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Building Knowledge of the World, in Small Steps - “Wikitecture”

One of the purpose in standardising architecture models is making it easier to share. This isn’t the whole story, however, if all we end up doing is starting afresh or recreating models. The point of re-use isn’t just financial (although it saves money) - it’s that it allows us to add to what has been modelled before.

If everyone keeps adding to the model what we are effectively adding is knowledge through the elements and relationships. If many organisations or individuals add to the model(s) we have the modelling equivalent of a wiki - hence the term “wikitecture”. This makes much more sense that hiding models behind corporate walls.

If anyone is interested in adding to the demo model or wants part of it to develop using TRAK then please contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
- it’ll be open source. I have some ideas in terms of how this might work using open source code repositories.

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Thoughts - “The TRAK Enterprise”

This article presents some musings on how TRAK as an enterprise might be represented and how it might work. Needless to say there is an architecture description underpinning this!

• Capability Perspective - what are the likely goals?
• Concept Perspective - logical needs, connectivity & exchanges
• Solution Perspective - aspects of a possible solution

Concept Perspective

What Does the TRAK Enterprise Consist of - Conceptually?

If TRAK is considered to be a standard then what would we need to maintain it, what would would we need to support the users (architects, tool vendors, browsers etc) and how does it fit together? Indeed where does it stop and something else start i.e. what is the boundary of the ‘TRAK Enterprise’ "system"?

Fig. 1 - CV-01 The Needs of "The TRAK Enterprise"

Figure 1, TRAK::CV-01 - The Needs of "The TRAK Enterprise", attempts to show a boundary - light blue background - within which the ‘TRAK Enterprise’ might exist and logically how it depends on things outside the boundary (and vice versa).

The logical things inside the ‘TRAK Enterprise’ boundary listed below in Table 1.

The logical things outside the ‘TRAK Enterprise’ boundary are listed below in Table 2.

Of course this isn’t quite right yet as it should also include ‘Training Providers’. This is one of the points of modelling and trying to draw something visually - it slows you down and forces you to think. The metamodel provides the skeleton upon which you hang your ideas and it also provides a sort of filter to view the real world and tease of the types of thig it consists of.

Anyway, more to follow as the thoughts unfold ....

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Demonstration Repository - TRAK - UK Rail Research, Strategy & Regulation, et al

A demonstration or sample repository has been created (and is ongoing) with the following aims:-

• testing the framework out - is it capable of representing the types of thing and relationships/dependencies in the rail and other industries (TRAK is a generic framework)?

• testing the plugin for Sparx Systems’ Enterprise Architect - see also Sparx Systems
• developing the higher levels of a modelling repository - enterprise/capability, operational and the major projects and organisations
• providing a set of objects that can be re-used
• personal learning - interested to understand where everything fits
• example of modelling using the framework so that others can get a feel for types of views, contents and organisation of models for easy navigation/understanding [not easy!]

It contains a partial description of UK transport strategy together with elements of the technical research and regulation of the rail sector. It also contains views attempting to place the UK anti-/counter-terrorist (CONTEST) in context. It is a (slowly!) evolving thing.

Demo Repository

The demo repository is at http://trak-community.org/TRAK_Demo_Repository/index.htm

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