An Event-Driven Book of Reference to facilitate Modernization
Mehryar and I work on large digital transformation programs. These are usually well-established organizations, predating the internet and digital commerce with architecture that can be described as the sum of siloed systems, mimicking their organization’s communication structure [1] that are weaved together through disjointed point-to-point integration patterns. These environments pose a challenge for modernization efforts.
Over the past few years, our team has been on the ground engaging with various clients to address this challenge. In this blog post, we would like to share a pattern that has proved successful in practice. It is centred on building an Event-Driven Book of Reference with desirable properties that facilitate modernization at scale. We start by summarizing the motivating factors behind modernization and their challenges. Then we spend the rest of the blog post describing the Event-Driven Book of Reference, how it facilitates modernization, and some lessons learned from implementing this pattern at scale.
The fundamental motivation behind modernization is to accelerate innovation. Our clients are looking for a nimble architecture that enables the rapid development of new experiences and applications while ensuring that existing core systems are not adversely impacted. This goal is usually inhibited by an existing architecture that suffers from data silos, complex interdependencies, and an abundant number of fragile core systems that may not scale out for these use cases. We see three focus areas for innovation:
