Does anyone really understand the TOGAF concept of "building blocks"?

nterestingly, I just received an e-mail circulated by one of the
guys in the TOGAF forum working on the Ontology for SOA. He too
(a very active TOGAF forum member) raised a discussion on the
definition of a building block.
Sometimes its these terms we have all been bandying about for
years that are hardest to agree the definition of.
Part of his proposed definition went as follows:
"A Building Block is an abstraction of a component of a system
(where "system" and "component" are as defined in IEEE 1471)."
He went on to explain, "When an architect is developing an
architecture, he or she does not work with real components, but
works rather with descriptions of idealised components, called
building blocks. For example (to extend an example that will be
familiar to the SOA Ontology team), Joe is planning to build an
automatic car wash. He does not just go out and buy a plot of
land and order a car wash machine, and hope that when the
machine arrives it will fit on the plot of land that he has
bought in a way that allows people to drive in and use it
easily. Instead, he draws plans on paper showing the plot of
land and the position of the car wash machine on it, with
entrance and exit routes, payment kiosk, etc. He is working
with a set of architecture Building Blocks, which include "plot
of land" and "car wash machine".
This prompted me to pose the following observations / questions
back to the forum members:
"You could be talking about a pattern, or indeed a reference
model. You also mentioned the confusion between building blocks
and components.
I couldn't help wondering if there is a hierarchy of
- components
- that together make up building blocks,
- that together make up patterns,
- that together make up a reference model.
All are, as you say, abstract representations of the real
components, building blocks etc."
It would be interesting to hear your thoughts...

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2 Replies

0

Jayant Dani replied Jan 19, 2011

It is true in sense of understanding , currently I am working creating a ABB and SBB for the few Reusable blocks, Now I like create new term called Reusable Block (RB).
ABB and SBB of the TOGAF defination has lots of gray area which can be interpreted from code snippnet to EAS. But do not give any clarity what we are looking for, In your case explained , I will say that
CAR is Reusable block with following item
a. ABB for CAR which specified the Car as external specification and services should have,
b, SBB for Car which is detail technical specification like engine type, capacity etc
c. Actual solution -- Ex. Toyata camry, ford Punto etc,
In typical sense , Archiects or solution desinger is looking for Ford Punto but he is talking about mix of ABB and SBB as block and get round and round,
We need to creatre a RB such that there is
one ABB,
one SBB
and Multiple implementation SBB it really become Building Block.
Cheers
Jayant Dani
Solution Archiect , Togaf Certified,

0

Marc Mc Rae replied Jan 19, 2011

I too would be interested in a lot more information around TOGAF & EA
(Enterprise Architecture) especially things like templates, tools, checklists, example models, etc.
Where does this terminology (RB, ABB, SBB) originate from?
What's the context (view-point) of this?
Are you using any UML tools..?
Archimate has tried very hard to set some UML standards.
UML is currently the most important industry-standard language,
for specifying, visualising, constructing, & documenting artefacts of
systems. There is a tendency to stick to roughly 3 models;
- structure diagrams - called package diagrams
- behaviour diagrams - called Use-case diagrams, state or sequence diagrams,
even communication
- implementation diagrams - component & deployment diagrams
Sorry I'm just sharing my thoughts here...
Marc Mc Rae
Enterprise Infrastructure & Solutions Architect

0

Jayant Dani replied Jan 19, 2011

No issue , It is really more fluid concept if go through the definition of ABB, SBB in
TOGAF documents. But when start working on it defining same in exact artifacts
will be become more difficult.
Actually ABB and SBB ask us think even smallest part of solution as a architecture in complete . That gives us more freedom of thoughts in sense of overall architecture.
In my experience I found that I can architect any solution which by definition 100% scalable while
Explaining SBB , I will start adding constraints due to available choice of algorithm and technology but it will be in attribute format for that SBB.
In actual solution , it will publish respective number for those.
Now answer to another question ABB and SB are terminology used by TOGAF for defining Isolatable building block of Enterprize architecture. It is exactly taken from Civil engineering concepts like Brick , wall , slab etc which are nothing but building blocks for architecture.
RB is special case ABB and SBB , we like to bring in our organization, Where RB means for reusable Archiecture plus solution building block with actual implementation.
Answer to third question, ABB and SBB artifacts need to defined very well. We can use tool like RSA to define ABB and SBB upto good extent.
Hope I am able to provide some clarification to your question.
Cheers
Jayant Dani
Solution Archiect