Strategic Open ArchitectureOpen Architecture (OA) serves the strategic goals of the Enterprise. It frames the Enterprise's social structure, business model, how business functions are to be realized, and conformance. All too often, the scope of OA is limited to system engineering concerns, which can lead to initial tactical success, but long-term strategic failure.At Douglas Gregory Consulting, the emphasis is on complete OA solutions.StrategyThe design of OA is not the same as system engineering. It is the alignment of system engineering concerns with the business concerns of the Enterprise stakeholders. Often OA business transactions follow different pathways to the system engineering business transactions. In many cases, there is no single entity in control of the OA.GovernanceThe primary view of OA is the governance model, which defines the ownership of other architecture views, and the required workflows and transactions across ownership boundaries. Often the governance view must be negotiated and renegotiated throughout the OA lifecycle.ManagementOA is a mix of consensus standards and the market-based activities of the participants in the Enterprise. The principal role of management in OA is ensure that the actions and joint actions of participants are consistent with the strategy and governance model, and take corrective action as required.Architecture DesignAn OA can comprise four interlocking architectural realms under different governance. The most abstract and far reaching is the Information Architecture, which is primarily concerned with system (or system of systems) interoperability and composability at the conceptual and semantic level. The architectural style may include a service-oriented architecture (SOA) and data model. It is often standards based, but locally extensible.The Information Architecture will often be implemented in multiple software platform technologies that are also standards based. Platform multiplicity is achieved using model-based system engineering (MBSE) and platform-independent versus platform-specific models.The third architectural realm is the component architecture, which is market based rather than standards based. Each component may represent a discrete ownership boundary and intellectual property in the Enterprise. However, product visibility and business trust is critical to the working of the OA, through a well-governed ‘app store' or repository. The OA must also offer market incentives for participants to invest in product line strategies.The final architectural realm is the fielded system configuration, which is acquired and engineered through the traditional acquisition systems and system engineering processes. It must be assumed that the program manager will adopt and stick with OA if and only if it meets their needs. They may have conflicting requirements to be reconciled.Business ModelAn OA is explicitly or implicitly a business model. No technical solution will succeed if it does not align with the business goals of the participants in the Enterprise. A common problem during the material solution analysis phase is to validate the operational aspects of an OA but not the business aspects. Stakeholder management is key to OA, where no stakeholder concerns are ‘off the table'.EducationOA is a new discipline that is rapidly evolving. Whereas system engineering integrates diverse technical disciplines, OA goes further and integrates system engineering with business models, interlocking industrial systems, and geopolitical objectives. A potential barrier to OA adoption is lack of knowledge of the topic and no common understanding between stakeholders.

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