A brick specifies NIH adopted technical standards and protocols or technologies and products. They define current and future standards. They also define products or standards in the current environment that are to be retired or contained. Figure 1 is a template for bricks at NIH:
Figure 1. Brick Template
Each brick categorizes the specified technologies by lifecycle designations that accommodate NIH's diversity and the architects' recommendations:
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Baseline technologies include current technology and/or process element(s) in use.
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Tactical technologies are recommended for use in the near or tactical time frames (next two years). Currently available products needed to meet existing needs are identified here.
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Strategic technologies provide strategic advantage and might be used in the future. Usually, marketplace leaders are identified here, as they are likely to provide better benefits and meet the anticipated needs of the business.
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Retirement includes technology and/or process elements targeted for de-investment during the architecture planning horizon (five years).
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Containment includes technology and/or process elements targeted for limited (maintenance or current commitment) investment.
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Emerging technology and/or process elements are to be evaluated for future use based on technology availability and business need. These technologies may not be new to the marketplace, but are simply not yet in use at NIH. In this case, the products may be a fit for emerging needs at NIH.
Technology Evolution
Bricks document NIH’s current “as-is” baseline environment and future “to-be” target states. They also address emerging technologies and show the typical flow of these technologies through the enterprise. Because NIH's business and technology environments change, bricks are periodically revised.
A brick addresses the technology lifecycle of a given technology within NIH. Technologies in tactical and strategic designations should be selected for future implementations and will begin to, or continue to, reside in the baseline.
New technologies enter the NIH environment by first being designated as an emerging technology. If an emerging technology shows promise through marketplace acceptance or a successful pilot implementation at NIH, then a domain team or an architect can request an update to the NIH Enterprise Architecture to promote it to the tactical or strategic designation. Some emerging technologies will not prove a good fit for NIH, in which case they can be removed from the emerging category during the next update of the brick.
Existing technologies eventually exit the NIH environment. Some technologies in the baseline could become a detriment to NIH as they incur more maintenance costs or are more difficult to integrate. Older baseline technologies can be phased out of the NIH environment in two ways:
- If the technology is designated containment, then it will eventually, through attrition, be displaced by tactical and strategic technologies as the applications that use that it are migrated to newer technologies.
- If the technology is designated retirement, then NIH will initiate a transition plan to replace it with newer technology.
Technologies may be designated as containment for several years before there is ample business justification to move them to retirement and to spend money to retire them.
How to Use Bricks
Those who manage information technology projects or purchase technology for NIH or on the behalf of NIH, must review the applicable bricks for compliance.
Bricks
