Business Scenario: Open Platform 3.0™ – Actors and their Roles and Responsibilities
In a business scenario, an actor represents anything that interacts with or within the system. This can be a human, or a machine, or a computer program. Actors initiate activity with the system; for example:
- Computer user with the computer
- Phone user with the telephone
- Payroll clerk with the payroll system
- Internet subscriber with the web browser
In theatrical terms, the business scenario actors correspond to the characters in a play, the dramatis personae, rather than the actors playing the roles.
An actor represents a role that a user plays; i.e., a user is someone playing a role while using the system (e.g., John (user) is a dispatcher (actor)). Each actor uses the system in different ways, otherwise they should be the same actor.
Human Actors and Roles
The human actors and their roles are listed in Table 1.
Human Actor |
Role(s) |
End User |
Person using an application or service. An end user may be a business user acting on behalf of, and possibly an employee of, the enterprise running the application or service. Business users include:
An end user may be acting on behalf of, and possibly an employee of, a business partner of the enterprise running the application or service. An end user may be a member of the general public who is a customer of the enterprise running the application or service. An end user may be a member of the general public using a social media application. An end user may use non-functional interfaces to configure or provision the application or application service, as well as using its functional interface. |
Compliance Officer |
Person acting for a business enterprise to ensure that it conforms to regulation and meets its self-imposed standards of operation. |
Acquirer |
Person buying an IT system or service, or data, online, or obtaining it for free:
|
Publisher |
Person making an IT system or service or data available for acquisition online. |
Support Person |
Person responsible for resolving problems encountered by users; for example, as part of a help desk. The problems can be IT problems or non-IT problems. For example, in a process control system, the support person could be a process expert. |
Systems Manager |
Person responsible for the procurement, configuration, and operation of IT systems. Systems managers include service managers and data stewards. |
Developer |
Person responsible for the development of an IT service, an application, or a solution. Developers include programmers and integrators. |
Although they do not directly interact with or within the system, and are therefore not classed as actors, the following are important stakeholders to be considered.
- Decision-maker – person taking or influencing major decisions about an enterprise, such as a CEO, CIO, corporate strategist, finance director/CFO, or VP marketing/CMO.
- Architect – person responsible for developing the architecture of an enterprise and ensuring that the implementation meets the architecture’s specifications.
Technology Actors and Roles
The complete set of technology actors, and their roles, is shown in Table 2.
Technology Actors and their Roles
Technology Actor |
Role(s) |
Application |
A deployed and operational IT system that supports business functions and services [TOGAF]; for example, a payroll. Applications use data and are supported by multiple technology components but are distinct from the technology components that support the application. |
Utility |
A deployed and operational IT system that provides generic processing capability that is not related to any particular business function. Systems that enable orchestration or integration of business services form an important category of utility. |
Personal Computing Device |
A computing device, such as a PC, cellphone, or tablet, for use by one particular user. |
Social Media |
A means of interaction among people in which they create, share, and exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. A social media is a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content. A social media depends on mobile and web-based technologies to create highly interactive platforms through which individuals and communities share, co-create, discuss, and modify user-generated content. Note: This definition is taken from Wikipedia, August 2013. The Wikipedia article quotes [Ahlqvist], [Kaplan], and [Kietzmann]. |
Sensor |
A device that sends to IT systems information obtained from its environment. |
Control |
A device that changes its environment in response to messages received from IT systems. |
Network |
A communication medium between two or more devices. The systems connected to a network that input data from the network or output data to the network for conveyance to other systems are called nodes. A particular network, of fundamental importance, is the Internet. |
Cloud SaaS Service |
An IT service in which the capability provided to the consumer is to use the provider’s applications running on a cloud infrastructure. See [NIST DEF]. The applications are accessible from various client devices through either a thin client interface, such as a web browser (e.g., web-based email), or a program interface. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, storage, or even individual application capabilities, with the possible exception of limited user-specific application configuration settings. |
Cloud PaaS Service |
An IT service in which the capability provided to the consumer is to deploy onto the cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquired applications created using programming languages, libraries, services, and tools supported by the provider. See [NIST DEF]. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, or storage, but has control over the deployed applications and possibly configuration settings for the application-hosting environment. |
Cloud IaaS Service |
An IT service in which the capability provided to the consumer is to provision processing, storage, networks, and other fundamental computing resources where the consumer is able to deploy and run arbitrary software, which can include operating systems and applications. See [NIST DEF]. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage, and deployed applications; and possibly limited control of select networking components (e.g., host firewalls). |