What is BIAN
BIAN is the Banking Industry Architecture Network. The BIAN Service Landscape is a blueprint for the logical components of a bank’s IT environment. Leveraging this blueprint and the Service Domain Specifications will speed up architecture initiatives—be it in the planning of change initiatives, in the procurement of components, or benchmarking of an existing landscape against best practices.
TOGAF vs BIAN & Navigate
We have not aligned BIAN to Conexiam Navigate.
When we integrate BIAN, we follow the guidance in the Leader's Guide, replace rather than re-imagine. If you are in Financial Services, adopt the BIAN Service Landscape concepts and abandon generic concepts like the TOGAF Enterprise Metamodel.
Integrating the TOGAF Standard with the BIAN Service Landscape is available from The Open Group publications library and BIAN.
TOGAF vs BIAN - Content Framework
The TOGAF Standard is modular, scalable, and configurable. By design, the TOGAF framework is not prescriptive. The TOGAF framework provides the universal essential scaffolding for the three central problems facing enterprise architects:
- How to describe an enterprise architecture
- What is needed to have an enterprise architecture capability
- How to develop an enterprise architecture
The BIAN Service Landscape is a blueprint for the logical components of a bank’s IT environment. A logical blueprint for a bank's IT environment. It is an industry specific reference architecture.
How Does BIAN Stack-Up as an Architecture Framework?
When evaluating BIAN, we need to know what to look for. When evaluating enterprise architecture frameworks, we are looking for the essential scaffolding.
What to look for in an Enterprise Architecture Framework
We look for tools and method, these elements all go into an optimized enterprise architecture framework.
Tools can include:
- Analytic Models
- Viewpoint Library
- Reference Architectures
- Architecture Specifications
- Deliverables
Method will address:
- Architecture Development Method
- Transition to Implementation
- Implementation Governance
- Enterprise Architecture Work Management
When compared to all the things needed in an optimized framework, BIAN is a great set of reference architectures. However, for an architecture framework it has holes. This does not mean there are no BIAN framework uses cases. It means that an optimized framework needs more.
BIAN Framework |
|
Tools | |
Analytic Models | Limited
Service Landscape is IT-oriented and supports analysis of how well systems support business operations. |
Viewpoint Library | Missing |
Reference Architecture |
BIAN Service Landscape is a great reference architecture:
|
Architecture Specifications | Missing |
Deliverables | Missing |
Method | |
Architecture Development Method | Missing |
Transition to Implementation | Missing |
Implementation Governance | Missing |
Enterprise Architecture Work Management | Missing |
TOGAF vs BIAN
BIAN Framework | TOGAF Framework | Optimize Your EA Framework | |
Tools | |||
Analytic Models | Limited
Service Landscape is IT-oriented and supports analysis of how well systems support business operations. |
Limited
|
Unless you have an IT-oriented use case, find the complete scope of analytic models.
For example, even in an IT-oriented use case questions like cost, modernization, and risk require specific analytic models. |
Viewpoint Library | Missing | Template in Practitioner's Guide | Start with Practitioner's Guide |
Reference Architecture |
BIAN Service Landscape is a great reference architecture:
|
Limited and an odd assortment:
|
Start with BIAN.
Find any additional reference architectures your use case requires. For example, even in an IT-oriented use case you may be looking for cloud infrastructure or IT Operations reference architectures.
|
Architecture Specifications | Missing | Limited | |
Deliverables | Missing | Topical list | Identify the deliverables your optimized framework requires |
Method | |||
Architecture Development Method | Missing | Comprehensive Architecture Development Method is generic method covering many enterprise architecture use cases.
Specific how-to methods include:
|
Convert the TOGAF ADM to work management aligned to your enterprise architecture use case |
Transition to Implementation | Missing | Phase E (Opportunities & Solutions) and Phase F (Implementation Planning) in Comprehensive Architecture Development Method | Convert the TOGAF ADM to enterprise planning aligned with your use case |
Implementation Governance | Missing | Phase G (Implementation Governance) in Comprehensive Architecture Development Method | Convert the TOGAF ADM to enterprise execution aligned with your use case |
Enterprise Architecture Work Management | Missing | Missing | Develop a work management approach |
Let’s then conduct a brief comparison between the two frameworks and highlight some of the unique features of each framework.
The BIAN Service Landscape is a blueprint for the logical components of a bank’s IT environment. A logical blueprint for a bank's IT environment. Sounds like an industry specific reference architecture.
TOFGAF vs BIAN aligning concepts
TOGAF's architecture continuum explains how to integrate the BIAN Service Landscape into your architecture.
BIAN provides an industry specific IT architecture. If you work in financial services and you are not using BIAN, you are choosing to slow down your delivery of useful enterprise architecture.
TOGAF vs BIAN: Play to their Strengths
Both the TOGAF standard and BIAN are exhaustive. TOGAF addresses all three enterprise architecture challenges in a way that is industry agnostic. BIAN specializes in IT environment in the financial industry.
The joint Open Group / BIAN paper, Integrating the TOGAF Standard with the BIAN Service Landscape, brings these two frameworks together and shows banking industry architects the opportunity they have to reap the synergies of both frameworks and speed up their work.
The key constituents of the BIAN Service Landscape are:
- Business Area: A Business Area groups together a broad set of business capabilities. They define them to be aspects of business activity that have similar supporting application and information-specific needs (e.g., “Operations & Execution”, “Reference Data”, “Sales & Service”).
- Business Domain: Defines a coherent collection of capabilities within a Business Area. They associate Business Domains with skills and knowledge recognizable in the banking business (e.g., “Payments” as a Business Domain within the Business Area “Operations & Execution”).
- BIAN Service Domain: The finest level of partitioning. Defining unique and discrete business capabilities. The BIAN Service Domains are the “elemental building blocks” of a service landscape (e.g., “Payments Execution” is a BIAN Service Domain within the “Payments” Business Domain).
- Service Group: A set of Service Operations, is owned by a BIAN Service Domain. It is an interface to the BIAN Service Domain. We define it in terms of business semantics rather than in technical IT terms (e.g., “manage payment order”).
- Service Operation: Represents a service defined at the level of business semantics, specifying the access to one or more capabilities of a BIAN Service Domain (e.g., “execute payment order” or “update payment order” are Service Operations of the Service Group “manage payment order”).