Scenario: Raxlon Inc.
Case Study Title (Case Study):
Raxlon Inc. is a Fortune 500 Company dealing in high value drugs and pharma products. Its annual turnover is over 120 billion $. It has more than 100,000 employees all over the globe in its R&D, Manufacturing and Marketing Units.
Raxlon’s CEO, Dr Peter Fowles, is a pharmacology expert and has over 72 patents on various types of drugs mainly used for treating patients with genetic disorders. Raxlon is now moving into a suite of high end critical drug products used for Genetic Repair of congenital Diseases like Alzhmeir’s disease and Epilepsy. Rexlon has a well developed EA practice and in 2009 the EA practice has adopted TOGAF 9 as the primary Framework for Enterprise Architectural Change Agent.
Dr Fowles’ main concerns are:
Security of the critical data which they have gained over the years after painstaking research. Although Rexlon had an adequate security system Dr Fowles feels it may not be adequate to deal with the new order of things, especially with data which is highly confidential and if leaked would have major financial impact on the Company.
Dr Fowles calls his CIO and explains his position to him and entrusts whim with the responsibly of evaluating the current security system, operation and governance and determine which are the gaps which need to be addressed during the fresh architectural work. Assume that a new Security Framework would be used in the ADM life cycle. To protect Rexlon’s valuable IP.
The CIO apprises the Lead Architect of the sensitive nature of the work he has to complete within the next 2 months.
Identify which of the following processes would be most appropriate for the Lead Architect to adopt in this situation.
A. Identify the sources of threat, review the relevant security statutes, see how disaster recovery can be achieved, find who are the actors vis vis the system and design suitable access control mechanisms, identify critical data and applications and ensure that they are given the highest level of security
B. First revisit the Preliminary Phase to determine the tailoring of ADM vis a vis Security. Identify any change in the Principles or additions to be carried out. Engage with all Stakeholders to finalize the Vision. Then in Business, Information systems and Technology Architectures ensure the Security Frame work adopted to the ADM addresses all critical security issues. Finally conduct an overall review to assess how effective the security ecosystem designed is and whether it meets the security level desired
C. Invoke Preliminary Phase and Vision Phase Identify Sources of threat, review and determine revised regulatory, security and assumptions, document them get management buy in , develop business continuity plans especially for critical data operations, assure data, application and technological component security.
D. Determine who are the people who are hacking into similar organizations, ensure that highly secure measures are taken when external people enter the R&D and manufacturing locations, ensure that there is a very strong firewall so that people cannot get illicit entry into the system, periodically check the effectiveness of the security measures
Scenario: AGEX Inc.
Please read this scenario prior to answering the question
AGEX is a large, global commodities trading company which has been growing rapidly through a series of acquisitions.
Each new business is performing well in its markets. However, the lack of integration between headquarters and the business units has increasingly caused problems in the handling of customer and financial information. The inability to share information across businesses has resulted in lost opportunities to "leverage the synergies" that had been intended when the businesses were acquired. At present, each business unit maintains its own applications. Despite an earlier initiative to install a common application to manage customer, products, supplier, and inventory information, each business unit has different ways of defining each of these core elements and has customized the common application to the point where the ability to exchange information is difficult, costly, and error-prone.
As a result, AGEX has begun implementing a single Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to consolidate information from several applications that exist across the lines of business. The Corporate Board is concerned that the new ERP system must be able to manage and safeguard customer information in a manner that meets or exceeds the legal requirements of the countries in which the company operates. This will be an increasingly important capability as the company expands its online services offered to clients and trading partners.
The CIO has formed an Enterprise Architecture department, and one of the primary goals in its charter is to coordinate efforts between the ERP implementation team and the business unit personnel who will be involved in the migration process. The CIO has also formed a cross-functional Architecture Review Board to oversee and govern the architecture.
After reviewing the available alternatives, and based on recommendations from the ERP vendor, AGEX has selected TOGAF 9 as the basis for its Enterprise Architecture program.
The CIO has endorsed this choice with the full support of top management. Refer to the AGEX Inc. Scenario
You are serving as the Chief Architect.
As part of the process for establishing the Enterprise Architecture department, you have decided to create a set of principles to guide the activities.
You have been asked to recommend the best approach for this work.
Based on TOGAF 9, which of the following is the best answer?
A. You define a set of principles that support the preferred best practices embodied in the Enterprise Architecture department charter. You publish the principles on the corporate intranet to ensure widespread acceptance and compliance.You then schedule regular periodic Compliance Assessments with individual business units to check that they have made satisfactory progress toward meeting the objectives and conditions embodied in the principles.
B. You gather information from credible industry sources in the commodities business. Based on that, you assess current trends and apply that to defining a set of principles that embody best practices.You select architecture principles that do not conflict with each other and that should be stable. You ensure that all the principles are realistic and avoid including principles that are obvious.
C. You examine the mission statements for AGEX and each of its businesses, together with the corporate value statements. Based on that, you define a set of principles and review with the CIO.When developing the principles you ensure that they actively promote the alignment of IT with the business strategies and initiatives of AGEX. You then seek the endorsement of the CIO and senior management.
D. You examine the mission statements for AGEX and each of its businesses, together with the corporate value statements. Based on that, you work with the Architecture Review Board to define the principles.When developing the principles you ensure that they actively promote the alignment of IT with the AGEX business strategies. You then run a series of reviews with all the relevant stakeholders, including senior management, ensuring their support.
Scenario:
Please read this scenario prior to answering the Question
You have been appointed as a consultant to the Lead Enterprise Architect of an international agricultural company that exports bulbs, flowers and seeds worldwide. The company has its headquarters in the Netherlands, and has sales and distribution centers in over 30 countries worldwide. Several of these centers include administrative, manufacturing, and research facilities.
To achieve full integration of their research capabilities with their development centers located in various climate zones, the company wants to develop strong self-directed teams in each location. It also wants to define new business models that are profitable while reducing their impact on the environment. The management team is deeply committed to ensuring that the company is a world leader in socially responsible seed development with a business strategy that focuses on profitability through environmentally friendly operating processes.
The international operations of the company are subject to legal and regulatory requirements for each country where they operate. The production of genetically modified seeds has governmental controls that are strictly enforced and compliance is critical.
Recently a competitor was heavily fined for violating the regulations in a country where it was developing pest-resistant seeds.
The Governing Board is concerned about the risks posed in this complex global environment, and as a result has approved the expenditure of resources to establish an Enterprise Architecture program. They have requested to be informed about the status of projects that could impact regulatory compliance. They also want to enable the corporate legal staff and auditors to analyze proposed architectures to ensure that they are within the legal guidelines for a given location. In addition, the research organization should be able to see that the architecture is appropriate for its needs.
TOGAF 9 has been mandated as the framework for the development and evolution of the Enterprise Architecture practice. The Preliminary Phase has been completed to establish the enterprise architecture capability for this project.
Refer to the Scenario
You have been asked to recommend an approach that would enable the development of an architecture that addresses the needs of the Governing Board, legal staff, auditors and the research organization.
Based on TOGAF 9, which of the following is the best answer?
A. You recommend that each project architecture activity is developed using a consistent modeling approach that is uniform across all architecture projects. Each architecture should be defined based on this fixed set of models so that all concerned parties can examine the models to ensure that their issues and concerns have been addressed.
B. You recommend that a special report be created for those groups that have sufficient power and level of interest. This report should summarize the key features of the architecture with respect to the particular location. Each of these reports should reflect the stakeholders1 requirements.
C. You recommend that a set of models be created for each project architecture that can be used to ensure that the system will be compliant with the local regulations. Stakeholders should then view the models to verify that their concerns have been properly addressed.
D. You recommend that a stakeholder map be developed. This will allow the architects to define groups of stakeholders that share common concerns. A set of views should be defined to address the concerns for each group of stakeholders. Architecture models should then be created for each view to address the stakeholders' concerns.
Your role is that of the Lead Enterprise Architect at a multinational automotive corporation. The company is headquartered in Germany, and manufactures cars, trucks and buses. It has manufacturing plants across North America, South America, Europe and Asia. Each of these plants has been operating its own planning and production scheduling systems, as well as custom developed applications that drive the automated production equipment at each plant.
The company has an ongoing initiative to improve the efficiency of all of its production operations, and in particular to reduce its carbon footprint. During a recent exercise held for internal quality improvement, it was determined that a significant reduction in energy usage could be achieved by replacing the current planning and scheduling systems with a common Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system located in one central data center.
This central system would provide support to each of the plants replacing the functionality in the existing systems. It would also eliminate the need for full data centers at each of the plant facilities.
The Enterprise Architecture department has been operating for several years and has mature, well-developed architecture governance and development processes that are based on the TOGAF standard. At a recent meeting, the Architecture Board approved a Request for Architecture Work sponsored by the global
CIO. The request covered the initial architectural investigations and the development of a comprehensive architecture to plan the transformation.
You have been asked to select the most appropriate recommendation to ensure that the team evaluated different approaches to the problem and clarifies the requirements for the architecture.
Based on the TOGAF standard, which of the following is the best answer?
A. The team should identify the individuals and groups within the organization who will contribute to the project, in order to understand who has concerns about the initiative. The team should then hold a series of interviews at each of the manufacturing plants using the business scenario technique. This will then enable them to identify and document the key high-level stakeholder requirements for the architecture.
B. The team should exercise due diligence and carefully research vendor literature and conduct a series of briefings with vendors that are on the current approved supplier list. Based on the findings from the research, the team should define a preliminary Architecture Vison. The team should then use that model to build concerns among the key stakeholders.
C. The team should perform a shallow architecture development iteration, developing Baseline and Target Architectures for each of the manufacturing plants. This should include development of a set of views corresponding to selected viewpoints that address key concerns of the stakeholders. A consolidated gap analysis between the architectures will then be used to validate the approach, and determine the capability increments needed to achieve the target state.
D. The team should utilize its approved supplier list, and conduct a pilot project that will enable those suppliers to demonstrate potential solutions that will address the concerns of the stakeholders. Based on the findings of that pilot project, a complete set or requirements will be developed that will drive the evolution of the architecture.
Scenario
Please read this scenario prior to answering the question
You have been assigned the role of Chief Enterprise Architect within a leading outsourcing services company. The company has over 20,000 outsourcing professionals and works on some of the world's largest outsourcing projects. Outsourcing services include business processes, infrastructure, and service management. The company also provides business consulting services.
With numerous service areas and a large number of diverse engagements in progress at any given time, overall engagement management within the company has become challenging. The company does not want to risk its outstanding reputation or its international certifications and CMM ratings.
The company has an established an Enterprise Architecture program based on TOGAF 9, sponsored jointly by the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Information Officer. An Architecture Board has been formed comprised of IT staff executives and executives from the major service areas and consulting practice.
The Enterprise Architecture (EA) team has been working with the Strategic Planning team to create a strategic enterprise architecture to address these issues. The EA team has defined a framework and held workshops with key stakeholders to define a set of architecture principles to govern the architecture work. They have completed an Architecture Vision at a strategic level and laid out Architecture Definitions for the four domains. They have set out an ambitious vision of the future of the company over a five-year period. This includes a solution architecture including three distinct transformations.
The CIO has made it clear that prior to the approval of the detailed implementation and Migration plan, the EA team will need to assess the risks associated with the proposed architecture. He has received concerns from some of the vice presidents across the company that the proposed architecture may be too ambitious and they are not sure it can produce sufficient value to warrant the attendant risks.
Refer to the Scenario
You have been asked to recommend an approach to satisfy these concerns. Based on TOGAF, which of the following is the best answer?
A. The EA team should gather information about potential solutions from the appropriate sources. Once the Solution Architecture has been assembled; it should be analyzed using a state evolution table to determine the Transition Architectures. A value realization process should then be established to ensure that the concerns raised are addressed.
B. Before preparing the detailed Implementation and Migration plan, the EA team should review and consolidate the gap analysis results from Phases B to D to understand the transformations that are required to achieve the proposed Target Architecture. The EA team should then assess the readiness of the organization to undergo change. Oice the Solution Architecture has been assembled, it should be analyzed using a state evolution table to determine the Transition Architectures.
C. The EA team should apply an interoperability analysis to evaluate any potential issues across the Solution Architecture. This should include the development of a matrix showing the interoperability requirements. Once all of the concerns have been resolved, the EA team should finalize the Architecture Roadmap and the Implementation and Migration Plan.
D. The EA team should apply the Business Transformation Readiness Assessment technique. This will allow the risks associated with the transformations to be identified and mitigated for. It will also identify improvement actions to be worked into the Implementation and Migration Plan. The Business Value Assessment technique should then be used to determine the business value and associated risks for the transformation.
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