Information framework (IFW) outline

Information Framework (IFW) was created by Roger Evernden during the 1980s. The Information Framework is a family of data, process and object models to help financial institutions transform cross-enterprise architectures. IFW remains the foundation for IBM's strategic solutions in the important financial services sector.

The Information Framework (IFW) is based around a number of architecture domain views, with three views, in ten columns:

• Organization Architecture View (Structure, Strategy, Skills),
• Business Architecture View (Data, Business Functions, Workflow, Solutions),
• Technology Architecture View (Applications, Networks, Systems).

Data modelers have long agreed that there are three broad classes or levels of model that can be used, co-operatively, to describe an Enterprise’s data:

• Conceptual (or Business) Level - This level is sometimes referred to as the Business Level. This describes the business concepts that make up  the enterprise and how these concepts interact. It is a model of how the business sees itself.
• Logical (or Specification) Level - which acts as a half way house between a conceptual business model, and a physical implementation model, such as a database design. It describes a requirement in business terms, yet it enforces a structure that can be readily transformed into an implementable design. In the world of data, a logical model is typically represented as an Entity-Relationship Model (E-R Model).
• Physical (or Implementation) Level -  In the case of data, this is representation of the physical structure of data in a database. This level is sometimes referred to as the Instantiation Level as it is her that physical instances of the items specified in the Logical Level and defined in the Conceptual Level can be found.

The acceptance by management that information is a vital corporate asset lead, in the early eighties, to the implementation of corporate ‘Data Management’ teams, as distinct from the ‘Database Administration’ group. The concept of Data Management has developed, over the years into the policy of ‘Information Management’ and, nowadays ‘Knowledge Management’. This trend reflects the realization that managing the corporate data resource extends far beyond simply managing automated databases. Understanding, defining and documenting the business meaning of data becomes more and more important as the scope of data management extends to all sources of knowledge within an enterprise.

The IFW models are constructed as a series of levels moving from a high level ‘bird’s eye view’ of the business, to generic specifications and detailed technical definitions. Each Architecture Domain is further viewed in terms of the levels of detail (A, B, C, C', D).

The first two levels, often referred to as the ‘A’ (Business Concept) and ‘B’ (Classification) Levels, combine to form named the Conceptual Level. Here we find represented the basic concepts within a business, structured as a Business Classification Model. A/B Level Business Classification Model provides a mechanism whereby an organization’s business staff can come to grips with a particular business problem by defining the components and viewpoints that make it up.

The Financial Services Data Model (FSDM)

The Financial Services Data Model (FSDM) is a large, multidimensional classification structure used to understand, communicate, scope, index and support business concepts within a Financial Institution.

What are FSDM requirements? Some of the more important ones are:

• To be an enterprise-wide representation of data, independent of lineof- business, organization structure and technology
• To be readily understood and useable by all stakeholders (both business and IT)
• To be actively used by all stakeholders
• To form the basis of a catalogue of all data items within the enterprise
• To enable new initiatives to be accurately scoped, impacts identified and re-use possibilities realized
• To be a useful starting point in developing new requirements and designs
• To encourage consistency and compatibility, thus minimizing integration and maintenance costs

The A Level (Business Concept) Model

The IFW A Level model provides us with a method for gaining a broad, first cut, understanding of the issue. It consists of a set of predefined viewpoints. (These viewpoints will be expanded to much greater detail at the B Level of the model.)

The predefined viewpoints or Business Concepts are:

Arrangements (AR) 

The Arrangement Concept represents a potential or actual agreement, between two or more individuals, organizations or organizational units that provides and affirms the rules and obligations associated with the exchange for value of goods, services and/or resources.

Business Directions (BD)

The Business Direction Item Concept records an expression of an Involved Party's intent with regard to the manner and environments in which it wishes to carry out its business. Business Direction Item contains, keeps data about, and is used to support the enterprise's business and financial plans, policies, procedures and schedules.

Involved Parties (IP)

The Involved Party Concept represents all participants that may have contact with the enterprise or that are of interest to the enterprise and about which the enterprise wishes to maintain information. This includes information about the enterprise itself.

Classifications (CL)

The Classification Concept organizes and manages specific business information by defining structures that represent classification categories. Classification also organizes and manages groups of business concepts that apply to multiple Concepts.

Conditions (CD)

The Condition Concept describes the specific requirements that pertain to how the business is conducted and includes information such as prerequisite or qualification criteria and restrictions or limits associated with the requirements. Conditions can apply to various aspects of an enterprise's operations, such as the operational parameters of a resource item, the sale and servicing of products, the determination of eligibility to purchase a product, the authority to perform business transactions, the assignment of specific general ledger accounts appropriate for different business transactions, the required file retention periods for various types of information kept by an enterprise and the selection criteria for a market segment.

Events (EV)

The Event Concept describes a happening about which the Enterprise wishes to keep information as a part of carrying out its mission and conducting its business.

Locations (LO)

The Location Concept describes a place where something can be found, a destination of information or a bounded area, such as a country or state, about which the enterprise wishes to keep information.

Products/Service (PD)

The Product/Service Concept describes the services, merchandise or facilities that can be offered, sold or purchased by the enterprise, its competitors and other Involved Parties during the normal course of its business. This Concept also includes goods and services that are of interest to the enterprise such as supplies for manufacture.

Resource Items (RI)

The Resource Item Concept includes and describes any value item, either tangible or intangible, that is owned, managed or used by, or of specific interest to, the enterprise in the course of accomplishing its business.

Now, how these concepts can be used in order to clarify a business issue?

Let’s take a personal issue: taking a mortgage with 20 years maturity, changeable interest rate 8.25%.

• AR: mortgage arrangement, security arrangement
• BD: the bank mortgage policy
• IP: borrower, bank, guarantor, real estate owner
• CL: Involved Party Type, Arrangement Type, Product Type, etc
• CD: Interest rate, repayment period, deposit...
• EV: mortgage payment, payment to real estate owner, installment payments
• LO: address of borrower, address of guarantor, phone numbers
• PD:  long term mortgage for retails
• RI: real estate which is subject of contract, mortgage house

The A Level is an extremely valuable mechanism for a group of business people to come to a common understanding as to the broad outline and components of a particular business issue. If we look at the A Level model, it is easy to see that a greater level of detail could be achieved by subdividing the business concepts into a greater number of smaller concepts. In other words, break Involved Party, Location, etc into smaller ‘slices’. For example, we could divide Involved Party into ‘Individuals’, ‘Organizations’ and ‘Organization Units’ and use those concepts instead of Involved Party. This would be useful as it provides a finer ‘grid’, but introduces a basic problem.

The point here is that there are many different ways of classifying a business issue. Each different way is equally valid, reflects a particular viewpoint, and results in a different list of ‘slices’ or subtypes of issue.

We refer to a business concept as a Classification Value (or Value for short). Any Value can be sub classified into subtype concepts by using one or more Classification Schemes (or viewpoints). These subtype concepts are themselves Values and can be further subtyped by additional Schemes, resulting in further Values. This results in a hierarchy of alternating Schemes and Values. This is calling as a Classification Hierarchy.

The B (Classification) level

B Level comprises a set of Classification Hierarchies. Exactly what are these hierarchies (or, more correctly, what are the supertype values which are the ‘kings’ of these hierarchies? We know there are 9 Concepts. We also know that each concept can have fundamental, attributive and associative aspects. Therefore, there are 27 classification hierarchies in the B Level Model:-

Arrangement…………………the fundamental hierarchy

Arrangement Descriptor……..the attributive hierarchy

Arrangement Relationship…..the associative hierarchy and so on.

Information Framework For Finance

For Financial Institutions, the IFW has been populated with a comprehensive set of business models that represent best practice in banking and financial services.  This provides an information architecture blueprint with detailed banking business content that can be applied broadly to many different types of initiatives on an enterprise-wide basis or on a specific project scope. The complete financial model set includes Data, Object, and Process models.
This course concentrates on the Data Models, in particular, those Data Models used to help construct Data Warehouses.

Financial Services Data Model (FSDM)

The Financial Services Data Model (FSDM) comprises an enterprise-wide vocabulary which is used to precisely define the meaning of the many concepts that make up the Financial Institution’s view of itself and its business environment.  It enables all aspects or points of view pertaining to a particular business concept to be expressed in terms of the elements within a classification hierarchy.

• Provides enterprise-wide definitions of concepts and data
• Provides a highly detailed, formally structured index into the enterprise data resource
• Forms part of a common language between business and IT
• Provides a rapid and accurate scoping tool for new initiatives - saves time and cost
• Reduces data redundancy by providing transparency as to the meaning of data items
• Provides a common basis for the development of well-structured logical data models
• Encourages re-use and consistent data structures across the enterprise
• Provides a predefined, readily customizable enterprise data model

The Banking Data Warehouse Model

The Banking Data Warehouse Model (BDWM) provides a logical Entity-Relationship model of an enterprise-wide central data warehouse. 

• Encapsulates IBM's extensive experience in delivering effective data warehouse solutions to some of the world's leading Financial Institutions
• Delivers competitive advantage by providing consolidated and clean data
• Supports rapid implementation of warehousing solutions with meaningful banking data
• Provides a combination of sound infrastructural techniques, a proven data management product set and rich functional content
• Facilitates the subsequent customization and extension of the data warehouse.
• Enables business users to more effectively control the definition and scoping of the data warehouse solution
• Typically contains 80%+ of the Data Warehouse Business requirements of a Bank 

The Business Solution templates

The Business Solution Templates (BSTs) provide a logical model of the dimensions and measures that make up the multidimensional cube structures which are at the heart of analytical data marts.

• Encapsulates IBM’s extensive experience in delivering effective analytical solutions based on data warehousing to some of the world’s leading Financial Institutions.
• Enable business users to more rapidly and effectively control the definition and scoping of a datamart solution
• Provide a consistent structure and consistent reporting for every data mart generated from scoped portions of the BSTs,  based on a common definition of banking measures and dimensions
• Enables significant re-use of dimensions and measures across datamarts.
• Pre-designed template approach reduces development costs. 

The Application Solution Templates

The Application Solution Templates (ASTs) provide a template of the data requirements for non-reporting applications for which the BDW is expected to deliver data.

• There is a Application Solution Template for Basel II Operational Risk and for each Basel II Credit Risk Component – PD, LGD, EAD, Maturity, Expected Loss and Securitization Framework
• Each AST provides a detailed breakdown of the data requirements for each Risk Component
• Enables Financial Institutions to quickly determine the required coverage in the BDW to address specific non-Reporting Application data requirements
• ASTs can be customized and extended to address other non-Reporting Applications in other areas