6.1. Control Technical Diversity Name: Control Technical Diversity Statement: ‘Right-size’ the variety of technology platforms to use in alignment with our partners’ strategic choices (i.e. SSC, TBS). Rationale: • Limiting the number of different supported technologies: o Improves maintainability and reduces total cost of ownership. o Enhances staff focus on standardized technologies and reduces staff competency requirements. o Improves solution interoperability o Improves synergy. Implications: • Consider benefits of introducing a new technology versus the required additional maintenance effort, additional staff competency requirements, increased complexity, and the potential lack of interoperability with existing technologies. • Balance controlling technical diversity and IT-enabled business innovation. • Prefer vendor-independent technologies to enable solution interoperability and avoid vendor lock-in. • Reduce integration complexity by utilizing standardized integration approaches. • Policies, standards, and procedures that govern acquisition of technology must be tied directly to this principle. • Technology options will be constrained by the choices available within the supported standards. • Technology options and preferred choices are published as “Technology Bricks” and governed through architecture governance. The “Bricks” are refreshed regularly to reflect appearance of new technologies and sunset of legacy technologies. • Need to define and implement a lifecycle management process for all technology products References: • TOGAF 9 Principle 20