IT Infrastructure & Enterprise Architecture

This report discusses the importance of enterprise architecture in establishing IT infrastructure and making design choices for optimal performance. It explores different architectural frameworks and recommends a hybrid network architecture for EDISON INTERNATIONAL. The report also discusses how to organize users for security purposes and provides a conclusion on the recommended architecture.

Running head: IT INFRASTRUCTURE & ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE 1
IT Infrastructure & Enterprise Architecture
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Introduction
Enterprise architecture is important for an organization to establish their IT infrastructure
as it provides the blueprint from which application and systems get deployed on an enterprise
scale. Choosing the best architecture that suits a particular business model is the sole
responsibility of the IT architect. It involves rationalizing what type of enterprise application the
business shall utilize, whether the application shall be centralized or decentralized, the
geographical location covered by the enterprise, the number of the employee who occupies a
different niche within the enterprise [1]. The aim of having this architectural overviews of the
enterprise IT environment is to reduce the complexity of the system by only focusing on the
abstract and high-level view which is key for improvement and decision making. In this report,
we have given a methodological approach that IT architects undergo to arrive at the best
enterprise architecture that is suitable for a given scenario. Different architectures are based on
different frameworks which are just guides to building an optimized architecture that meets
business needs, the key among the includes, centralized, decentralized, distributed and hybrid
[2]
related things from the chapters
Several concepts can be drawn from the chapters already covered to make the best
decision in setting up the architecture. Firs, the concept of the backbone network is key in setting
up enterprise architecture as it simplify how data will be travel from the enterprise within the
various department and remote global branches. The backbone network setup ensures high
availability of bandwidth between different enterprise applications. Second, the concept of VPN
is highly referenced in the report as it explains how the enterprise architecture will handle remote

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employees who would wish to connect to the headquarters via the untrusted Internet [3]. Thirdly,
the various vendor-specific architecture such as the cisco’s layered architecture which try to
emulate the OSI layers into IT infrastructure to provide redundancy, reliability and fault
tolerance.
Why?
What
type of
network design would be the most appropriate for EDISON INTERNATIONAL? Why?
EDISON INTERNATIONAL most adaptable enterprise architecture is the hybrid
network architecture which after a thorough analysis of the situation is considered the most
suited approach for the company. The IT architect should consider the setup of a more
hybridized network by the use of an active director used to control the security of the
applications, users and systems. The hybrid model allows centralization of some core business
application using the client-server architecture whiledecentralisation other systems and
applications in the various locations. It is, however, worthy to note that hybrid approach exhibits
the centralized decentralization making it one of the most robust IT infrastructure models [4].

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Most notable methodology to implement this architecture is the implementation of Citrix
with Microsoft’s active directory service to ensure all the users and computers of the company
are controlled and under one administrator [5].
The main reason why this architecture is most important for the company scenario is that,
it will enable all the employees of EDISON INTERNATIONAL to have access to all the
computing resources of the company and services despite their geographical boundaries. No
restriction will exist since all the employees shall be able to access the resources even if not on
their own workstation. All the security measures shall be centralized and to provide a more
robust way of managing security
With this architecture, the various employees working for EDISON INTERNATIONAL
will be able to access the company’s applications and services from the various geographical

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locations removing the need to be using their own system setups to access the company’s
enterprise applications [6]
The diagram below shows an architectural view of an VPN using VPN services to access
services from the core VPN
How can you organize users for security purposes?
Here, the first step is to define all the organisational units which shall be used as some virtual block
inside the active directory structure. This structure shall define what the authenticated user can have
access to while on the company’s network. The various policies defined by the admin can either application

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specific and or OS-wide policies. Take, for example, we take EDISON INTERNATIONAL as whole
organizational unity [7].
The general policy is that each authenticated user should only access his /her details but not
allowed to access other people within the organization. Within the umbrella organizational unit, there will be
sub-organizational block units such as Finance, HR, Marketing, etc. Each separate sub-organizational units
shall have its own set of policies in terms of security and access rights and permissions but all of them shall
inherit the core policies defined in the parent organizational unit.For Example, If we consider the whole
organization as one Organizational unit, each employee within the organization will be able to
check his/her details but not for others [8].
Similarly, within The organization there will be various sub-organizational units like
HR, Finance, Marketing, etc. Hence, the access and security will be separately defined for sub-
organizational units and also they will inherit the properties of the parent Organizational unit.
Hence, managing various applications within such vast geography will be time and cost

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consuming. Providing a cost and time effective solution - a hybrid network will be the most
optimal for the given situation [9].
The architectural framework shall include a Multiprotocol Label Switching services that
shall ensure traffic is encrypted and meets the Quality of Service for the company’s traffic.
There shall be a gigabit connection using the IPv6 between the internal firewall and the
VPN network. This shall ensure only the authorized traffic goes into the internal network and
again only authorized traffic can leave
There shall be a remote site within the VPN network that shall be used primarily for the
backup and or Mirror services to ensure the network is fault tolerant and can ensure disaster
recover and business continuity operations are done in case of catastrophic or network attacks
on the company’s network

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Policies shall be written to ensure the company’s critical data and or SharePoint are only
accessed as used as per the business needs. Once the policies are written for the parent
organization, each of the security zones shall inherit the policies and add their own sub-
organizational security policies that is best suited for the sub-organization. This will create an
architecture that is scalable, robust and efficient to maintain. The VPN core will handle all the
multiple layer switching capabilities for other sub-organizational routers hence will be situated
close to theheadquarters in OSPF area 0 [10]
Conclusion
In enterprise architectures needs careful design choices made o ensure the enterprise
application runs without glitches. This report has analyzed the scenario above and gave the
recommended the company to implement hybrid IT infrastructure enterprise architecture to
ensure that all the branches are not only controlled but also robust and efficient in terms of their
performance. The report has made architectural design layout of the various network
infrastructure devises to ensure proper redundancy and fault tolerance within the network.

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