The establishment of architectural principles is currently a preoccupation among many organisations. This can be and is done at many different levels, and we know of work going on at this moment on enterprise architectures, information architectures, infrastructure architectures, application architectures, security architectures. And no doubt there are many other varieties! The introduction of the concept of architectures has been one response to the widely felt need for greater clarity and control (grip) in relation to developments within organisations. And that was the need expressed by a large college in the western Netherlands, where a rapid expansion in student numbers and a new vision in relation to education and teaching had led to an urgent need to address the ICT infrastructure.

The primary objective here was to be able to deliver more services to users (for example a 25 MB mailbox was provided for students, but this wasn't being used at all), greater flexibility in service provision (a faster response to operational queries), and improved connections with other colleges and with the SURF organisation. There were also intensive discussions about ICT sustainability and the prospective use of cloud services.

The Approach.

It was clear that the college had a need for a new infrastructure architecture and a fresh approach to the development and management of that infrastructure. The discussions ultimately led to the Management Board's approval of an architecture project consisting of the following phases:

1. Evaluation 
2. Feedback in relation to basic principles 
3. Drawing up of a blueprint 
4. Working out to deliver a project outline 
5. Drafting of PSAs for sub-projects 
6. Modifications to blueprint

Implementation

A start was made on the identification of the wishes of the users and clients of the ICT environment, the experiences of the ICT managers, the vision and expectations of management and relevant market developments in comparable environments. This often took place by means of personal interviews, small group workshops and "tea-break talks", often involving randomly selected informants, in particular students.

Every organisation will have certain visionary individuals, who because of their experiences in their current or previous roles have already developed clear ideas about the nature of the optimal solution for their organisation. Identifying and making use of such visionaries is an essential requirement in drawing up a sound architectural proposal. Where they are available, information managers can also be of inestimable value in this process, and they must be closely involved in the development of the new architecture. In the case of our college, information management was still in its infancy, leading to the (undesirable) situation where ICT was required to move ahead in advance of the information management planning. A conscious decision was therefore taken to begin by putting down solid foundations for ICT (in the form of an infrastructure), with the rest of the "house" to be built on later, tying in with the information management requirements. And of course the organisation's vision for information management and the decisions anticipated in that area were also taken into account. With the initial survey complete the basic requirements for the new infrastructure could be presented in broad terms to the organisation, to allow a direction to be given to considerations about its final shape.

The next step was to set down the vision for the desired infrastructure in the form of a blueprint, a working out of the general principles combined with specific assumptions about the different components of the infrastructure. This blueprint would later form the basis for the definition of the project as a whole and the various sub-projects required to create the new infrastructure.

As in the majority of cases, the next step involved the drafting of a so-called PSA, a Project Start Architecture, allowing targeted objectives to be specified for the project and permitting developing insights to be taken into account without requiring modifications to the blueprint.

The blueprint may be periodically modified to take account of the status quo, allowing it to serve as a starting point for any future projects.

The Outcome.

The blueprint provided a clear vision for the design of the new infrastructure. On this basis, various projects were launched, involving adaptation of the environment to the new blueprint. The flexible environment so created is thereby far more in harmony with ongoing developments at the college.

The form of the resulting infrastructure also had immediate and positive repercussions, for example for the Student Tracking System and the Timetabling package, allowing those involved to speak much more about what is possible, rather than about what is impossible.

The harmonisation so achieved between strategic and tactical information policy and the blueprint allows greatly improved control and management of the college’s ICT infrastructure.