Belgian railway relies on Enterprise Architect

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In order to prepare for the liberalisation of the national railway markets in 2023, the Belgian state railway SNCB has developed an IT architecture over the last three years using Enterprise Architect. With more than 1,000 applications and a huge volume of data, this was no easy task. IT decisions can now be made more easily on the basis of reliable information and the company is optimally prepared for the modernisation of its IT landscape.

Vienna/Brussels – In 2005, the Belgian state railway was split into three public companies in accordance with European and Belgian regulations. This naturally had considerable consequences for the shared IT: thousands of components (applications, servers, networks, etc.) had to be recorded, analysed and reallocated. To facilitate this IT transformation, SNCB founded the IT company YPTO, a wholly owned subsidiary.

Luc Alix (left), Head of Enterprise Architecture and Alain Garsoux (right), responsible for Architecture Governance at Ypto, a subsidiary of the Belgian state railway company

Ypto has started to invest in its enterprise architecture with Enterprise Architect from Sparx Systems. Luc Alix, Head of Enterprise Architecture, asked Alain Garsoux to improve Ypto’s architecture knowledge base (Continuum).

Alix: ‘We very quickly decided to define our own architecture framework by adopting and integrating key architecture standards such as Archimate™, TOGAF™, BPMN, SAFe, etc. The chosen language helps in the decision-making process by forcing us to address the important issues and not get lost in the details.’

The Enterprise Architect Shared Model Repository provides an overview of the mapped areas and guidelines for modeling

Enterprise Architect: Cost-efficient and adaptable

As a suitable tool is of course required to set up such a complex IT landscape, the decision to purchase was based on the best possible suitability.

Enterprise Architect proved to be the most cost-effective and adaptable solution.

Alain Garsoux comments: “As we are active in the public sector, we have to evaluate the purchase decision regularly. The good price of the platform has always made it possible to extend licenses and avoid migration tasks. This allows us to work continuously with the now optimally adapted tool and make our architecture work much easier and more productive”.

Hans Bartmann, Sales Manager of SparxSystems Europe:

“We are delighted that Enterprise Architect has so far cleared the hurdle of the tender so well due to its excellent price-performance ratio, its adaptability and its openness to many languages and standards. At the same time, we congratulate SNCB on its state-of-the-art IT architecture solution, which can also serve as a model for other companies.”

Hans Bartmann, Sales Manager of SparxSystems Europe

Open tool to reduce complexity

During the embedding phase of the modelling platform, Ypto defined precise guidelines for solution architects. Standard architecture views were defined to support the work of twelve company architects and 50 solution architects.

“Thanks to ready-made architecture diagrams, we can easily integrate our current complex IT landscape into the architecture knowledge base (Continuum). The raw data collected is then converted into usable information to support decision-making,” explains Garsoux.

This data acquisition automatically updates the complete documentation, which is crucial for traceability and further development.

The architecture framework provides an overview of the IT architecture

The analysis of existing applications revealed, for example, that up to 20 applications are currently required to process a single business activity. As each of these applications (currently over 1,000) must be maintained, the declared aim is to significantly reduce this number.

“With every change request, we always start by specifying the business activities affected and the applications required. Thanks to our architecture knowledge database, we can then very quickly identify what we want to keep and what needs to be replaced,” says the IT architect.

The actions that originate from the individual applications are displayed here

New applications are subject to precise specifications

“Precise architectural principles are defined for all applications and must be adhered to. This is the only way we can achieve a unified architecture. The framework also helps us to make efficient decisions about certain developments,” explains Garsoux.

The IT architect now describes the structure as sophisticated and ready for the roll-out in the company, which is already underway. But he also knows that this requires a lot of internal persuasion: “The enthusiasm for this forward-looking IT architecture must now spread throughout the entire company, as this naturally entails changes. Our information has already convinced the management and we are proving every day that we are taking a decisive step towards a successful future for SNCB.”

About SNCB

SNCB is the national railroad company of Belgium. It is a public company that operates and markets rail services for national and international passenger and freight transport. It is also responsible for the maintenance of rolling stock. SNCB employs around 21,000 people and has a turnover of 2.2 billion euros. It also holds shares in Eurostar and Thalys as well as in the IFB and TRW subsidiaries. SNCB plays a key role in the development of sustainable mobility by providing a high-quality, reliable and market-driven service.

About SparxSystems Europe 

Sparx Systems Pty Ltd (Australia) was founded in 1996 and is the manufacturer of Enterprise Architect, a globally successful UML modeling platform. Enterprise Architect is used for designing and building software systems, business process modeling and modeling any process or system. Enterprise Architect is valued by over 1 million users for its performance at an unbeatable price. Enterprise Architect is an easy-to-understand, team-oriented modeling environment that helps companies analyze, design and build systems that are accurately understood and documented. With the help of this tool, companies are enabled to collect and present the often very dispersed knowledge of teams and departments centrally.

SparxSystems Software Europe was set up in 2004 to provide the best possible Enterprise Architect service to the many customers in their language and time zone, supporting the entire German-speaking region with license acquisition, training and consulting. SparxSystems Software Europe is a business unit of the Lieber.Group.