1. The document discusses how an enterprise architecture team at SNCF, the French national railway company, implemented a big data project to better understand passenger flows within train stations. 2. The project involved collecting WiFi and other data from stations to generate automated reports on passenger numbers and behavior. This opened up opportunities to gain new insights and improve requirements. 3. The project is shifting perspectives from top-down architecture to one driven by data insights. It is breaking down silos by sharing data across departments and moving towards a "data lake" approach. This is improving business operations and IT services.

1. 1
BIG DATA, a new way to achieve success in
Enterprise Architecture.
Georges Colin. SNCF – Gares & Connexions
Abstract This paper will present how « Gares & Connexions », a branch of the
French rail company SNCF, has decided to implement a new project in order to
develop and share the knowledge of users trajectories inside stations. This new
project has opened the Pandora box of Big Data questions and expectations, as we
had a lot of new data generation to be mixed with the old data repositories. While
the project went on and the Big Data solutions became prominent with the sharing
of data as a new royal way to overcome all silo protections, with this emulation to
discover innovative applications, and, of course, with its large spectrum of
analyses, reports and KPI, we, enterprise architects, are achieving by opening new
pathway, our goals.
1 Introduction
I am an Enterprise Architect, and, as many others, one of my big concerns is to
be able to set or to find a way to adapt, as best as possible, IT services and
applications to fit the expectations of the stakeholders. I too have avoid, as much
as possible, misunderstanding or misusing any part of the IT System deployed for
the organization that I use to fulfil my capacity.
TOGAF1
is the framework I use to apply all the specificities of those
organizations, and, ADM2
, is a good template which helps me define roadmaps
that we can use all along the road, from cycle to cycle, we climb up Mount SInai
to discuss year by year, project by project, the hard law of business alignment.
But, surprisingly, that traditional routine has been shaken up by the buzzy noise of
an elephant as big as big data invading our lives.
1
The Open Group Architecture Framework (https://www.opengroup.org/togaf)
2
Architecture Development Method : the famous cycle of phases to plan a new foundation of the
SI architecture

2. BIG DATA, a new way to achieve success in Enterprise Architecture.
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You know now; my purpose is to show you what we have understood behind
this buzz word “Big Data” and how subsequently it came to help modify our
processes in the improvement of IT alignment with the needs of business.
Moreover: I will also show you how the deployment and the use of the Big Data
ecosystem, will become a new and major evolution of the IT services that CTOs
soon will have to manage.
Well, in order to do so, I will successively show the following points:
 What are the issues of Enterprise Architecture when applied to Gares &
Connexions (section 2)
 How have we been involved in a Big Data project (section 3)
 What have we reached (section 4)
 What do we expect to reach (section 5)
 What are our goals for the IT Services (section 6)
2 Enterprise Architecture applied to Gares & Connexions.
Gares & Connexions is the fifth and most recent of the SNCF business units. Its
job is to renovate and develop the 3000 rail stations in the network. In addition to
managing the stations, Gares & Connexions is responsible for station development
and investment plans, in collaboration with local authorities and stakeholders. It
has two key commitments - making progress in the fundamentals of in-station
service, and modernizing and adapting stations.
As shown by the schema bellow, a lot of expertise has to be provided to a large
panel of clients. Passengers, but also local authorities, shop-keepers, and last, but
not least, railway companies and other transport operators (buses, trams, cars…).
In-stations
events
Conserving our
heritage
Passenger flow
management
Passenger
comforts
Maintenance and
cleaning
Local information
Space for relaxation and
shopping
Intermodal transport
information
Accessibility for
persons with
reduced mobility
Passenger
welcome
Connection
to the town
or city
Real time
passenger
information
Environmental
challenges

3. BIG DATA, a new way to achieve success in Enterprise Architecture.
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The IT System deployed to provide all these different services, as one can
imagine, is a little bit complex, not only because of some tricky algorithms, but for
the most part, because of the large quantity of information managed and how to
share it with a lot of very different users. It is also complex because of the
important history of applications that are not very easy to decommission without
precise impact studies of on the global IT system.
In this context enterprise architecture took more of a bottom-up approach than
a usual and top-down approach which can be a little bit abstract. Since we have to
define, classify and design all the different functional areas used in the system,
and the exchanges between them, we had to decide and create a new general plan
to improve service and performance. But before all this, we have to identify ABB
and SBB3
, and then we have enjoyed playing with the Lego to construct new
buildings and avenues to a final plan in which it should be a little bit easier to find
something. The result is shown by the following schema on the figure 1, below.
Fig. 1. The schema of the Information System organization.
3
ABB and SBB : architecture building blocks and solution building block as defined by TOGAF

4. BIG DATA, a new way to achieve success in Enterprise Architecture.
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3 How have we been involved in a Big Data project?
So we were hardly working on the road to connection improvement, defining
areas and referential laws in order to proudly maintain our great organization
when a very special event occurred: our CEO put us in charge of a mission. Can
you imagine how wonderful it was for enterprise architects to have a mission with
such a sponsor like this? So, let’s go on.
The mission was to provide an easy and accessible way to know precisely the
passenger flow in the most important stations. There was already reports based on
inquiries realized from years and years in a limited group of stations, inquiries
from where statistic models were built to evaluate the flow progression but also a
typology of who and how people go through or simply stay for a while in the
stations. Our first stage was very clear: find the best way to automate this business
process in order to be able to create and show these reports on a server with all the
accommodations delivered with data visualization products but also, to be able to
produce a new report by simply put in the results of any new inquiries on the
server. We achieve this goal with great success. But from the beginning, our
ambitions were bigger and it became more and more complicated to achieve
without throwing away all our old plans and start to build a new design able to
include the avalanche of data we realized we were able to collect with the 21st
century mobile generation. So, as we all know, we were entering the Big Data
Universe. The idea was not only to know how the crowd is growing during a large
period of time we already knew from the inquiries, but to know more precisely
how they stay and what visitors while they wait. The idea is simple but it is a very
complex design system to create and a very exciting challenge we are proud to
take up. Our second stage is defined and we are still working on it.
3.1 The Wifi log connections and more
The first floor of our new complex system design was to identify which data
can be usefully stored: the most important and biggest part was the Wifi log
connections we were able to collect from the first group of thirty connected
stations, this number of thirty stations will grow to 128 at the end of this year. To
give you an idea of what a Wifi log connection is, you must understand that every
time a Wifi card of a mobile handset detects a Wifi antenna anywhere in the field,
the handset MAC address is logged with the intensity level of the signal on the
antenna system. To have a more precise idea in terms of volume, for one station,
we collect about 10 gigabytes of logs by day, it becomes 1.2 terabytes for the128
stations and so on…
But there was not only these log connections to collect. It was necessary to
correlate these values with information we use to work with like how many

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travelers are supposed to leave or take a train, and what about timetables of the
departures and the arrivals, and finally all kind of information about how the life is
taking place inside the station and how it gives us keys to understand and define
models to expect to produce a new vision of passengers flow.
Step by step, as we are including the big parts of our business data that are
involved in the working of stations, departments were very interested by the fact
that analyzing the data they provide may give them new KPI and report on how
their work are progressing. But it’s another story…
4 What have we reached?
Let us go back to our first goal and have a look at the
ADM wheel. As I am writing this, we are between
the E and F phases of the wheel. We are on the way
to choose how we will organize the storage of data
and which kind of tools we will deliver to produce
powerful analysis and reports. It means that with my
previous quick introduction to our system and goals I
put you on to the train which was travelling from the
preliminary to the opportunity and solutions named “E” by the experts. The
problem is: what have we reached? Are we just working on an ordinary project
dust with some strategic concerns? As you may have already understood, it is not
my point of view. The more we go on with this project, the more I feel we are
facing a new generation of organization between, what we use to call the business
and the IT management system. And when I say organization, I am sure that
everybody knows that it is more a kind of ancient and sometimes funny game of
tug of war between teams as describe below!...
So, what have we reached, finally? In my opinion we are facing a paradigm
shift where what were the bases and the tablets of law of any relationship between
business and IT (but also any part of the business with any other part), are in a
revolutionary movement. I mean, as shown in the ADM wheel, where we have a

6. BIG DATA, a new way to achieve success in Enterprise Architecture.
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range of planets turning around “A” sun: The Requirement Management, we are
discovering that there are other suns we can get new energy. To be more precise, it
is no longer possible to stay quiet in front of a less or more precise list of
requirements which can guide us like the “Little Red Book”. We are now creating
inputs for the requirements by using of data as we are able to evaluate if they are
or are not appropriate with the expected results. Moreover, we are even creating
new requirements.
For example, we are able to evaluate how to organize the main hall of a station
to modify passenger flow in order to promote some retailers or something else.
We can also modify important business rules about what the best way is to inform
passengers about their train: is it 10 minutes or 20 minutes before, one hour or
even, a week, a month or a year before? But, it may be can depend on the type of
station and also local usages. It can depend on the wishes of the passengers if we
evaluate them through social networking. Finally, it can depend on the weather
and become a dynamic rule we can adapt with a lot of parameters we do not know
yet.
So, as you can see, we are changing and redesigning the requirements as we are
progressing in this new kind of IT project based on the data sharing that facilitate
a Big Data project.
5 What do we expect to reach?
We are expecting to produce nice dashboards showing the passenger flow with
elements about quantity, quality and of course localization in the stations. The
result is not quite here as we are still at the E phase of the ADM wheel but we
know already it will be reached when the conference will take place in November.
As we are going on, following our roadmap, we have realized that all
departments were very interested with our investigations and not only for the
results, but also for our new way of thinking. This new way of thinking was just
one of the common ways big data projects are organized: the main idea is to
collect data as much as possible, due to the fact that data is now defined as a new
source of wealth. To collect deposits first, and evaluate later. Our point of view,
this was not exactly this one, as we are not yet configured for data promotion and
evaluation, but everybody is becoming aware that we are working with a lot of
data containing strategic information not used enough. In order to improve these
misuses of data, we must break silo organization and collect data from all
departments. We are then expecting to build a huge data lake where every
departments will be invited to fish for its own analyses, KPI and reports. And
everybody will get something, for sure, from sardines to very big pikes, without
forgetting that it was just a sardine which had blocked the Port of Marseille.

7. BIG DATA, a new way to achieve success in Enterprise Architecture.
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If we go back to read the introduction of the TOGAF 9.1 reference book, we
can read that: “the advantages that result from a good enterprise architecture bring
important business benefits, which are clearly visible in the net profit or loss of a
company or organization
 a more efficient business operation
 a more efficient IT operation
 better return on existing investment, reduced risk for future investment
…”
It is exactly what we are expecting for the deployment of our big data project.
We know we will have a very good and quick return on all business operations.
We know too, and just for example, by simply analyzing logs of usual IT
operations, we will quickly understand what we have to improve and even more
we will be able to evaluate where new and efficient services must or may be
produced. The use of shared new tools for the analyzing data and to produce
reports will also reduce the cost of audit and studies, like for example the
traditional studies on passenger flow with a cost of about 2 or 3 week of expert
work, which has been reduced to half an hour. Furthermore, the list continues with
a lot of new advantages. But the most important one is that we are proving that the
silo organization, which is known as the hardest resistance to improve business
capabilities and to open business vision, is now on the way to be destroyed in the
promotion of the sharing information where everyone can find new and large
benefits.
6 What are our new goals for the IT Services?
I have not shown that every day we have worked on this project we have fished
IT problems too, from sardines to pikes, and we have had to resolve them with the
help of IT teams. IT services have been, by the way, evaluated in their capability
to provide the service we were expecting to get. Finally, it was also a kind of a
large audit, and a way to identify what services have to be improved or modified.
Then, with the most of CTO or IT Services managers, we completely agree with
the fact that IT Services must be powerful and agile, with low costs, and so on,
and so on… Of course, these are expectations shared by every business and
business process. From our point of view, it looks like we are now moving to a
new epoch of the IT. IT, even if there is still major companies with strategies to
stay major in their capabilities to sell big contracts, a large part of typical IT
services are now included the list of the general services, like desks, chairs and
phones. With the big and awful monsters who haunt the halls and offices,
enterprise architects must act as ghostbusters to master said monsters to get them
back to their cages, and become now nice and docile dogs. The Times are A-
Changin…

8. BIG DATA, a new way to achieve success in Enterprise Architecture.
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IT is no longer just a list of services, defined to serve the business: it is now a
business with its own objectives and valuations to perform. And this business is to
serve the company with the capabilities to collect, store and analyze data and to
produce agile digital applications able to smartly associate information and give
users the tools they need to succeed. It is not very hard to realize and there is no
big gap to jump. The only difficulty is the minds set that imprisoned in our ways
of thinking. Ordinary servers are very cheap, and one of the things we must keep
in mind about GAFA, is that they use distributed architectures primarily based on
low cost materials even though their growth became monstrous.
What we think is that we have to go on this data revolution to promote the
share of data inside the enterprise and data analysts are involved in the concerns of
making the electrocardiogram make sure of business effective.
7 Conclusion
We are living in a new epoch, the epoch of the digital revolution. The presence of
everything and everyone is becoming data centric. Tell me what of data you are
and I will tell you who you are. This revolution has its pennants with the web
monsters known as GAFA. In French, we say “fais gaffe”, which means “watch
out”. Do we love it or not, we are the epoch of the calculation everywhere of
everything, and this means more or less a transformation in our way of thinking
and finally in our ways of understanding how things moves all around us.
Everybody can feel how quickly old and traditional actors are moving away to be
replaced by concepts always in the same data centric direction shown as a very
light and diet way of thinking. The heavy way should no longer show. And it is
not easy when we are working in and for a traditional industry. But look at the
new lines of cars: they are now completely connected and give the constructors as
well the conductor a lot of services and indication about how, when and where to
drive. We should need to be in the same state of mind and finally be able to know
precisely how our processes are running step by step, and we must be able to
answer the anxious and terrific questions of our new century: “Is it for me?” Yes,
it’s for you. Only you!...

9. BIG DATA, a new way to achieve success in Enterprise Architecture.
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la gare St-Lazare Claude Monet 1877