What is Enterprise Architecture?

Enterprise Architecture is the process by which organizations standardize and organize IT infrastructure to align with enterprise goals.

Enterprise Architecture Standards

The ARB defines the bar for OIT work by writing and disseminating standards. Our goal is to write standards that help teams work faster by making it easier to integrate with the campus’s technology environment.

ARB Standards are currently being updated to use a uniform template. (Access requires a campus network access or VPN).

• All the updated standards can be found on ARB’s GitHub page. (Access requires a campus network access or VPN).
• The older standards are still on ARB’s wiki (requires login) and will move as they get updated

Scope	Standard	Type	Last review
UCI	UCI Application Authentication and Authorization – determine who can log in and who can do what	Standard	2016-05
UCI	UCI User Account Names – keep user names consistent between services	Standard	2016-07
UCI	UCI Use CampusID for Tracking Identity – keep users consistent between services	Standard	2017-02
UCI	UCI DNS Standard – naming machines	Standard	2018-02
UCI	UCI @UCI.EDU Email Namespace Standard – provisioning email addresses	Standard	2018-06
OIT	OIT Version Control – keep track of code and configuration changes	Standard	2022-10
OIT	OIT Data and Process Integration Guidelines – push data between services	Guideline	2017-10
OIT	OIT System Monitoring Guideline – tracking health of systems	Guideline	2018-05
OIT	OIT Key Management Standard – making encryption safe and secure	Standard	2018-06
OIT	OIT Standard for Documentation Relating to Projects – track and report on your projects	Standard	2018-07
OIT	OIT Host Name Guideline – name your boxes	Guideline	2018-09
OIT	OIT Disaster Recovery Tiers – prepare for the worst	Reference	2018-02
OIT	OIT Application Load Balancing Guideline – use load balancers for high availability	Guideline	2019-01
OIT	Secret Storage Guideline – store and use secrets like database passwords	Guideline	2024-02
UCI	OS Fitness – the OS versions OIT supports	Standard	2024-09
OIT	Browser Support – the browsers our web properties test with	Standard	2024-09

ARB Recommendations

The ARB community keeps a regularly-updated list of recommendations (login required) documenting what tools OIT is currently using. This list can be helpful if you’re looking for a software solution for a particular problem, looking to connect with other teams using a tool, or researching the pros and cons of your options.

Domain	Definition	Last review
Development Language Recommendations	What people are using to talk to the computer	2024-02
Identity, Authentication, and Authorization Recommendations	What people are using to know which people should be allowed in, and what they can do when they get there	2024-03
Team Collaboration & Project Management Recommendations	What people are using to talk inside their teams	2024-03
Editor and IDE Recommendations	What people are using to get ideas into the computer	2024-03
Security Recommendations	What people are using to keep their systems safe	2024-04
Business Intelligence Recommendations	What people are using to better understand their data	2024-04
Application Infrastructure Recommendations	What people are using to let systems talk to each other	2023-09
Frontend Web Tools	What people are using client side to make their applications more responsive	2024-09
Backend Web Frameworks	What people are using server side to make services and web apps	2024-08
Operations Management Recommendations	What people are using to keep track of all this other stuff	2024-09
Web Form Recommendations	What people are using to get feedback from lots of people	2023-11
Database Recommendations	What people are using for SQL data	2024-08
Platform Recommendations	What people are using to run all this other stuff on	2024-09
JDK (Java Development Kit) Recommendations	What people are using to get Java running	2024-08

The Architecture Review Board (ARB)

At UCI, Enterprise Architecture is coordinated by the Architecture Review Board (ARB), which brings together technology leaders from across the Office of Information Technology (OIT) and the campus community.

The heterogeneous technology environment at UCI has grown organically over decades, with different parts of the organization using wholly different technologies, toolsets, and development methodologies. The ARB meets monthly to bring these diverse groups together and develop an institutional perspective, identify areas of possible change, and work toward more unified practices.

The Architecture Review Board Charge

The ARB charge helps inform where we spend our time and attention. There are three pillars that define what ARB tries to accomplish, each with three supporting practices that make those goals concrete.

1. Define the bar for OIT work
   1. Set practices as Standards and Guidelines, demarcating the hard and soft expectations of the OIT community
   2. Provide Recommendations and Standards of Practice to foster community and share knowledge
   3. Make clear when exceptions are available and how to obtain them
2. Promote standards and best practices
   1. Host conversations that will lead to new collaborations, new solutions, and new documentation
   2. Bridge teams and divisions to connect people who might otherwise duplicate effort
   3. Champion good ideas to broaden their reach
3. Explore new products, technologies, and practices
   1. Offer expert opinion to evaluate what’s novel
   2. Research and understand industry trends and work to integrate them into our environment
   3. Streamline adoptions that will help UCI fulfill its mission

ARB Leadership

Co-Chairs: Dana Watanabe & Seth A. Roby (email the chairs)
Executive Sponsor: Henry Jenkins
Voting members: the current voting members, as well as their responsibilities, are listed here (login required).

ARB Meetings

Meetings are held on the third Tuesday of the month at 2 pm. Additional meetings for subgroups and follow-ups are scheduled as needed.

The meeting agenda is posted two weeks before each call. See the meeting notes on the OIT Wiki (login required).

ARB Subgroups

Between our monthly meetings, other subgroups meet to define, promote, and explore. The following groups are currently active:

• Containerization Interest Group
• Infrastructure as Code Interest Group
• Logging Baseline working group
• ARB Document Publication working group

Current work

• Maintaining the Recommendations Lists
• Tracking ongoing AWS Migrations
• Drafting a standard to ensure teams can ensure their logs are sufficient and compliant
• Drafting Published Technical Strategies to guide wider UCI decision-making
• Creating a new intake process to ensure major projects get reviewed by the ARB
• Standardizing Minimum Service Requirements so that our recommendations guarantee more
• Documenting Deployment Patterns across OIT in hopes of writing a guideline on best practices, or a standard to require some practices

Recent Work

• Updated our Browser Support docs to track features, not versions (2024-09)
• Created a system to track OS Fitness (2024-09)
• Approved the Secret Storage Guidelines (2024-02)
• Updated the Inclusive Language Guideline (2023-05)