Using The Open Group Standards – O-ISM3 with TOGAF ®

By Jose Salamanca, UST Global , and Vicente Aceituno, Inovement

In order to prevent duplication of work and maximize the value provided by the Enterprise Architecture and Information Security discipline, it is necessary to find ways to communicate and take advantage from each other’s work. We have been examining the relationship between O-ISM3 and TOGAF ® , both Open Group standards , and have found that, terminology differences aside, there are quite a number of ways to use these two standards together. We’d like to share our findings with The Open Group ’s audience of Enterprise Architects, IT professionals, and Security Architects in this article.

Any ISMS manager needs to understand what the Security needs of the business are, how IT can cater for these needs, and how Information Security can contribute the most with the least amount of resources possible. Conversely, Enterprise Architects are challenged to build Security into the architectures deployed in the business in such a way that Security operations may be managed effectively.

There are parts of Enterprise Architecture that make the process of understanding the dependencies between the business and IT pretty straightforward. For example:

• The TOGAF ® nine document “Business Principles – Goals – Drivers” will help inform the O-ISM3 practitioner what the business is about, in other words, what needs to be protected.
• The TOGAF 9 document – Architecture Definition contains the Application, Technology and Data Domains, and the Business Domain. As a TOGAF service is a subdivision of an application used by one or several business functions, the O-ISM3 practitioner will be able to understand the needs of the business, developed and expressed as O-ISM3 Security objectives and Security targets, by interviewing the business process owners (found in the TOGAF Architecture Definition).
• To determine how prepared applications are to meet those Security objectives and Security targets the O-ISM3 practitioner can interview the owner (found in the TOGAF Application Portfolio Catalog) of each application.
• To check the location of the Components (parts of the application from the point of view of IT), which can have licensing and privacy protection implications, the O-ISM3 practitioner can interview the data owners (found in the TOGAF Architecture Definition) of each application.
• To check the different Roles of use of an application, which will direct how access control is designed and operated, the O-ISM3 practitioner can interview the business process owners (found in the TOGAF Architecture Definition).
• To understand how Components depend on each other, which has broad reaching implications in Security and business continuity, the O-ISM3 practitioner can examine the TOGAF Logical Application Components Map.

TOGAF practitioners can find Security constraints, which are equivalent to O-ISM3 Security Objectives (documented in “TOGAF 9 Architecture Vision” and “Data Landscape”) in the documents TSP-031 Information Security Targets and TSP-032 Information Requirements and Classification.

The Application Portfolio artifact in TOGAF is especially suitable to document the way applications are categorized from the point of view of security. The categorization enables prioritizing how they are protected.

The Security requirements which are created in O-ISM3, namely Security objectives and Security targets, should be included in the document “Requirements TOGAF 9 Template – Architecture Requirements Specification”, which contains all the requirements, constraints, and assumptions.

What are your views and experiences of aligning your ISMS + Enterprise Architecture methods? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

 

José Salamanca is Regional Head of Solutions & Services at UST Global Spain . Certified in TOGAF9 ®, Project Management Professional (PMP ®), and EFQM ®. Jose also holds a MBA Executive by the Business European School (Spain) and achieved his BSc. at Universidad Complutense of Madrid. He is Vice President of the Association of Enterprise Architects Spanish chapter and Master Teacher at Universidad de Antonio de Nebrija of Madrid. José has built his professional career with repeated successes in Europe and the Middle East.

 

 

Vicente Aceituno is Principal author of O-ISM3, an experienced Information Security Manager and Consultant with broad experience in outsourcing of security services and research. His focus is information security outsourcing, management and related fields like metrics and certification of ISMS. Vicente is President of the Spanish chapter of the Information Security Systems Association; Member of The Open Group Security Forum Steering Committee; Secretary of the Spanish Chapter of the Association of Enterprise Architects; ISMS Forum Member.