolio, detailing the roadmap toward the Target Architecture. The Technology Architecture draws from a

variety of sources and inputs, including:

● TOGAF Technical Reference Model (TRM)

● Generic technology models relevant to the organization’s industry vertical sector

● Technology models relevant to common systems architectures

● Publicly available models

● Technology principles

● Architecture vision

● Requirements document

In other words, TOGAF tries to draw on existing models across the enterprise continuum, rather than developing new

models for every new application. Again, this is an architectural principle that is common to most enterprise

architecture, and which is fully embraced by Cisco building blocks. SONA exposed application-level services provide

specific solutions to the capabilities defined in the TRM. SONA transparent services support the architectural qualities

of the TRM. Infrastructure building blocks provide a set of fully proven configurations to meet specific technology

platform requirements for common scenarios such as campus, branch, or teleworker. Let’s look at the intersection of

SONA and the TRM in more detail.

SONA and TOGAF TRM

TOGAF’s reference architecture is a collection of generic services and functions that provides a foundation on which

to build specific architectures. The foundational architecture is embodied within the Technical Reference Model

(TRM), which provides a structure and taxonomy of generic platform services. TOGAF states that the TRM is

universally applicable and can be used to build any system architecture. The TRM identifies a dozen or more

categories of capabilities, and identifies subcategories within each main category. In other words, the TRM is an

organized laundry list of potential capabilities.

Of course, your enterprise doesn’t want just any architecture; it wants the technology architecture that meets its

business goals and needs. The challenge is to specify not only what services are required to meet them, but how

those services will be implemented.

Cisco SONA provides an excellent basis for meeting this challenge. SONA provides an extensive and coherent

library of network-based technology and application services that deliver improved reliability and performance to

enterprise solutions. SONA capabilities are provided by an integrated platform of products that complement TRM

White Paper


capabilities supplied by other vendors. At first glance, the structure of TOGAF and SONA appear remarkably similar,

as illustrated in Figure 4.

Figure 4. SONA and TOGAF Layered Architectures

Both are structured on the fundamental architectural principles and high-level layering. In this structure, the lowest

layer, Infrastructure, provides the basic computing, storage, and communications capabilities. The platform layer

provides building blocks for creating applications, which are then constructed from the capabilities of the platform

layer. Finally, a set of architectural qualities, such as availability or security, apply to all of the layers.

There are however, some important, but complementary distinctions between SONA and the TRM. The TRM is a

generic reference model that focuses on categorizing services and applies the architectural qualities as an additional

consideration. SONA comes at the problems from an infrastructure-up perspective. Its primary concerns are the

elusive “ilities” that application designers often don’t understand, forget, or leave until too late. SONA provides a

coordinated set of network, technology, and application services that are integrated to work together. So, while the

TRM focuses on categorizing services into boxes, which of course is useful for establishing a common vocabulary

and completeness, SONA focuses on quality of service by careful integration and optimization of the connections

(lines) between the boxes to provide reliability and performance.

Architectural Qualities

The most clever architecture is of little use it if cannot deliver in terms of performance and reliability. TOGAF

recognizes the importance of these “ilities” and attempts to quantify them in terms of architectural qualities. TOGAF

states, “during the process of architecture development, the architect must be aware of the existence of qualities and

the extent of their influence on the choice of software building blocks.” The qualities that have been identified include:

1. Availability: The degree to which resources are available for use, including:

● Manageability: The ability to monitor and control the state of a resource

● Serviceability: The ability to identify problems and take corrective action

● Performance: The ability of a component to perform its tasks in an appropriate time

● Reliability: The ability to withstand failures

● Recoverability: The ability to restore a system to a working state after an interruption

● Assurance: The protection, integrity, and credibility of information

White Paper


2. Adaptability: The degree to which systems can support different environments, including:

● Interoperability: The ability to operate across platforms and systems

● Scalability: The ability to expand or contract performance and capacity in response to demand

● Portability: The ability to move data, components, applications, and other resources

3. Extensibility: The ability to incorporate new functionality or offer services in new environments

Because Cisco takes both an infrastructure and application view of the platform, architectural qualities, and especially

those of availability, performance, reliability, recoverability, assurance, scalability, and portability are key attributes of

SONA. These qualities are built-in and made available through the use of transparent services. Rather than being

explicitly implemented in application code through the use of APIs, the capabilities of transparent services are

configured and then automatically invoked during run-time operations.

For example, the performance and scalability of audio-video interfaces can be significantly improved through the use

of the Application Delivery transparent services of caching, compression, and content distribution. The reliability of

the communications can be ensured through the Transport Quality-of-Service capabilities. The security of the

communications can be assured through transparent Security Services of end-point-validation, data loss prevention,

anomaly detection, and encryption.

ADM Phase D Continued

The ADM steps for Phase D include:

● Define a taxonomy of platform services and logical technology components. The services portfolio is a set of

services from the categories in the TRM.

● Identify relevant locations where technology will be deployed.

● Validate application and business requirements for technology.

● Select technology platform products.

● Determine the configuration of the selected technology.

● Resolve impacts across the architecture landscape. Areas where the Technology Architecture may be

impacted include: performance, maintainability, location, latency, availability, and more.

Cisco building blocks provide a ready-made, advanced solution to most of these steps. Cisco SONA services directly

support the technology components of the TRM (see Appendix for a more detailed mapping). Of course, issues other

than the choice of components must be considered. For example, as technology deployment locations are

determined, the Application Delivery capabilities can mitigate many of the “reach versus range” tradeoffs typically

required of applications and open up a new set of possibilities. Transparent services aimed at achieving architectural

qualities help to address the impact across the architectural landscape. Another important Cisco building block,

sometimes called Places in the Network, comes into play here to provide a set of proven configurations to meet

common architectural quality requirements for standard geographical scenarios such as a remote branch, campus, or

central data center to help select a technology platform, determine the appropriate configuration, and resolve the

architectural impacts.

The final step of Phase D is to prepare the technology sections of the Architecture Definition Document, including:

● Fundamental functionality and attributes including architectural qualities

● Interfaces: APIs, data formats, protocols, hardware interfaces, standards

● Target Technology Architecture, Version 1.0, including:

Technology Components and their relationships to information systems

Technology platforms and their decomposition, showing the combinations of technology required to realize a

particular technology stack

White Paper


Environments and locations: A grouping of the technology into computing environments (for example,

development or production)

Expected processing load and distribution of load across technology components

Physical (network) communications

By now it should be clear that Cisco building blocks are designed to provide a robust solution to these requirements

that can quickly be incorporated into the Architectural Definition Document. In addition, Cisco’s focus on the “ilities”

can help mitigate some of the environmental, location, and load distribution issues. For example, XML, SSL, and

encryption processing, can be offloaded from the servers into the infrastructure platform. Other application delivery

opportunities such as protocol-specific caching can be incorporated into the architecture to optimize performance and

reliability while minimizing server and application impact.

Phase E: Opportunities and Solutions

Phase E is the first phase that is directly concerned with how the target architecture will be implemented. Phase E

concentrates on how to deliver the architecture incrementally in conjunction with applications.

The architectures from Phases A to D are used to develop a roadmap that shows incremental progress from the

baseline architecture to the target architecture. In this phase, architects must assess the IT requirements, gaps,

solutions, and factors to identify work packages that lead to efficient and effective implementation of the target

architecture. This functional perspective leads to the provisioning of shared solutions and services.

Several aspects of Cisco’s building blocks are important in this phase, but perhaps the most helpful are Cisco

Validated Designs. CVDs provide a set of fully proven and tested solutions to horizontal platform requirements and to

industry-specific solutions such as finance or medical applications. In other words, they provide validated

implementation designs for the target architecture. In coordination with the CVDs, Cisco SONA provides a set of

shared solution building blocks that can be phased in as part of the incremental implementation of the target

architecture. The combination of Cisco Validated Designs and Places in the Network provide a convenient way to

allocate provisioning of these services in coherent subsets that focus on the delivery of specific business value.

Phases F, G, H: Migration, Implementation, and Architectural Maintenance

The objectives of Phase F are to finalize the Implementation and Migration Plan and to finalize the Architecture Vision

and Architecture Definition Documents in line with the implementation approach. Here, the challenge is not the

identification or provisioning of the architecture or building blocks. The thornier issues revolve around identifying

appropriate opportunities and introducing architectural thinking into the enterprise IT culture.

Phase G establishes the connection between architecture and the implementation organization, through the

Architecture Contract. In this phase, architecture is responsible for:

● Appropriate governance functions while the solution is being implemented and deployed

● Conformance with the defined architecture during design and implementation

● Conformance of the deployed solution with the Target Architecture

Phase H ensures that the architecture continues to be fit-for-purpose in the face of changing requirements, business,

and technology. In other words, it keeps the architecture relevant and vital.

Cisco Advisory Services have the expertise and capability to do just this. Their experienced enterprise architects are

able to work from the business level, through the application complexities, and down into the details of the technology

platform. They are experienced in identifying appropriate opportunities that will both deliver business value and

advance the incremental implementation of the architecture. At the same time, they have the credibility and

knowledge to demonstrate value to a wide range of stakeholders and to bring a new awareness of architecture in its

wake to business and implementation teams. Finally, they understand the importance and complexities of keeping

White Paper


the architecture current, vital, and relevant. Advisory services are able to bring a range of expertise to bear to mentor,

supplement, or provide these capabilities to a client.

TOGAF Capability Framework

An important aspect of TOGAF 9 is the new Architecture Capability Framework. Essentially, the Capability

Framework describes the aspects of an Architecture Program that need to be created, over time, for an organization

to envision, define, introduce, implement, and maintain enterprise architecture. The framework identifies six core

capabilities:

Architecture board: A cross-organizational board to oversee the implementation of the architecture vision

and strategy.

Architecture compliance: Ensures the compliance of individual projects with the enterprise architecture.

Architecture compliance provides project-specific views of the enterprise architecture that illustrate how the

architecture affects the major projects within the organization.

Architecture governance: The practice whereby architectures are managed and controlled at an

enterprisewide level. Governance defines a formal architecture compliance review process.

Architecture contracts: The joint agreements between development partners and sponsors on the

deliverables, quality, and fitness-for-purpose of architecture.

Architecture maturity models: Provide an effective method for measuring and improving architecture-related

processes and deliverables.

Architecture skills framework: Provide a definition of the roles and competency levels required for

enterprise architecture, including roles required for each work area, specific skills required for each role, and

competency and knowledge levels within each role.

Implementing an enterprise architecture requires an enterprise architecture program, and implementing an

architecture program requires skill and perseverance. Given the cultural bias against architecture that exists in many

organizations, it is imperative to get it right the first time, because often, architecture will not be given a second

chance. Organizations simply can’t afford a trial-and-error approach.

Advisory Services from Cisco can help. Cisco enterprise architects are certified in TOGAF and are skilled in the

establishment and rollout of EA programs and practices. They can help to tailor a program to fit an enterprise’s goals,

requirements, timeframe, skill sets, culture, and environment. There is no need to put EA adoption at risk while you

develop your own architectural capabilities. Take advantage of the experience of experts to learn while you do.

Conclusion

Experienced architects recognize the importance and value of process. They use established processes and

frameworks to guide their activities and building blocks to provide efficient, flexible implementations. TOGAF is the

industry-leading framework for enterprise architecture providing development methods, reference models, and

capability frameworks to jumpstart architecture within the enterprise. TOGAF can be applied across a broad spectrum

of needs, industry segments, and enterprise sizes. Thus, a primary task and challenge with TOGAF is to successfully

adapt it to your specific enterprise. Cisco can help in multiple ways.

TOGAF’s TRM provides a framework for thinking about how generic capabilities support the enterprise. Cisco SONA

provides an integrated set of infrastructure and platform services that enable next-generation applications and map

directly to TOGAF solution building blocks—the layers and services of the TRM. Cisco’s Places-in-the-Network

provide standard configurations of technology that apply the TRM to meet the most common deployment scenarios.

Cisco Validated Designs provide additional, proven, detailed guidance for industry-specific solutions. Together,

SONA, PINs, and CVDs provide the capabilities of TOGAF building blocks. However, Cisco’s unique perspective

White Paper


provides critical additional value. Cisco focuses first on the architectural qualities that must be met by the building

blocks, ensuring both that the required capabilities are present, and that they meet application QoS requirements.

TOGAF’s Architecture Development Method describes a process for applying TOGAF to your enterprise. The

methodology defines specific concerns, objectives, inputs, steps, and outputs for developing architecture through

each phase of the process. Cisco helps to address many of the architectural qualities and concerns. More

importantly, SONA, PINs, and CVDs can be used to directly support many of the required architectural work products.

In addition, certified, experienced enterprise architects from Cisco’s Advisory Services team can help your

organization come up to speed, apply the ADM, and create and adapt EA for your particular needs.

Modern enterprise applications require modern thinking and architecture that successfully meets business

requirements with the latest technology, including virtualization, collaboration, application delivery, integrated

communications, security, and more. Cisco SONA is the industry-leading advanced platform for next generation

applications. TOGAF is the industry standard for enterprise architecture. Because they are both based on the same

set of fundamental architectural principles, they complement each other naturally to bring architecture, reliability, and

performance to your enterprise.

Appendix: Cisco SONA support for TRM

Cisco SONA

Cisco Service Oriented Network Architecture (SONA) is Cisco’s architectural approach to designing advanced

network capabilities into infrastructure and solutions. SONA is an open framework for network-based services that

provide solution building blocks for enterprise applications, as illustrated in Figure 5. SONA Core Common Services

provide an extensive library of network-based service categories, including:

● Real-Time Communication Services that offer session and media management capabilities, contact center

services, as well as presence functions

● Mobility Services that provide location information, as well as device dependent functionality

● Application Delivery Services that use application awareness to optimize performance

● Security Services that help protect the infrastructure, data, and application layers from constantly evolving

threats, and also offer access-control and identity functions

● Management Services that offer configuration and reporting capabilities

● Virtualization Services that deliver abstraction between physical and functional elements in the

infrastructure, allowing for more flexible and reliable service operations and management

● Transport Services that help with resource allocation and deliver on the overall QoS requirements of the

application, as well as routing and topology functions

Core Common Services are centered on two principles: application-focus and reusability. These services use a

variety of open protocols and published APIs to provide new capabilities and improved reliability and performance to

enterprise solutions.

White Paper


Figure 5. SONA Framework

SONA provides a set of solutions building blocks to support the TOGAF TRM. The organization of the SONA services

is easily mapped to TOGAF, but is not identical because they are designed from a different perspective. For example,

not all of the TOGAF categories are relevant to SONA, such as Software Engineering. By the same token, not all of

the capabilities provided by SONA are identified in TOGAF, such as virtualization. Nonetheless, the overlap is

substantial, particularly in Location, Network, and Security services. The following sections highlight some specific

areas of SONA support for the TRM.

TRM

The TRM describes a generic layered structure to the technology of IT applications. A communications layer supports

the application platform, which in turn supports the applications. The layers are joined to each other through

programming interfaces. The entire technology / platform /application space is characterized by a set of architectural

qualities (such as availability or security).

The TRM lists detailed capabilities that are required in the communications and application platform layers to support

generic applications as illustrated in Figure 6. These capabilities are categorized by service groups and tied to an

associated set of qualities.

White Paper


Figure 6. TOGAF Technical Reference Model

Selected Service Category Mapping

The following sections provide a selected mapping of Cisco SONA capabilities to TRM categories.

Data Interchange services

Electronic Data Interchange services are used to create an electronic (paperless) environment for conducting

commerce. Necessary services include:

Raw Graphics Interface: Support for graphics formats such as TIFF, JPEG, GIF, etc.

Video Processing: The capability to capture, compose, edit, compress, and decompress video.

Audio Processing: The capability to capture, compose, edit, compress, and decompress audio.

Multimedia Processing: The capability to store, retrieve, modify, sort, search, and print all or any

combination of the above-mentioned media. This includes data compression and decompression.

Media Synchronization: Allows the synchronization of streams of data for presentation.

These functions are supported by Cisco SONA services including Real-time Communications: Multimedia Record

and Playback and Multimedia Bridge and Application Delivery: Compression, Content Distribution, and Caching.

Location and Directory

Location and directory services provide specialized support for locating required resources and for mediation

between service consumers and service providers, including:

Directory services: Allow clients to establish where resources are and how they can be reached

Special-Purpose Naming services: Associate names to objects (such as file systems, queues, and so on)

within a given context (namespace)

Service Location services: Provide access to phone directory functions

Registration services: Enable clients to register the identity, description, and access of resources

White Paper


Filtering services: Allow the selection of specific, useful information using defined criteria

These functions are supported by Cisco SONA services including Transport: Routing and Infrastructure: Directory.

Note that the Location services provided by SONA Mobility are not the same as called out in the TOGAF TRM.

TOGAF location refers to the network location and address of resources, the typical location transparency provided

by naming and directory services. SONA Location refers to geographical location of mobile clients and GSS with the

ability to route requests to closest server or data based on location.

Network Services

Network services support data access and interoperability for distributed applications. TOGAF network services

include:

Data Communications: Reliable, transparent, end-to-end data transmission across communications

networks.

Electronic Mail services: The capability to send, receive, forward, store, display, retrieve, prioritize,

authenticate, and manage messages. Messages may include any combination of data, text, audio, graphics,

and images.

Distributed Data services: Provide access to, and modification of, data and metadata in remote or local

databases.

Distributed File services: Provide transparent remote file access. Ancillary services include cached data,

data replication, file locking, and file logging.

Distributed Name services: Provide unique identification of resources within a distributed computing

environment.

Distributed Time services: Provide synchronized time coordination.

Remote Process (Access) services: Provide program-to-program communications including remote

procedure call (RPC) and asynchronous messaging (queues).

Remote Print Spooling and Output Distribution services: Provide the means for printing output remotely

including management, media selection, and security.

These functions are supported by Cisco SONA services including Real-time Communications; Application Delivery,

Security, Transport, and Communications Infrastructure. For example, compression and protocol optimization,

encryption, and device identity provide support for remote printing services.

TOGAF adds that “the following functional areas are currently supported mainly by Application Software, but are

progressing towards migration into the Application Platform:”

Enhanced telephony functions: Includes call setup, call coordination, call forwarding, call waiting,

programmed directories, teleconferencing, automatic call distribution, and call detail recording

Shared screen functions: Provide audio teleconferencing with common workstation windows between two or

more users

Video-Conferencing functions: Provide two-way video transmission including call setup, call coordination,

full motion display of events, bidirectional participation, management, and so on

Broadcast functions: Provide one-way audio and video communications between multiple sending and

receiving locations

Well, the future is now. These capabilities, fully secured, and highly performant, are delivered today through SONA

Real-time Communications, Application Delivery and Security services. Beyond this, they can be delivered to mobile

devices using the capabilities of Mobility services.

White Paper


Security Services

Security services protect sensitive information in the enterprise based on the value of the information to the business,

perceived threats to it, and regulatory requirements. Security services include:

Identification and authentication services: Provide identification, accountability, and audit of users and their

actions, authentication, user status, password, and key mechanisms

Audit services: Provide control, recording, management, and inspection of audit trails

Access control services: Provide access control for subjects and objects, enforcement of rules for

assignment and modification of access control attributes

Security management services: Provide secure system set-up and initialization, control of security policy

parameters, management, and restrictions of user and system resources

Encryption services: Provide authorization, privacy, and confidentiality of information across and beyond the

distributed enterprise

Trusted Communication services: Provide secure communication between parties

Cisco SONA has a full range of security capabilities including both exposed and transparent services These include

authentication, authorization, policy, device identity management, endpoint protection, virus protection, data-loss

protection, intrusion and anomaly detection, filtering, and encryption.

Management Services

Management services maintain the integrity and quality of the overall environment while it is operational. These

services include:

Configuration management services: Identification, control, and accounting of computing resources,

including the ability to manage change through established processes

Performance management services: Monitor and tune performance aspects of hardware, platform and

application software, and network components

Availability and fault management services: Allow a system to react to the loss or incorrect operation of

system components

Security management services: Provide control of the security services

Capacity management services: Provide analysis of current and historical performance and capacity,

workload management, and capacity planning

These functions are supported by Cisco SONA Management and Security services such as provisioning,

configuration, accounting, performance, fault, discovery, and policy management.

The TOGAF TRM provides a conceptual framework for thinking about application capabilities and describing them as

building blocks in the form of generic services. Enterprise architects must adapt the generic TRM to meet their

specific requirements. Cisco SONA provides an integrated set of infrastructure and platform services designed for

secure, high-performance, next-generation enterprise applications that can be mapped directly to the services

identified in the TRM.

White Paper


Printed in USA C11-551523-00 07/09