Using ARIS for documenting IT infrastructure

 maybe this can give you an idea: http://www.ariscommunity.com/users/wm/2009-11-11-showcase-full-stack-it-concept-5-steps-it-infrastructure-architecture-step-4a

walter

Which ARIS product do you have in mind, Express?

We've got ARIS 7.1, so I'm more interested in using it. 

Please specify Business or IT Architect/Designer and are your objectives and the business case you want to support? There are some quite good methods for IT infrastructure in the Business Architect but naturally they are extended in the IT Architect. In any case both are intended for conceptual and logical design and analysis. For the actual IT  infrastructure management the ARIS IT Inventory should be used alone or in combination with CMDB.

But as you mentioned the IT lanscape I assume you are referring to a broader domain. So ARIS business architect could be used quite well for design and analysis of the IT Lanscape. Even for IT landscape planning as you can use Project Schedule which will show different views of your plan depending on which time attribute of the Application System Type you choose as position attribute. But the really powerful application landscape management method is Process Support Map available in ARIS IT Architect. It has powerful simulation capabilities based multi-dimensional planning and what-if scenarios.

 Thanks Ivo,

Yes, I'll be using ARIS Business Designer. The objective is to have a conceptual map of existing IT infrastructure. By modelling it, I plan to show existing application and infrastructure dependencies with an aim to support change management activities.

We're not using ARIS IT Architect however the functionality you mention seems very interesting. Something we might be interested in.

Thanks again for your insight.

Even w/o IT Designer you have plenty of possibilities. The central object is the Application System Type (AST) which could be used with different symbols to represent rigid applications, application components, application services etc. So an AST:

• supports different activities in different processes [EPC: AST supports Function], and the you maintain the Business-Application connections
• is part of the applications landscape and belongs to certain application domain [Application System Type Diagram: AST -> Application System classes]
• uses different technologies (OS, DBMS, programming languages, environments, procedures) and is under responsibility of different people, organizations [Access Diagram]
• has capabilities [Application System Type Diagram: AST->capabilities]
• Has its structure [Application System Type Diagram, AST - AST]
• Has output in input interfaces, data, protocols [Program Flow Chart: AST<transmits data to> AST], see this discussion for some viewpoints and insights, as well as this one
• it's testing, phase-in or phase out is planned (Project Schedule), you can even do simple simulations by changing the position attribute used for AST position in time
• Has the following instances (concrete installations) [Application system diagram], that's where you link you logical with your physical level
• the application instances run on (HW), are at (location) and under responsibility of, etc etc [Access Diagram (physical); and this is your link Applications - Infrastructure
• the application instances run on machines which have exact location in the network [Network diagram]

So you have pretty much everything even w/o IT Architect.

Regards

Ivo

Hi Ivo

We would like to create an IT landscape as-is and to-be using Business Designer?

We would like reuse the objects in the to-be landscape and still be able to alter their attributes e.g the description, without changing the description for all occurence copies of that object.  As Business Designer does not support variant copies and a new definition copy would be too confusing to, how would you then go about to model the to-be landscape? Do you have any suggestions?

Kind regards

John