UCI’s Architecture Review Board

The Architecture Review Board (ARB) is a standing body of technical experts at UCI who steer the campus’ Enterprise Architecture efforts: standardizing and organizing IT infrastructure to align with enterprise goals.

Our motto is shortcuts, not speedbumps. We don’t want to make you do more work; we want to show you the quickest way to get to where you’re going. If that sounds like something you’d be interested in, please join us!

The ARB charge structures our work around three pilars: define, promote, and explore.

Current ARB Work describes what ARB groups are currently working on now and what needs to be reviewed.

Define the bar for OIT work

Standards & Guidelines

These documents are meant to ensure that you know the requirements and can easily achieve them. Standards contain “must” statements; guidelines do not. Each will tell you why it exists, what it applies to, how to be compliant, and how to seek an exception. Different standards apply to different groups on campus.

UCI artifacts apply to projects and teams anywhere on campus

OIT artifacts apply to projects and teams that are part of the Office of Information Technology

ARB artifacts apply to the Architecture Review Board itself

Key Technology Strategies

ARB’s Key Technology Strategies tells people where OIT is headed; it documents what tools and platforms we expect will stay around long-term, and which ones we are looking to move away from. This is high-level speculation about the future of broad domains, and doesn’t attempt to get the same detail as the ARB Recommendations, which are about our current technology mix.

OS Fitness

ARB keeps tabs on which operating systems are in use, and which one you’ll get if you ask for a new box. These documents make it clear what we require of each OS release, and allow everyone on campus to see the progress we’re making toward approving the newest versions. See the docs for macOS, Windows, Windows Server, RedHat Enterprise Linux, and Rocky Linux.

Promote standards and best practices

Current Technology Survey

Every year the ARB reviews the technology in use on campus and produces a survey (access requires campus VPN). Use it to identify which technologies we consider best of breed, find people using the same stack you’re using, or connect with folks who already know something about the tool you’re looking into.

ARB Recommendations

The raw data behind the current technology survey is continually updated by ARB members familiar with what’s in use around campus. We reconsider each technology once a year, update the pros and cons, and choose a stance: favored technologies are best-of-breed, used technologies are seeing success somewhere on campus, while hold technologies should stay in use where they are but not spread, and some technologies are ready to be avoided; teams should migrate away.

Domain Definition Last review
Development Language Recommendations Talk to the computer 2025-02
Editor and IDE Recommendations Get ideas into the computer 2025-02
Identity, Authentication, and Authorization Recommendations Who’s allowed in, and what they can do when they get there 2025-03
Team Collaboration & Project Management Recommendations Talk inside your teams 2025-06
Security Recommendations Keep your systems safe 2025-06
Business Intelligence Recommendations Better understand your data 2025-06
Backend Web Frameworks Server side, to make services and web apps 2025-08
Database Recommendations Storing data, in SQL or otherwise 2025-08
JDK (Java Development Kit) Recommendations Get Java running 2025-08
Frontend Web Tools Client side, to make their applications more responsive 2025-10
Operations Management Recommendations Keep track of all this other stuff 2025-10
Platform Recommendations Run all this other stuff 2025-10
Application Infrastructure Recommendations Let systems talk to each other 2024-11
Web Form Recommendations Get feedback from lots of people 2024-11

Project Design Review

The ARB reviews large projects on campus, trying to steer folks into leverage our existing standards, guidleines, and infrastructure. ARB reviews only projects that bring new platforms into our environment, have a considerable ongoing cost, or affect multiple downstream projects.

Release Management Maturity Model

ARB is investigating how teams release software and other updates, in order to see where we might work together to push everyone forward. Our release management maturity model will help us see where opportunities exist.

Explore new products, technologies, and practices

Subgroups

At any time, there are a number of different Subgroups meeting to draft standards, review technologies, and make technical decisions that will impact all of UCI.

Birds of a Feather Groups

The ARB tries to look ahead and foster use and adoption of new technology. These groups are currently meeting under the auspices of ARB, and would be happy to invite other UCI folk along. If you have an idea for a group, reach out to the ARB Chairs and let us know.

[OIT artifacts apply to projects and teams that are part of the Office of Information Technology]: #oit-artifacts-apply-to-projects-and-teams-that-are-part-of-the-office-of-information-technologyoit

[Current Technology Survey]: #current-technology-surveycurrent-technology-survey

[ARB Recommendations]: #arb-recommendationsarb-recs