Architecture-as-a-Service

In the last Note, we left the readers with an idea that a matrix can provide guidance to applying digital twins and digital threads to the morphogenesis of a platform that builds platforms.  In order to continue along with the process engineering discussion, first we provide that matrix and then a perspective of that matrix with Cyber Physical System components layered over the inner 3 X 3 matrix.

This perspective enables us to use the Domain, Aspect, and Concern development model from the Cyber Physical System work.  Using those techniques available through the CPS program, we can build a practice of applying policies to protocols.  In other words, we can create a journey for the creation of the platform that generates platforms by leveraging CPS as the digital twin of assets and processes (digital twins and threads, respectively), and the process for integrating CPS components into systems and solutions as the digital twin of our journey.

Using self-reflexive concepts at varying scales enables concepts like digital twins (and digital threads) to become self-enabling solution generators.  By re-using concepts until the end results are so fragile as to snap before being put to production use cases, what we learn in the application of a concept to varying scales becomes a recursively insightful source of best practices.

We tend to think that once we have agreement on an architecture for the as-envisioned solution, that all we need to do is come up with a plan to move from where we are to where we want to be.   Reality, nasty little teacher that it is, tends to enable us to find out what we didn’t know before we started and how that is going to impede the path of futurization we would so love to complete.

If we, instead, had a way to model and test what we were doing, the relationship between the as-built and the as-envisioned could be attempted in the manner of creating a series of minimum viable futures.  By limiting the investment on moving toward the as-envisioned to smaller steps, if we trend wrongly, we can catch it through the realization that using our best built model as a simulator for supporting what’s next we can stop soon enough to save time and money.  Not to mention, staff and customer frustration.

To allay concerns that such models are beyond our grasp (but fortunately, not beyond our comprehension), there is a mapping of the Open Group’s IT4IT process (see graphic below) on to a system dynamics model for project engineering.  This mapping is a digital transformation of the two-dimensional IT4IT design on to a dynamic and interconnected experience.  The reader will understand that all this amounts to, creatively speaking, is the convergence of two expertly supported and described into a digital twin for the process of creating net new services, systems, and solutions in a digital context.

While the eventuality is that this fortuitous confluence of expertise(s) can become the manner in which the step-wise management of moving from as-built to as-envisioned, right now we have a challenge regarding how to take the first steps toward such a place.

Recall, please.  that the separation of the context for the platform that generates platform solution is separated from the wider environment by a membrane layer which serves as a boundary.  This layer consists of data management best practices on an upper arc and the Digital twin consortium Capability periodic table on the lower arc.  The four corners are capability models drawn from the health care industry because of the degree of investment that market has placed in organizing the delivery of critical, and complex, service models.

In the middle of the matrix are the nine Cyber Physical System characteristics.  These characteristics are found in each Domain of interested study.  In terms of the Domain of the platform that generates platforms, the Domain of interest can be created by using the contents of the 3X3 inner matrix as guides to developing the content necessary to explicate the context.  The upper and lower arcs define the environment within which the Domain is to be created.  That is, the platform that generates platforms is bounded by the development of a data management function (the upper arc) and the Capability Periodic Table components (the lower arc).

The two graphics below show the context of the NIST CPS topology and that topology to the relationship between Domains, Aspects, and Concerns.

NIST CPS topology

[PDF] Specifying and Reasoning about CPS through the Lens of the NIST CPS Framework | Semantic Scholar; accessed 25 april 2023

Relationship of Domains, Aspects, and Concerns to CPS ontology

The reason for using these projections in a pairwise manner is that in order to support the macro-, meso-, and micro- projections required by the three system views elucidated in the NIST CPS framework. In order to sustain the use of the Smart Grid Maturity Model as a tool, technique, and topography generator we will need to support a model such as the one so well defined for the Smart Grid.

PPT - Distribution Automation Technical Background & Current Trends Dan Murray Siemens Energy, Inc. Smart Grid Conference PowerPoint Presentation - ID:660592 (slideserve.com); accessed 25 april 2023

The Smart Grid analogy can support the adoption of the CPS-as-Asset framework in the context a directed graph for future research.  This becomes the micro- version of the platform generating platform program.

The use of the CPS overlay on the 3X3 matrix sets up a five Phase dev/ops cycle for the program as it provides the step-wise creation and annealing of experiments along the path to the projections of next Phase requirements.  This is the meso- projection of the process.  The five phases are indicated on the graphic, below.  Note that the dev/ops process is bounded at the opening phase and at the final phase by health care industry best practice models.

At the macro- level, we would need to study the growth of the platform generating platform as-a-Business.  In an earlier Note, the use of the Cobb-Douglas production frontier as a model for the CPS Business characteristic was described.

For the convenience of the reader, the dashed line represents the phase state of the process as attained through the use of components and construction of a solution.  The purple arc (the original Cobb-Douglas projection) represents the next stage accomplishments necessary to continue the project along its most efficient line of creation.

In this Note, we have reused the matrix model to generate micro-, meso-, and macro- elements to track the development of a platform that generates platforms.  A longer work which applies these tenets to the actual building of that platform has already been outlined and is under construction.