Practical challenges in modeling complex systems and understanding the overall architecture
Properly operating enterprise architecture provides tremendous opportunities to find effective ways of applying technologies. However, if the enterprise architecture works poorly, the consequences can be negative since the precious resources of the organization will be depleted (Weilkiens, Lamm, Roth, & Walker, 2016). More often it happens that way in organizations.
One cannot ignore the benefits that provide efficient enterprise architecture, namely cost reduction, revenue growth, improved processes, and new business opportunities. At the same time, we cannot ignore the risks arising from the use of inefficient enterprise architectures: high costs, a deadlock of the technological solutions, and reduced confidence in the leadership.
Enterprise architecture aims to facilitate and improve the use of technologies during business processes. However, some companies invest an impressive amount of money for the creation of the architecture that results in poor effect and efficiency. Unsuccessful projects that cost hundreds of millions of dollars can be found in the public and private sectors as well.
Below are three main reasons for costly mishaps. The first reason is the overreliance of recursive methods. The second reason is the erroneous belief that the creation of enterprise architecture means the creation of a detailed plan for the entire organization. The last but not the least is the inability to divide the system into parts that are easy to control.
Identification and assessment of risks despite limited and uneven transparency across large systems architecture
Transparency is of paramount importance. When it comes to networking, the more transparent the structure is, the better one understands and controls used applications and hardware infrastructure. The infrastructure is now becoming more and more difficult. With increasing speeds and volumes of data passing through the network, monitoring, management, and data protection will also require more resources. Network transparency is characterized by its architecture (Cox, 2009). The architecture of transparency collects, manages, and distributes the data for monitoring and analysis. It is perfect for cost savings, providing reliability, and stability. The economic benefits of transparency networks are also indisputable.
The architectural approach of transparency allows responding to the immediate requirements of the network growth, as well as management, access control, and value (Cox, 2009). This architecture allows the optimization of the performance. With the ability to access applications at a low level, the team can go instantly from a high-level metrics to the smallest detail, to determine the causes of the problems and take immediate actions to eliminate them.
Identification of a responsible person for treating certain risks within a complex system
The major objective of complex systems is to be effective in solving certain tasks. To guarantee the work and the task performance, the system should work with a minimum amount of mistakes. With the consideration of the fact that the system should ensure the long-term performance, the security of the system is as important as its creation. That is, every enterprise hires people or even departments who are responsible for checking the system, evaluating risk, and eliminating them.
The use of third-party components adding complexity to the risk assessment process
The modern demand for systems is high. The system should not only perform the primary tasks but other functions as well that will make the system more complex and more attractive for the public. In the modern stage of development, the systems that guarantee the highest productivity are invented but the question is related to the issue of how to make the system attractive and unordinary for the users (Ritson & Welch, 2010).
Thus, the use of third-party components is an essential factor for the realization of the stated above goal. The more elements are involved in the system, the more complex it is, and the more some components of the system may be at the risk of failure to work. For example, Microsoft developed Windows XP that was understandable and easy, however, with the modernization of the market Microsoft developed Windows Vista that contained third-party components, however, it failed to succeed. The elements corresponded to the needs of the users; however, together they worked not properly.
The enterprise’s risk treatment options concerning the use of third party components
Under the risk, people understand something that may occur in the future with a certain probability and cause some damage. The risk may be the result of both action and inaction. It consequently leads to the fact that if we do nothing, it is still a risk (Whitman & Mattord, 2011). Therefore, risk is an integral part of our daily life. The usage of technologies is always associated with some risks. Risks are essential to be taken into consideration in the situation when the system requires the work of the technologies.
The third-party components make the system more complex. It is impossible to guarantee constant work and security of every element of the complex systems. Realizing the possibility that some elements of the system may fail to perform, professionals should have a plan for the exploitation of the system to get the desired outcome. It is significantly important to forecast possible risks and be able to react appropriately. In case of the risk, the element should be substituted and replaced.
The checking processes should occur to reduce the possibility of risk to a minimum. For example, Apple developed iOS that can be considered as one of the most stable operating systems because the company aims to eliminate the risks and follows appropriate methods of risk treatment. Before the upgrade of the system, they provide the users with a beta test and gather the feedback to improve the work of the system.
References
Cox, L. (2009). Risk analysis of complex and uncertain systems. New York, NY: Springer. Web.
Ritson, C., & Welch, P. (2010). A process-oriented architecture for complex system modelling. Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, 22(8), 965-980. Web.
Weilkiens, T., Lamm, J., Roth, S., & Walker, M. (2016). Model-based system architecture. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Web.
Whitman, M., & Mattord, H. (2011). Roadmap to information security: For IT and InfoSec managers. Boston, MA: Course Technology/Cengage Learning. Web.