Starting in 2000 the Department of Technology Services initiated an Enterprise Architecture program that resulted in the official publishing of the Montgomery County Technical Architecture document in 2003. The architecture has been updated on a roughly yearly basis since that time.

The County’s Enterprise Architecture effort is based around maintaining an Enterprise Architecture that defines the following:

• Business Architecture – defines the business strategy, processes, business domains, and governance
• Technical Architecture – defines the IT infrastructure and standards
• Data Architecture – defines the business physical and logical data structure and its data management policies and governance
• Application Architecture – Application architecture and standards
• Performance Architecture - Business and EA Domain metrics

Each component architecture is interelated and supportive of the others. The sum total of all the subcomponent architectures make up the County Enterprise Architecture Standard. The relationships among the component architectures is illustrated in the following diagram:

The County has one Enterprise Architecture that is released as a rollup Architecture Document and the 5 subcomponent architectures. At this point the Business, Technical and Performance subcomponent Architectures are available.

Rollup Enterprise Architecture Document

• Enterprise Architecture

Subcomponent Architecture Documents

• Business Architecture
• Technical Architecture 
• Data Architecture(Future)
• Application Architecture (Future)
• Performance Architecture

The latest official release of the Technical Architecture document is dated March 16, 2011.

The latest official release of both the Business and Performance Architecture documents is dated March 16, 2011.

The purpose of the Enterprise Architecture is to communicate:

• the results of County business decisions (related to IT);
• the County IT Architecture and infrastructure;
• how the County manages its data; and
• how the County builds or acquires applications.

In general, it communicates how the organization has invested in its IT infrastructure (including hardware, software, processes and people). The County continues to make significant investments in IT and must communicate to many parties how future investments align or impact the architecture and infrastructure.

Strategic Standards

The Enterprise Architecture presents well-defined, strategic standards adopted for the development and delivery of the County’s information systems. It provides a cohesive blueprint to optimally design, purchase, develop, deploy and manage information systems for the County. The components of the overall infrastructure are shown in the next figure:

 
The Framework may be defined as a collection of the follow­ing interrelated 28 component architectures or domains:

• Active Directory and Single Sign On Services - single enterprise technology directory service that enhances security and efficiency
• Data Security Domain - implementing secure access control management
• Desktop Domain - defining desktop computing standards
• Email Domain - increasing operational efficiencies through a single enterprise email service
• Help Desk - providing assistance to the County
• Geographic Information System– delivering cartographic data and location services
• Record and Document Management Domain - advancing automation
• Reporting Domain– optimizing software licenses and increasing efficiency through a central reporting service 
• Enterprise Applications Domain - automating business processes
• Web Applications Domain – developing and deploying applications rapidly
• Service Enabled Domain – avoiding stovepipe applications by supporting standard data exchanges through Web Services and a Enterprise Service Bus.
• Deployment Domain - utilizing resources and sharing costs through standardized servers running as VM Guests on Virtual Hosting Machines.
• Mainframe Application Services - integrating core business processes  (planned to be retired) 
• Network Domain - empowering common infrastructure
• Cabling Requirements and Standards Domain - Cabling and wiring standards
• PBX Domain - supplying quality landline services efficiently through an Enterprise PBX
• Interactive Voice Response Domain - integrating IT and Telephony
• Enterprise Hosting Infrastructure Domain - hosting enterprise applications in a secure hosting environment
• Enterprise File Service Domain - centralized shared Enterprise File Service
• Enterprise Print Service Domain - centralized shared Enterprise Print Server
• Database Hosting Infrastructure Domain - database hosting
• System Operations Domain – Enterprise Backup/Data Center Server and Appliance Hosting
• Team Collaboration Domain – providing group collaboration
• Configuration Management (CM) Tools Domain – providing CM Tools Support
• Enterprise Server Management Domain – providing Enterprise Server Management
• Software as a Service (SaaS) – providing support for SaaS applications
• Web Portal Domain – providing Internet and Intranet web portals
• Disaster Recovery - providing IT Disaster Recovery (under construction)
• Mobile Computing Domain - providing mobile device support (under construction)

The customer oriented domains are offered as shared Enterprise Services to County Departments, Groups, and Agencies and are documented internally on the Department of Technology Services Intranet Home Page.

Enterprise Architecture Slices

The DTS Enterprise Architect creates domain specific enterprise architecture slices as project and business need arise.  Each slice covers a specific domain and is meant to fullfill either a project or program need.  The slice is meant to do a deeper dive into a specific domain while inheriting all the properties of the County Enterprise Architecture.  The slice is maintained as the need continues and as the domain users remain engaged and supportive.  

Policies and Procedures

• Use of the Enterprise Architecture in RFPs and Contracts