1. 02/12/00 E-Business Architecture
John Tullis
DePaul Instructor

2. e-business Solutions
E-business solutions allow an organization to leverage web technologies to re-engineer business processes, enhance communications and lower organizational boundaries with their customers and shareholders (across the Internet), employees and stakeholders (across the corporate Intranet) and its vendors suppliers and partners (across its Extranet)

3. e-business Architecture
E-business Architectures leverage web technologies to implement mission critical e-business applications. These architectures use clients that have small footprints to access services provided by resource managers and accessed across a strong and reliable network. These clients can be browsers running on PCs or network devices, PDAs, Cell Phones and other Pervasive Computing devices.

4. e-business Architecture
Thin Client e-business architectures that support these solutions are based upon web technologies across a network
Characteristics
Thin - Small Footprint
Portable
OS Independent
Protocol Independent
Control Logical Unit of Work
Reusable Components
Presentation
Application Services
Client
Reuse Legacy Code
Platform Specific Code
Resource Managers
Resource Manager
Application Service
Responsibilities
Present data to users
Validate Input data
Verify data types (valid dates, valid numeric and alpha data etc.)
Use appropriate Application Services to access and update data
Perform Business Logic (Calculations, Edits, Business Rules)
Access data from Resource Managers
Perform Distributed Transactions
Encapsulate Business constructs
Store and Retrieve data from data sources.
Perform sorting, filtering and selective data retrieval
Eliminate any platform dependent issues such as data types, field misuse etc.

5. e-business Architecture Characteristics

6. e-business Architecture Definition
The e-business architecture is more than just a collection of technologies and products. It consists of several architectural models and is much like a city plan in that it defines blueprint that will meet current and future needs of a diverse user population and will adapt to changing business and technology requirements.

7. e-business Architecture Key Influencers
The key elements that help influence an e-business architecture include:
The overall e-business Strategy of the organization
Business Drivers such as Time to Market, One-to-one customer service etc.
The Current IT Environment
IT Vision, Objectives and Strategies
Organizational Constraints – Staff, Budgets, Risk Tolerance etc.
New and Emerging Technologies

8. E-business Architecture
User Interface
Information Architecture
Content Management
Functional Model
Data Architecture
Security Architecture
Systems Management Model
Individual
Tasks (screen or set of screens)
Business Functions
Business
Vision,
Objectives and
Strategies
Phase n - Deliverable
User Interface
Information Architecture
Content Management
Functional Model
Operational Model
Data Architecture
Security Architecture
Systems Management Architecture
Phase 2 Deliverable
Phase 1 Deliverable
IT Vision,
Objectives and
Strategies
Existing IT
Environment
New and
Emerging
Technologies

9. e-business Architecture Models
Developing a new brand or extending a strong brand to the online environment
What is the
Business
functionality that
needs to be
provided by the
solution?
Operational/Systems Mgt. Architecture
Security Architecture
Functional
Architecture
Digital
Branding
& UI
Design
Information
Content Management
Data Architecture
Creating the look and feel of the e-business
Solution
What types of content, how is it maintained, published and
distributed
What information
needs to be made
available, to
whom, and how?
Where is the
information stored, how is it accessed and
how is data integrity
maintained?
How do you manage
and administer the
infrastructure
and the application
What are the security
and privacy
Requirements for the
infrastructure
and application

10. Digital Branding
The key components of the Digital Branding effort include:
Developing an online Brand
Extending a strong brand across multiple channels – paper, print, media and the Internet
Developing guidelines for representing the brand across the web

11. User Interface & Usability
The key components of the Usability:
Site navigation
Experience with screen interaction
Impact of personalization
Human interface factors (color, size, font, etc.)
Use case modeling impact

12. Information Architecture
The key questions that are addressed by an information architecture are:
What data are made available to users?
Who are the users who can accesses the information?
What roles do these users play when they access the information?
What do they need the information for? – Understand the context
How do they access the information? – Browser, PDA, GUI, VRU etc.
The Information Architecture drives how data and information are stored and accessed within the e-business solution

13. Content Management
The key questions that need to be addressed by the content management architecture are:
Identify types of content
Who owns and manages the content?
Expiration date for the content
The process and the workflows needed to manage the content
How is the content developed and published
How is the content distributed
Content
Management
Creation
Publishing
Distribution

14. Functional Architecture
The Functional Architecture should focus on describing the function of the IT system and is primarily concerned with:
the structure and modularity of the software components (both application and technical)
interactions between components, including protocols
the interfaces provided by components, and their usage
dynamic behavior, expressed as collaborations between components

15. Data Architecture
The Data Architecture includes a thorough analysis of:
what data needs will be accessed ?
why is the data accessed ?
where is the data located ?
what is the currency of the data ?
how will we maintain data integrity ?
what is the data relationship between data displayed & stored?
how can we provide round the clock availability when the backend systems and databases are not available on a 24x7 basis?

16. Security Architecture
Firewalls, proxies and other services to protect the application
Virus detection and protection, spam filters etc.
Authentication
Privacy
Information
Integrity
Non
repudiation
PKI
Intrusion
Immunity
Boundary
Server
Policy
Manager
Encryption Services needed to ensure the integrity of the information
Public Key Infrastructure
Services
Services required to allow the information to hold up in a court of law
Services to validate you are who you say you are
Establish adequate privacy requirements and guidelines for the application

17. Systems Management Architecture
The Systems Management Aspect should cover:
all the nodes within the architecture
manageable from local and remote locations
based on standards and extensible to support new technologies
include support for systems administration, systems management, and software configuration management

18. Systems Management Architecture
The Operational Aspect’s focus is on describing the operation of the IT system and is primarily concerned with:
representing network organization (hardware platforms, locations, topology, etc.)
what runs where - where software and data are ‘placed’ on this network
satisfying the Non-Functional requirements of the system (performance, availability, security, etc.)
the management and operation of the IT system (capacity planning, software distribution, backup and recovery)