What are the best ways to mitigate risks in architecture design?

This list is missing the most important fundamental to secure design: Threat Modeling! How do we know what to protect, where, how, how much (required security posture + risk tolerance) without first assessing a proposed system/design/change for what attacks that system will need to survive? the first step is to threat model because threat modeling IS the foundational technique for secure design (please see my books+presentations on why this is so)

My point of view, there is no rule in this, it depends on each case where the Enterprise Architect must evaluate the organizational context, the business processes and their objectives to achieve in the short, medium and long term; Especially if we are facing a process of transformation in the organization. Organizational culture is a key factor, I strongly recommend paying close attention and consideration to the design and risk mitigations of an Enterprise Architecture or Solutions Architecture.

Testable requirements and design are key to ensuring that effective security controls are implemented. Part of the validation and verification should include penetration testing. In a DEVOPS environment the fundamentals of SECOPS should be baked into CI/CD such as SAST, SCA and DAST

Privacy by design and artifacts such as a privacy threshold assessment should be leveraged and conducted to determine whether a deeper privacy risk assessment should be performed such as privacy impact assessment, or a data protection impact assessment

The risk management system framework of policies, procedures and processes employed by the organisation to ensure that the framework defined can fulfils the risk management task required to achieve its purpose and objectives. These objectives will cover all aspects of the organisation including GRC operations. Furthermore, the risk management framework determines how risk management is integrated with the organisation management system. Therefore a well formalised risk management framework .

In my experience another way to mitigate risks in architecture design is to apply modularity, which means to divide the system into smaller, independent, and cohesive units that can be developed, tested, deployed, and maintained separately. 1) Modularity can help you to reduce the complexity, dependencies, and coupling of the system, as well as to increase the reusability, scalability, and flexibility of the system. 2) Modularity can also help you to isolate and contain the impact of any changes or errors in the system, as well as to facilitate the integration and interoperability of the system. 3) Some of the ways to apply modularity are using microservices, components, layers, and domains.

Contributing to modularity involves identifying opportunities for modular design, creating reusable modules or components, and promoting best practices for modular architecture within the organization. Architects can contribute by advocating for modular design principles, sharing knowledge about modular patterns and anti-patterns, and collaborating with development teams to implement modular solutions. By contributing to modularity, architects can help establish a culture of modular thinking and design excellence within the architecture and development community.

In my experience, one of the best ways to keep your safety-belt on and mitigate design-risk is to talk to a fulsome representation of end-users and then meticulously work your way back into the design of the infrastructure. When I mention end-users, I don’t just mean executives with authority. The broader the prospective the better. I have a saying when it comes to interviewing end-users as a part of a design initiative. “The lower you go, the more precious the info.”

Modularity is just a fancy way of saying 'to solve a complex problem first break it into multiple smaller problems '. It's always better to layout an outline of where you're going before getting into details for any specific area. It allows people (even architects) to work in parallel while maintaining continuity of all the parts.

You've highlighted a key strategy in mitigating risks in architecture design – the application of modularity. Breaking down a system into smaller, independent, and cohesive units brings several advantages. 1) It Reduces the Complexity 2) Reduced Dependencies and Coupling. 3) Increased Reusability. 4) Scalability. 5) Flexibility and Adaptability. 6) Isolation of Impact. (finding errors) 7) Interoperability. Applying modularity through these techniques makes architecture design more resilient, adaptable, and easier to manage. It aligns with principles such as the separation of concerns and the single responsibility principle, contributing to overall system robustness.

It is useful to highlight that not all risks are security related; privacy and physical safety are other types of risks (and threats) that should be considered when designing a system. Implementing security will of course help, but implementing a system with security, privacy, and if needed safety among your design goals will help create a solid effective architecture and design.

I agree, I also like to define the security boundaries. These aid in defying what requires protection, falls under compliance requirements or interdependencies.

Uno de los problemas de la arquitectura de seguridad es la confusión que existe entre muchos especialistas al pensar que sólo debe protegerse lo tecnológico (seguridad informática), es primordial dar el peso correcto a las parte humana y procedural para tener una verdadera arquitectura de seguridad de la información. Se debe considerar que La tríada CID abarca todos los componentes de una solución, y una solución son software, hardware, comunicaciones, instalaciones, procedimientos, leyes y personas.

Para mitigar riscos em projetos de arquitetura com ênfase em segurança: Identifique ameaças e vulnerabilidades. Adote padrões de segurança reconhecidos. Estabeleça rigoroso controle de acesso. Realize testes de segurança regularmente. Mantenha o sistema atualizado com patches de segurança. Capacite a equipe em práticas seguras.

Adopting an efficient stance, it's imperative to integrate automated monitoring and response mechanisms. Real-time threat detection and swift, automated responses enhance the system's resilience by minimizing the response time to potential security breaches. This proactive approach not only mitigates risks promptly but also aligns with the ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity, ensuring a robust defense against emerging threats.

1- Setup planning sessions with stakeholders(review expectations, what has been sold, business/technical requirements, etc..) 2- send MOM for each workshop or planning session. 3- don’t only consider as is but what is the vision and strategy for the customer 4- verify deployment options considering RPO and RTO 5- full alignment on the success criteria (compliance , licensing, cost , stability, performance requirement, SLA, etc..) 6- high level and low level document coverage and end state clarity 7- clear plan for tooling and testing.

Always check and test with stakeholders. Include them early in the process to reach a design and approach that will be secure but won't affect performance. Collect reports before and after implementation to compare. Agree on thresholds and act according to such thresholds.

Ensure that app delivers a fast, reliable, and delightful experience for your users. It can be achieved by proactively monitoring, optimizing, and iterating.

Architects should prioritise solutions in the design phase, such as employing a Zero Trust approach for security over-reliance on post-design testing. Collaborating with systems assurance and testing teams is key to validating overall testing plans, including the appropriateness of test and AI training data for realistic outcome projections. Ensure the validation of input parameters within expected limits. Systems should be designed for robust recovery, incorporating strategies like 'chaos monkey' testing for unexpected failures.

In architecture design, prioritizing performance is essential. Optimize code efficiency, leverage caching mechanisms, and choose scalable infrastructure. Regularly conduct performance testing to identify bottlenecks and optimize system responsiveness. Employ content delivery networks (CDNs) and implement load balancing for enhanced scalability. Utilize profiling tools to analyze and improve resource utilization. Consider asynchronous processing for time-consuming tasks. By consistently monitoring and fine-tuning performance aspects, the architecture can deliver a responsive and efficient user experience, mitigating potential issues and ensuring optimal functionality.

Contributing to stakeholder involvement involves establishing effective communication channels, facilitating stakeholder engagement sessions, and advocating for the inclusion of diverse perspectives in the design process. Architects can contribute by actively seeking and incorporating stakeholder feedback, promoting user-centered design principles, and fostering a culture of empathy and collaboration within the design and development teams. By contributing to stakeholder involvement, architects can help ensure that the architecture reflects the needs and priorities of all relevant stakeholders and fosters a sense of ownership and partnership in the design process.

The risks of not engaging stakeholders in the design process are: low adoption, costly re-design, failed implementations, and insurmountable resistance by the user community to name a few. The benefits are delivering a solution that users embrace and own, a higher performance level early in the implementation process, a higher likelihood of ongoing optimization and cost avoidance, also to name a few.

Prioritization of the risk is extremely important even before we can think of mitigation. Involving stakeholders can provide valuable insight about the risk appetite of the organization as some of the risks can simply be accepted based on the occurrence/impact it can cause.

Teamwork is crucial here, with a clear assigned goal. To achieve their goals, it is crystal clear communication that can play a vital role in the success of the project.

In my experience, adding perspective from 'expert on demand personnel' like architects is necessary for regular architectural review and adds guidance to make the solution compliant, secure, scalable and adds collaboration.

One thing I've found particularly useful is always to keep your initial non-structural designs as flexible as possible. You will be surprised how many changes users would love to recommend once they step into your built space for the first time.

A aplicação de modularidade é crucial. Dividir o sistema em unidades independentes reduz complexidade e possibilita reutilização, agindo como um LEGO p/ os arquitetos. Implementar medidas de segurança, como criptografia, autenticação e firewalls, assegura a integridade do sistema e sua conformidade com regulamentações e normas. Ter desempenho otimizado não apenas atende às expectativas dos usuários, mas também evita custos e riscos associados a um desempenho inadequado. A revisão e atualização contínuas da arquitetura são fundamentais p/ a adaptação às mudanças. Através de auditorias, testes e métricas, garantimos não apenas a consistência, mas tmb a evolução contínua da arquitetura em resposta às dinâmicas do ambiente e da tecnologia.

Build a beta version and make it publicly accessible to everyone, go and get the feedback of industry experts and customers. Attract as much as negative feedback, I believe without knowing the crucial negative feedback, there's no point and clear objective to improve. Keep it as simple as that, get the feedback -> improve, and repeat.

Es útil comenzar con una base probada, pero también es crucial analizar qué aspectos se ajustan a tu modelo de negocio específico. Aunque ciertas arquitecturas sean prácticas comunes, no siempre son directamente aplicables a todas las empresas. Tratar la arquitectura como una receta de cocina no garantiza resultados consistentes, y siempre depende mucho del nivel de disrupción e innovación que vaya a aceptar una empresa específica.

Als Architekt ist es für mich entscheidend, dass die Ausrichtung der Target Architektur auf die Gesamtziele und strategien der Organisation erfolgt. viele Projekte/Produkte scheitern, weil die Architektur von Anfang an nicht auf die Ziele und Strategien des Unternehmens abgestimmt war.

When it comes to architecture and design, there is no absolute best. A pragmatic approach that I’ve found useful is to pick the top three architectural imperatives for a project at the very beginning as early as possible with all stakeholders to get their alignment. Whether it’s performance, cost, reliability, scalability, future proving, speed to market, ease of integration or operability, etc, etc, decide on what are the most critical measurements of success before the project gets going, before project changes inevitably happen and compromises have to be made. No one can afford the perfect architecture, set the priorities upfront when everyone’s mind is clear and you’re not behind schedule or over budget already!

Another important aspect to consider when designing architecture is compliance and operationalization. Compliance in that, how is the solution going to be regulated or constrained? Factoring in these controls will lead to a solution that doesn’t require rework after implementation. Additionally, how can aspects of solution functionality be automated or simplified to limit operational overhead for the client. Considerations like, infrastructure to support CI/CD, and logic apps for example. There is minimal value in delivering a wonderfully curated complex architecture if it can’t be reasonably maintained by the client or a managed service.

My take as an architect most important is to identify risks and then required mitigation can be planned using framework or modularity or tools and techniques. Mostly while defining an architecture most of people miss those edge cases and also miss to cover security as whole. Various aspect you can consider and evaluate your architecture to identify risks are: Application security Network Security Data Security Infrastructure Security Owasp So we can consider various aspects while defining an architecture itself but it varies from project to project based on complexity and nature of project .

Embrace adaptability and future-proofing. As technology evolves rapidly, designing IT architectures that can easily adapt to new technologies and standards is crucial. Incorporate elements that allow for easy integration of emerging technologies. Additionally, invest in training and development for your team to stay ahead of the curve in the latest architectural trends and security threats. This approach ensures that your architecture remains robust, secure, and efficient, not just for current needs but for future advancements as well. This proactive stance on adaptability can significantly mitigate long-term risks.

1. Plan ahead: Use a risk framework, analyze the site, and clearly define the project. 2. Design smartly: Embrace modularity, prioritize performance, and test digitally. 3. Work together: Involve stakeholders, document everything, and review regularly. 4. Think ahead: Integrate security, plan for contingencies, and adapt as needed. Remember, proactive planning and collaboration are key to mitigating risks and creating successful architecture.