Architectural Goals and Constraints

Below is a subset of the requirements that have the most impact on the Integration Framework Architecture.

1. Agnostic – The Architecture should be platform-independent and technology neutral.
2. Flexible – The architecture should deliver services to a variety of channels and touch points
3. Changeable – The architecture should leverage existing components today and provide an easy migration path for leveraging emerging technologies. This will allow to effectively minimize the impact of future efforts to reduce costs and/or increase efficiency.
4. Non-Intrusive – The architecture should have minimal initial impact on existing legacy applications.
5. Reliable – Reliability should be an inherent consideration of this architecture.  It is accomplished primarily by the physical architecture (infrastructure).  Technologies such as fail-over clusters and distributed system management can be used to promote reliability. Reliability should also be supported by the Integration Frameworks with such features as:
   • Coding best practices
   • Documentation best practices
   • Results mapped to project deliverables and requriements
   • Automated online testing and debugging  hooks
   • Instrumentation
6. Secure – The architecture should be built around a robust security model.
7. Loosely-coupled. The architecture should provide a set of interfaces that are loosely bound to their respective implementation (underlying technology).  Service implementations should be allowed to change with no impact on the service by defining stable framework interfaces.
8. Scalable – Scalability is primarily a function of the physical architecture.

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