Troux Technologies announced with the release of Metis 6 in October 2006 that it could take information held in its Metis Server enterprise architecture repository, and quickly use it to populate Cognos business intelligence tools. The advantage of such integration is that business users familiar with Cognos tools can use them to query and report on all of the enterprise architecture artifacts stored in Troux’s Metis Server.
Troux Technologies said the addition of the Cognos integration, and soon Business Objects integration, is another way in which the firm is ensuring that it offers what it calls Actionable Enterprise Architecture.
The company’s chief strategy officer James Rogers told Computer Business Review that although other business intelligence tools can be used to query the APIs for the Metis Server, the integration with Cognos and soon Business Objects makes the integration more elegant. It automatically generates a business intelligence model from the artifacts in the repository, offers users single sign-on, and gives them some pre-built dashboards so they can begin querying the enterprise architecture platform faster, he said.
Rogers said the company is also gearing up for its next major launch of the platform, version 7.0, in September. While he would not divulge the specific improvements just yet, he did say: There will be enhancements to the metadata repository helping to put the information in better context.
Rogers also said that a new Solutions Composer will enable customers or systems integrators to repurpose the Metis Server enterprise architecture repository into specific applications that give their business users the specific views into the repository that they are after.
Troux’s three major products include Metis Architect, a visual enterprise architecture modeling tool for creating models about people, processes, and technologies, and their relationships; and Metis Server, a repository for storing all sorts of EA-related artifacts such as metamodels, datamarts, analytics, workflows, and policy management.
Finally, there is Metis Collection, an extract transform and load tool that can be set to automatically take data from numerous sources and feed it into the Metis Server to help to keep it up to date and consistent.
Troux Technologies counts Accenture, CSC, and EDS among its partners, and says it has around 350 customers worldwide. The firm is privately held and has headquarters in Austin, Texas.
Our View
Anything that can help to make enterprise architecture models more actionable is a good thing. One of the difficulties with enterprise architecture, especially when companies attempt to model their entire enterprise, is that it takes so long and is so complex that the models rarely end up being used for any worthwhile strategic decision-making before they become out-of-date. Rogers likened modeling an entire enterprise to creating a butterfly collection. It may look lovely but all people do with it is look at it, he said.
Troux argues that its Metis Collection can automatically pump useful metadata into the Metis Server so it helps to keep itself up to date. Its other key claim is that no other EA vendors have both the modeling capability and a rich EA repository, something it has thanks to its acquisition of the Computas Metis modeling product in February 2005 (it already had the repository).
But the company’s acknowledgement that integration with Cognos and Business Objects is confirmation that while business users may be the ones who could gain value from enterprise architecture, they are not always EA experts able to interpret the EA models. Overlaying BI tools makes their EA assets more actionable, according to Troux.
But even then, it acknowledges that companies should have very clear goals before embarking on an enterprise architecture project: don’t try and model everything, but instead pick processes that need refining or harmonizing. Or use EA on specific projects, such as systems consolidation or rationalization, where it has a calculable and hence demonstrable value proposition.
