IT architecture: understanding information systems architecture and its challenges

Information systems architecture lies at the heart of the enterprise. Both its design and its oversight throughout the system’s lifecycle are essential to ensure long-term, positive impacts. A well-structured architecture enables agility and supports seamless adaptation to strategic, functional, and technical changes, all while maintaining harmony and security. Choosing the right architecture creates real value for the business.

Understanding the key elements of architecture, such as:

• Information systems
• Functional, application, technical, and data components
• Types of architectures

Understanding how:

• The components of information systems communicate and interact
• Information systems are structured around technologies that work together to support your business activities and evolve over time
• Architecture impacts organizational strategy and the company’s functional objectives
• Significant results can be achieved in terms of performance, cost reduction, improved communication across departments, increased efficiency, and user satisfaction
• Staying flexible and competitive in a constantly evolving market
• Identifying dysfunctions and making informed decisions for improvement in development and technological solutions
• Ensuring overall security within the organization

What is IT architecture?

IT architecture is not solely defined by technologies; it is structured around multiple domains, including functional, application, data, and technical layers.

Information systems are becoming increasingly complex and heterogeneous. It is essential to understand and master them in order to meet current and future functional and strategic needs, while staying aligned with an increasingly competitive market.

Definition and role

IT architecture describes all the resources required to meet a company’s operational and strategic needs.

It provides a comprehensive mapping of the information systems landscape, from design, processing, storage, and protection to data exchange.

Information systems are driven by a combination of actors: people, procedures, data, software, and hardware, all working together to transmit information that has been collected, stored, and processed.

Technical actors may include hardware equipment, management or automation tools, applications, software components, and virtualization solutions.

A well-managed IT architecture within a company enables:

• A clear understanding and control of information and modeled data, including how information flows throughout the system
• Alignment with business needs through a tailored architecture that structures, harmonizes, and evolves information systems into a coherent and agile whole

Why is it essential for businesses?

An IT architecture that harmonizes all integrated resources ensures key characteristics such as: modularity, automation, scalability, interoperability, performance, security, reliability, accessibility, and resilience.

A well-adapted IT architecture ensures:

• Staying competitive and scalable in a constantly evolving world, remaining at the forefront in increasingly competitive markets
• Integrating digital transformation within the organization—for customers, operational optimization, and innovation
• The ability to understand and leverage data for a positive impact on business activities
• Facilitating and improving communication:
  • Between departments, business units, and IT
  • Between internal and external information systems
  • Towards heterogeneous systems
  • Towards external information systems
  • With interoperability, business needs go beyond internal information systems
  • Helping users find specific information through search queries
• Improving business processes and external exchanges
• Enhancing service continuity: monitoring data flows during incidents, staying responsive, and analyzing based on architectural resources
• Building trust among end users
• Opening and remaining open to the external world through adaptable interoperability
• Increasing productivity and saving time through task automation
• Gaining control over existing systems to manage impacts of changes or interface additions, rather than layering solutions due to lack of knowledge
• Avoiding data redundancy through centralized data management, protecting data integrity, confidentiality, and access
• Ensuring complete security, internally and against external threats, by anticipating, identifying, and preventing fraud
• Avoiding isolated, non-communicating applications by enabling integration with other systems
• Facilitating the replacement and decommissioning of applications to maintain agility
• Preventing redundancy and the retention of obsolete, irreplaceable systems through automation and scalable, open systems
• Making optimal, informed decisions regarding the development and deployment of technological solutions
• Accessing real-time dashboards and analytics tools to respond to unexpected situations and stay aligned with business goals
• Monitoring dysfunctions in information systems and defining steps to restore and optimize performance
• Reducing costs related to:
  • Infrastructure
  • License management through better inventory and control
  • Maintenance, with smoother upgrades enabled by automation of repetitive operations
  • Operation, with an architecture that is automated, easy to maintain and durable, but also replaceable in the event of obsolescence
  • Eliminating or reducing expenses caused by poor or misaligned technology choices

The different domains of IT architecture

Functional: focuses on business processes and objectives

Application: includes the catalog of applications and their interactions

Data: covers data management, storage, flows, and governance (e.g., data warehouses, databases)

Technical: encompasses all infrastructure components (servers, networks, security, cloud)

Systems: refers to hardware and software infrastructures

Software Architecture

Software architecture is essential for day-to-day success, future adaptability, and positive impacts on performance, security, maintainability, and scalability. It defines how components are structured, communicate, and interact with each other.

Software architecture is typically organized into three interconnected layers that work together:

• Presentation: Displays data through web browsers, mobile apps, or user interfaces
• Business Logic: Manages data processing through services or controllers, applying business rules
• Data: Handles data management, storage, and backup using databases, file systems, or persistence solutions

The choice of an architectural model should align with the company’s business strategies and available resources, such as:

• Infrastructure and development teams
• Scalability and maintainability
• Budget and timelines
• High performance and scalability needs
• Project complexity and size

There are several software architecture models, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.

Client-Server Architecture: in a client-server architecture, a client sends a request, via a device, to a server for data or services. These are two distinct entities with separate roles: the server acts as the provider, and the client as the consumer.

This architecture is well-suited for connected desktop applications and is a specific type of centralized architecture.

Advantages of this model:

• The server can provide multiple services to multiple clients
• The server manages data, including centralization and data integrity protection
• Data can be shared among several clients
• Security is simplified and handled by the server
• Guarantee independent upgrades and maintenance on the client and server sides
• Integrated adaptation in distributed systems with several servers

Disadvantages of this model:

• High client dependency on the server, if the server fails, clients are affected
• Response time may degrade with a high volume of requests
• Infrastructure costs can be high due to the need for a powerful, highly available server
• Communication with the server must be protected to ensure security

Centralized Architecture: a centralized architecture relies on a powerful main server that manages large volumes of data and processing for critical applications, particularly in sectors where reliability, security, and performance are essential, such as banking and government. This architecture may or may not be implemented using a client-server model.

Advantages of this model:

• A single resource simplifies administration, maintenance, updates, and backup planning
• Centralized data management is easier and more secure
• Reduced infrastructure costs
• Ability to handle multiple requests in parallel

Disadvantages of this model:

• Longer response times
• Server overload when too many requests are processed simultaneously
• Less flexibility compared to a client-server architecture

Monolithic Architecture: a monolithic architecture is an application that combines all functionalities into a single, unified block. This model is best suited for small-scale applications with simple and limited features.

Advantages of this model:

• Fast implementation, testing, and deployment phases
• Requires small development teams
• Reduced infrastructure costs
• Simplified deployment: a single deployable unit

Disadvantages of this model:

• Maintenance and evolution can be complex, as changes affect the entire unit
• Ensuring resilience is more challenging

Microservices Architecture: microservices architecture consists of applications built as a collection of independent services, each corresponding to a specific functionality. This architecture is structured around client requests, typically from web or mobile applications, targeting an API Gateway, which routes the request to the appropriate microservice. This model is well-suited for large enterprises and complex applications that require rapid scalability and frequent deployments.

Advantages of this model:

• Each autonomous service can be managed, scaled, and deployed independently, ensuring continuity of other services
• Each service has its own database, enabling data isolation and parallel processing of requests
• Scalability: new services can be added without impacting the continuity of existing ones
• Improved resilience and easier analysis by targeting specific services tied to individual functionalities
• Flexibility to integrate different technologies for each service

Disadvantages of this model:

• Management can become complex as the number of services grows, especially in maintaining data consistency across distributed and shared data
• Communication between services must be carefully designed and managed
• Challenges in traceability and error handling

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA): SOA is based on services that implement interfaces and communicate through a central service, the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), which manages the exchanges. This architecture is particularly well-suited for large enterprises that need to integrate heterogeneous systems and promote strong reuse of software components.

Advantages of this model:

• Services can be reused across different applications
• Functions exposed by services are easy to integrate as components between applications

Disadvantages of this model:

• Requires expertise in and management of the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
• High implementation costs due to the required infrastructure

Layered Architecture (MVC – Model-View-Controller): this architecture structures an application into distinct layers: presentation, business logic, and data access. Each layer communicates only with its adjacent layer.

It is well-suited for organizations that require a clear and organized structure, where long-term separation of concerns is essential.

Advantages of this model:

• Each layer is responsible for a specific aspect of the application
• Clear separation of concerns improves maintainability and reusability
• Each layer can be developed, evolved, tested, and maintained independently, ensuring modularity without impacting other layers
• Modularity through views that handle data display and can be reused across different layers
• Each layer can be deployed on separate servers

Disadvantages of this model:

• Communication overhead between layers
• Longer response times, especially when layers are distributed across different servers
• Layer dependencies can reduce flexibility for future changes
• Testing a single layer can be challenging due to its strong dependencies on others

Event-Driven Architecture: in an event-driven architecture, application components communicate by either triggering or responding to events. This model is based on event subscriptions from producers.

The architecture typically involves three key actors:

• A consumer (e.g., an e-commerce website) that triggers events (e.g., order creation)
• An event bus, responsible for centralizing and routing events to the appropriate services
• Event producers, which are the target services that react when relevant (e.g., inventory management, payment services)

This architecture is particularly suited for organizations with strong needs for:

• Responsiveness, where services react immediately to detected events
• Rapid adaptation to change
• Handling complex and asynchronous data flows

Advantages of this model:

• Asynchronous responsiveness: components react to events without waiting for immediate responses
• Parallel event processing, ideal for high-demand scenarios
• New subscriptions (e.g., new extensions or consumers) can be added without modifying the event producers
• Adapts to workload changes
• New services can be added without impacting existing ones
• Improved resilience: services can be temporarily unavailable, and events will be processed once they are back online

Disadvantages of this model:

• Debugging can be challenging due to the complexity of event and state management
• Requires additional tools for managing message queues

Serverless Architecture in a Non-Public Cloud: in a non-public cloud environment, serverless architecture allows teams to develop and deploy applications without managing the underlying servers. Functional events (deployed code) are triggered and executed within a local or private cloud infrastructure.

This architecture can also be adapted to public cloud environments.

Advantages of this model:

• No dependency on cloud providers or their service response times
• Full control over infrastructure, ideal for meeting internal security, sovereignty, or compliance requirements
• Ability to reuse existing infrastructure
• No usage-based fees, unlike public cloud models
• Developers can focus on business logic without managing servers

Disadvantages of this model:

• High complexity: replicating cloud mechanisms locally or in a private cloud requires extensive configuration
• Infrastructure setup is necessary: servers, containers, event orchestrators, monitoring, and auto-scaling
• Full responsibility for managing, maintaining, and mastering the entire serverless infrastructure
• Requires expert teams familiar with self-hosted open-source serverless frameworks and infrastructure tools
• Higher long-term maintenance costs

Cloud Architecture and Infrastructure

Cloud architecture, particularly in a serverless model with a public cloud, involves application development and deployment being handled by internal teams. When a functional event is triggered (i.e., deployed code), it is executed in a public cloud environment. The applications built are deployed and run on infrastructure managed by a public cloud provider.

Virtualization or cloud computing enables the storage and management of resources in a dematerialized way through cloud platforms.

Advantages of this architecture:

• Developers can focus on business logic without managing servers
• Reduced infrastructure costs, no servers to maintain
• Usage-based pricing can lower costs depending on workload
• Optimization: no server configuration or maintenance, as it’s handled by the cloud provider

Disadvantages of this architecture:

• Strong dependency on cloud providers and their service responsiveness
• No control over data hosted by third parties
• Limitations in meeting regulatory and jurisdictional compliance
• Potential cost overruns if resource usage is not well managed, including data egress fees
• Shared responsibility between provider and user
• Loss of traceability and challenges in meeting audit requirements

Data and Security Architecture

Data architecture focuses on the structure and management of databases and information flows. Data is collected, stored, processed, and distributed within the information systems architecture.

It is aligned with business needs and the company’s strategic objectives, ensuring data quality, accessibility, and security. Governance defines roles, responsibilities, rules, and tools that support adaptability and resilience.

Security architecture defines how systems and data are protected against threats. Security must be comprehensive and enforced at all levels—data, applications, networks, and users—to guard against both internal and external threats.

It ensures adaptability to evolving threats, technological changes, and the organization’s shifting needs.

Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise architecture is the overarching structure that aligns the IT domain with business strategy. It provides a comprehensive view of the information systems, aligned with business processes, applications, data, and the organization’s technical infrastructure.

Choosing the right architecture is crucial to ensure:

• A reference map to support evolution and manage projects
• Alignment between business and technological objectives
• High performance
• The ability to scale and adapt quickly to growing needs and market changes
• Operational continuity, even in critical situations
• Improved efficiency, cost reduction, and easier system maintenance and evolution
• Compliance with standards and regulations
• A better user experience

Roles and Careers in IT Architecture

IT architects play a key role in the design, evolution, and governance of information systems architecture. Their responsibilities span across complementary domains, each with a specific focus:

• Enterprise Architect: Aligns information systems with business strategy
• Functional Architect: Maps and models business processes and their interactions within information systems
• Technical Architect: Designs the technical infrastructure
• Cloud Architect: Responsible for cloud-based architectures
• Software Architect: Defines the structure of applications
• Security Architect: Ensures a secure architecture across the entire information system
• Data Architect: Manages data structure and governance
• DevOps / CI-CD Architect: Focuses on deployment automation and continuous integration/continuous delivery

IT Architect

The IT architect plays a key role in designing and managing the enterprise’s overall architecture. They hold a strategic, end-to-end vision of the information systems and contribute to governance and digital transformation by implementing agile, secure, and high-performing architectures. These architectures integrate technological solutions aligned with business needs and technical resources in a coherent and unified framework.

Key Competencies of an IT Architect:

• Modeling business processes and strategic objectives to ensure alignment with the information system
• Mastery of modeling languages, mapping tools, and methodological frameworks
• Designing various types of models and maps (functional, technical) for information systems
• Creating architectures that are scalable and coherent, with interconnected applications
• Maintaining clear communication with business stakeholders, technical teams, and decision-makers
• Proposing scalable and sustainable architectural solutions
• Staying up to date with the latest technologies and trends to support organizational change
• Establishing governance with clear rules for data, projects, security, and regulatory compliance
• Ensuring interoperability of modular, scalable, and resilient system components
• Overseeing digital transformation in collaboration with business and IT teams
• Recommending technologies and tools tailored to business needs
• Creating and maintaining documentation on technological choices, architectural resources, and standards
• Guaranteeing performance through automated solutions, identifying redundancies, negative dependencies, and complex processes

Cloud, Data, Security: Who Are the Specialized IT Architects?

The cloud architect leads the implementation and management of IT architectures in cloud environments, ensuring performance, scalability, and security requirements are met, while aligning with both business and technical needs.

Key Competencies of a Cloud Architect:

• Deep knowledge of cloud platforms, architectures, and services to propose optimal solutions and oversee their integration
• Expertise in cloud infrastructure: Infrastructure as Code (IaC), cloud security, containerization, and orchestration
• Technical understanding of distributed architectures and microservices
• Involvement in public and private cloud environments, including cloud migration projects
• Familiarity with DevOps practices and CI/CD pipelines
• Monitoring and observability of cloud systems
• Proficiency with platforms such as AWS, Azure, GCP, and Infrastructure as Code tools

The data architect is responsible for the structure (models), management (flows, storage), and governance of the company’s data, including access and security.

Key Competencies of a Data Architect:

• Designing the overall data architecture, including modeling and mapping
• Ensuring high-quality, consistent data
• Making data accessible to meet business needs
• Collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data to identify inconsistencies and support better decision-making
• Creating conceptual, logical, and physical data models and maps
• Knowledge of database management systems, data lakes, ETL orchestration, and cloud data services
• Ensuring data governance: compliance and maintaining a reference data catalog

The security architect is responsible for cybersecurity, ensuring the protection of data, applications, infrastructure, and users against threats.

They implement and oversee a comprehensive security strategy across all levels, network, application, data, cloud, and endpoints, while ensuring alignment with the organization’s objectives.

Key Competencies of a Security Architect:

• Security of systems, networks, infrastructure, applications, cloud, and hybrid environments
• Compliance with standards and regulations: ISO 27001, NIST, GDPR, PCI-DSS
• Identity and access management, network segmentation, and encryption
• Cryptography
• Threat analysis: cyberattacks, data breaches, human error
• Assessing vulnerabilities across architectural resources
• Contributing to protection measures
• Regular monitoring and simulation testing
• Incident response and updating security measures based on evolving threats
• Business continuity and disaster recovery planning (BCP/DRP)
• Ensuring protection of evolving information systems and anticipating increasingly sophisticated threats
• Controlled responsiveness in the event of a security incident
• Disseminating documented security policies
• Overseeing security-related projects
• Continuously adapting architecture to address evolving threats
• Raising awareness across the organization about the human impact of cybersecurity
• Anticipating incidents and integrating resilience as a core architectural principle

Key Skills and Tools in IT Architecture

Technical Skills

• Understanding of various technical architecture types: client-server, SOA, microservices, cloud
• Proficiency in technologies and infrastructure management
• Familiarity with technologies such as databases, APIs, containerization
• Knowledge of development tools and programming languages
• Ability to design robust, scalable, and secure architectures
• Expertise in IT security: firewalls, IAM (Identity and Access Management), encryption, and compliance standards
• Experience with cloud environments
• Understanding of networking and infrastructure: network protocols, virtualization

Functional Skills

• Understanding the sectors within the ecosystem and the structure of information systems
• Identifying and analyzing business needs and processes, as well as the company’s strategic and operational challenges
• Translating business needs into functional and technical requirements
• Specifying clear and actionable requirements
• Modeling functional processes and information flows
• Communicating, collaborating, and coordinating effectively with business units, technical teams, and executive leadership

Methodological Skills

• Proficiency with tools for modeling, mapping, and designing clear diagrams for both technical and business teams
• Ability to analyze the information system as a whole, including interactions between business, technical, and organizational components
• Mastery of methodological frameworks to structure, govern, and evolve the information system
• Familiarity with agile methodologies such as Scrum and Kanban to improve team organization and ensure coherent evolution roadmaps
• Ensuring iterative deliveries through sprint integration and continuous improvement
• Technical skills to understand and respond to real-time needs
• Retrospective meetings to continuously adjust and optimize
• Organizing annual retrospectives to assess what to continue, improve, and plan for
• Integrating reporting and data analysis tools to build the company’s narrative and support data-driven decision-making and ability to understand and leverage data to positively impact business performance and financial results

Modeling and Mapping: Two Essential Approaches in IT Architecture

Modeling is an abstract approach used to conceptualize and analyze what is to be built. It relies on abstractions and methodologies to define elements and their relationships. Modeling is especially valuable during the design phase of a new system. Its purpose is to structure ideas and anticipate interactions between components before development begins, helping to determine the architectural direction.

Modeling allows the creation of various types of diagrams to represent:

• Data modeling
• Class modeling: object structures and their relationships
• Software modeling: modules and their dependencies
• Sequence modeling: interactions between components over time
• Layered architecture modeling
• Architecture design
• Functional analysis using flow diagrams
• Software development planning and structure

Descriptive mapping is used to represent and visualize existing systems by documenting real elements and their interactions, often through diagrams or schematics. It helps illustrate application interconnections, system views, identify weaknesses, manage dependencies, and support IT governance.

Mapping can be used to represent:

• Application and infrastructure mapping
• Process mapping
• Information systems mapping
• Network mapping
• Global context and container mapping
• Code mapping

Essential Tools for IT Architects

Modeling, Strategy, and Organization Tools:

• Diagramming tools: Lucidchart, Draw.io (Diagrams.net), Microsoft Visio
• Modeling and mapping frameworks: Merise, Axial, IDEF, UML, SAD
• C4 Modeling: Context, Container, Component, Code views
• Enterprise Architecture Framework: TOGAF, for aligning information systems with business strategy
• ArchiMate: to represent the relationships between strategy, business, applications, and technology
• Balanced Scorecard: to link strategic objectives with performance indicators
• Data Management Platforms: e.g., Collibra – for managing large volumes of data
• DevOps and CI/CD tools: Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub

Cloud and infrastructure tools:

• Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)
• Orchestration and Containerization(Docker, Kubernetes)
• Cloud Design and Monitoring (AWS (Redshift, Glue), Azure (Synapse, Data Factory))

Security integration tools:

• Security Monitoring (Splunk)
• Vulnerability Assessment (Nessus / Qualys)
• Compliance Auditing (OpenSCAP / Lynis)
• Cloud Security Services (BigQuery, Dataflow)

Data tools:

• Database management systems: SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis (NoSQL)
• Data flow management ETL / ELT & data pipelines (Talend)
• Visualisation and reporting (Power BI, Tableau)
• Data governance and cataloguing (Collibra / Alation)
• Big Data & Data Lake: Hadoop, Spark, Hive, HDFS, Stockage cloud (Amazon S3, Azure Data Lake, Google Cloud Storage)

DevOps & CI/CD tools for integrating:

• Automated configuration and deployment (Jenkins, Ansible)
• Monitoring and observability (Prometheus, Grafana, CloudWatch)

Best practices for designing a high-performance IT architecture

• Business/IT Alignment to Ensure the Information System Supports the Company’s Objectives
• Agility to enable rapid and controlled evolution
• Interoperability to ensure communication between heterogeneous systems
• Security to protect digital assets against threats
• Cost control to optimize investments and resources
• Governance and management
• Use of APIs for better communication between heterogeneous systems
• Use of EAI or ESB to facilitate data exchange between applications
• Use of a central data hub to avoid “spaghetti” architecture, reduce data redundancy, and ensure a single source of truth
• Use of interconnected solutions rather than isolated applications
• Reduce redundant, manual tasks
• Integrate a testing mechanism
• Ensure consistency across environments
• Versioning to track changes and roll back if needed

Aligning Architecture with Business Strategy

Strategy is defined by the company’s image both internally and externally, its functional and operational priorities, goals for resilience, transformation, growth, performance, expansion, cost reduction, customer experience satisfaction, regulatory compliance, and the balance of the project portfolio.

A fundamentally structured, coherent, and scalable architecture will support the business strategy both daily and over time, with long-term positive impacts.

The business, application, and technical domains must be organized in a coherent and agile manner over time, always remaining aligned with the company’s strategy.

Keys to aligning architecture with business strategy

• Identify the company’s strategic priorities and objectives (e.g., innovation, cost reduction, revenue growth, customer experience improvement, regulatory compliance)
• Map the information systems architecture, current IT investments, projects, systems, resources, and budgets to assess whether investments are aligned with business strategy, business needs, return on investment, and project prioritization
• Adjust alignment and project prioritization as needed
• Communicate new directions and adjustments to business and IT departments
• Monitor alignment progress and its impact on strategic performance using:
• Strategic dashboards to assess how IT projects align with the company’s strategic goals
• Alignment matrices (strategic IT, impacts, risks) to map IT projects or investments to their contribution to strategic objectives
• Change, priorities, and risks are part of daily operations, so it is essential to regularly review mapped IT investments to control and adjust them as needed to reflect new strategic directions

Considering scalability and resilience

Scalability is the ability to quickly adapt and evolve systems to meet functional, organizational, and technological changes without major redesigns, while minimizing or avoiding regressions and ensuring resilience.

Adapting to technological changes by adding resources to a machine (CPU, RAM, storage)

Adding more machines or instances to distribute the load

Scalability must be considered from the design phase of an agile architecture with controlled scalability

• Business-oriented architecture to evolve only the components tied to specific business functions
• Serverless architecture to reduce infrastructure management and increase agility
• Modular architecture with loosely coupled components that are easy to modify and redeploy
• REST or GraphQL API architecture
• Microservices architecture, event-driven/subscription-based architecture to synchronize components
• During business specification design, integrate unit and load testing to ensure expected quality with automated unit tests
• Reduce redundant tasks
• Ensure continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD): fast, automated deployments with pipelines
• Organize delivery sprints to ensure continuous evolution
• Facilitate interoperability to easily integrate other systems and increase the availability of information to applications, as business needs may require access to external data
• Maintain harmonious collaboration between business and IT teams
• Scalability over time within the architecture
  • Regular evaluation of business experience and service continuity feedback
  • Retrospective meetings to continuously adjust and optimize
  • Ensuring the quality of continuous integration and delivery

Resilience is the ability of an IT system to continue delivering services—or to restore them quickly—in the event of unexpected situations such as outages, incidents, cyberattacks, human error, or spikes in operational load.

Resilience must be considered from the architecture design phase, with the identification of potential points of failure and the integration of:

• Infrastructure: Clusters, load balancers, multi-site deployments
• Network: Dynamic routing, backup VPNs
• Storage: Synchronous/asynchronous replication, snapshots
• Applications: Microservices, containers, orchestration (Kubernetes)
• Data: Regular backups, distributed databases
• Security: Segmentation, intrusion detection, multi-factor authentication (MFA)
• Duplication of critical components (servers, databases, networks)
• Anomaly detection controls
• Tools configured to automatically restart services
• Documented procedures to maintain or restore services: Business Continuity Plan (BCP) and Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP)

Resilience over time within the architecture

• Regular monitoring of critical points and the addition of control checkpoints
• Ongoing evaluation of user experience and service continuity feedback, with adjustments to procedures and documentation to maintain a reliable and resilient framework
• Regular failure scenario exercises, including outage and recovery testing

Securing architecture from the design phase

Prerequisite: Architecture must be mapped across domains, data, applications, infrastructure, users, to identify risks (vulnerabilities) and define protection mechanisms for each.

• Protect data, systems, and infrastructure against threats
• Safeguard sensitive data from internal, external, human, and natural threats
• Implement protection so that sensitive data is only accessible to authorized individuals, with internal information classification procedures for data and documents: public, internal, confidential, strictly confidential
• Apply the principle of least privilege and zero trust, even internally
• Ensure security by verifying all system access
• Use DevSecOps to integrate security from the setup phase
• Apply compliance rules through code to minimize vulnerabilities
• Implement mechanisms to protect data confidentiality
• Apply controls based on data classification across all layers
• Ensure data security through applications (e.g., encryption of in/out data flows)
• Set up recovery mechanisms: scheduled regular backups to prevent data loss
• Implement mechanisms to protect data integrity
• Ensure data is not intercepted or altered by unauthorized individuals; define roles and responsibilities to avoid conflicts of interest
• Use a centralized and secure database to avoid data duplication
• Restrict access to authorized personnel only
• Application security
• Implement access and authentication mechanisms with secure credentials and multi-factor authentication
• Conduct code audits and security testing to prevent vulnerabilities
• Monitor unauthorized incoming traffic and hacking attempts that could cause incidents
• Ensure agility and anticipation of incidents
• Prepare for attacks by regularly testing scenarios and updating them
• Network security, define zones to be secured
• Monitor network traffic to block attacks
• Secure all communications between users and systems
• Cloud security
• Control access: define an identity and access management policy
• Track activity and detect malicious behavior
• Ensure compliance with standards and regulations
• Integrate security throughout the lifecycle with regular update procedures
• Ensure that deployed services are coded to prevent tampering during data flows
• Internal audits and traceability
• Train internal teams with internal awareness campaigns on cyberattacks, human error, and physical security (e.g., public Wi-Fi, USB keys, phishing, secure passwords, physical access). Remind that company policies apply beyond the workplace
• Train teams on generative AI, including how to use chatbots securely and the risks related to data governance and sharing sensitive information with AI tools

Why choose Qim info for your IT architecture projects?

Choosing Qim info means being supported by experts to select the right architecture aligned with your company’s strategy. Our teams can assist with a variety of projects, such as:

• Improving your information systems and ecosystem
• Migrating legacy data flows and applications to scalable, future-ready systems
• Evolving and migrating to the cloud

Contact our experts to discuss your IT architecture projects.