Security Architecture

Developing consistent, reliable standards for secure architectures

There are two approaches to developing a secure architecture: the “build-it-in” and “bolt-it-on” approaches. Security professionals know that it is far more effective to build in security requirements and relevant security artifacts early in the development of a security architecture.

The Open Group’s market-leading TOGAF® framework is continually enhanced and updated by members of The Open Group Architecture Forum. The Open Group Security Forum is responsible for developing standards and guidance on a wide range of information-security topics. In addition, The Open Group Jericho Forum® has provided significant thought leadership on critical security issues including deperimeterization, Cloud security, and secure collaboration architectures. Between these three groups, The Open Group has a wealth of experience and offers access to experts through our Forums to help member companies efficiently develop effective security architectures.

As a hub where expertise in architecture development and security converge, The Open Group is uniquely qualified to lead the industry in establishing consistent, reliable standards for developing secure architectures. Our important projects in the area of security architecture currently include:

• Enterprise Security Architecture: This project is significantly updating a previously published reference publication on security architecture.
• Alignment of TOGAF® & SABSA: This project seeks to align the TOGAF® and SABSA frameworks. The outputs of this project (white papers) will be very useful to practitioners of both frameworks, and will describe how to use them in concert to develop secure architectures.
• Collaboration Oriented Architecture: This project seeks to build upon previous work done by the Jericho Forum to define a high-level architecture for secure collaboration.
• Cloud Security Reference Architecture: This project is defining a reference standard for security architecture and creating building blocks for cloud computing security.
• Secure Mobile Architecture: This project will produce a secure architecture standard to address the needs that many companies have for secure networks in factory automation, SCADA, and other areas.

Security architecture projects associated with The Open Group are all member-led initiatives. We encourage member participation, and invite you to learn more about them.