Purpose

The Shared Services Pattern defines the approved reference architecture for providing and consuming enterprise shared services within University-managed technology environments.

This pattern describes how reusable platform capabilities support multiple workloads while preserving ownership, accountability, architectural boundaries, and operational sustainability.

The pattern provides a common architecture supporting service reuse, operational consistency, reduced duplication, centralized management, and scalable platform capabilities.

Applicable standards, workload classifications, data classifications, and obligations determine the requirements implemented within shared-service architectures.

Use Cases

This pattern applies when:

• Providing enterprise platform capabilities
• Providing identity services
• Providing monitoring services
• Providing governance services
• Providing management services
• Providing automation services
• Providing integration services
• Providing platform services supporting multiple workloads
• Providing shared operational capabilities
• Supporting workload onboarding and platform operations

This pattern does not define:

• Approval requirements
• Security requirements
• Data-handling requirements
• Regulatory requirements
• Service review processes
• Operational procedures
• Workload-classification requirements
• Product-specific implementations

Pattern Application

The Shared Services Pattern provides a common architecture for reusable enterprise capabilities.

Innovation Workloads

Innovation workloads may consume shared services appropriate to experimentation, research, pilot initiatives, and evaluation activities.

Enterprise Workloads

Enterprise workloads consume shared services through the standard enterprise shared-services architecture.

Regulated Workloads

Regulated workloads consume shared services through approved architectures and any required obligation-specific extensions.

Design Principles

Service Reuse

Reusable platform capabilities should be provided through shared services whenever practical.

Reduced Duplication

Shared services reduce the need for repeated implementation of common platform capabilities across workloads.

Workload Independence

Consumption of shared services does not transfer ownership of workloads, applications, data, or business processes to the shared-service provider.

Boundary Preservation

Use of shared services does not eliminate workload, platform, governance, operational, or data boundaries.

Composable Architecture

Shared-service architectures are composed of reusable capabilities that support multiple technology solutions.

Operational Sustainability

Shared services are designed to provide consistent capabilities across multiple workloads while reducing platform-management overhead.

Logical Architecture

Workloads
        |
        +-- Applications
        +-- Databases
        +-- Data Products
        +-- Platform Services
        +-- Integrations
        |
        v

Shared Services
        |
        +-- Identity Services
        +-- Monitoring Services
        +-- Governance Services
        +-- Management Services
        +-- Automation Services
        +-- Integration Services
        |
        v

Enterprise Platform Capabilities

Shared Service Categories

Identity Services

Provide reusable authentication, authorization, identity-governance, workload-identity, and access-management capabilities.

Monitoring Services

Provide reusable operational visibility, reporting, auditability, investigation support, and monitoring capabilities.

Governance Services

Provide reusable governance, inventory, compliance visibility, accountability, policy-management, and standards-alignment capabilities.

Management Services

Provide reusable administration, operational support, service-management, inventory, and platform-management capabilities.

Automation Services

Provide reusable deployment, orchestration, onboarding, operational automation, and integration capabilities.

Integration Services

Provide reusable communication, interoperability, messaging, workflow, and service-integration capabilities.

Platform Services

Provide reusable platform capabilities supporting multiple workloads and hosting environments.

Service Consumption Model

Workload Consumption

Workloads consume approved shared services rather than reimplementing common platform capabilities whenever practical.

Platform Consumption

Platform architectures may consume shared services to support governance, monitoring, management, automation, and operational capabilities.

Landing Zone Consumption

Landing Zones integrate with shared services to provide reusable platform capabilities for hosted workloads.

Enterprise Consumption

Enterprise services may consume other shared services when appropriate to support reusable enterprise capabilities.

Shared Service Boundaries

Workload Boundary

The workload boundary contains workload-specific applications, data, services, and integrations.

Shared-Service Boundary

The shared-service boundary contains reusable enterprise capabilities supporting multiple workloads.

Enterprise Boundary

The enterprise boundary contains centrally managed capabilities supporting multiple workloads, platforms, Landing Zones, and business functions.

Operational Boundary

The operational boundary contains the ownership, administration, support, and management responsibilities associated with a shared service.

Shared Service Integration

Identity Integration

The Shared Services Pattern integrates with the Identity Pattern to provide reusable identity capabilities.

Network Integration

The Shared Services Pattern integrates with the Network Pattern to provide communication paths supporting shared-service consumption.

Monitoring Integration

The Shared Services Pattern integrates with the Monitoring Pattern to provide operational visibility and service observability.

Data Protection Integration

The Shared Services Pattern integrates with the Data Protection Pattern to support protection of information assets managed by shared services.

Resilience and Recovery Integration

The Shared Services Pattern integrates with the Contingency and Resiliency Pattern to support shared-service recoverability and operational continuity.

Landing Zone Integration

Landing Zones integrate with approved shared services to provide reusable platform capabilities for hosted workloads.

Operational Responsibilities

Enterprise Service Providers

Enterprise service providers own shared-service architecture, service operation, lifecycle management, onboarding, and operational support.

Platform Engineering

Platform Engineering owns reusable integration components, onboarding automation, deployment capabilities, and platform-level shared-service integration.

Information Security

Information Security provides security requirements consumed by shared-service architectures and participates in architecture reviews and investigations.

Workload Teams

Workload teams own service-consumption decisions, workload integration, workload configuration, and workload-specific operational responsibilities.

Business Owners

Business owners provide requirements, ownership, accountability, support expectations, and business justification associated with shared-service consumption.

Automation Pattern

Shared-service architectures should be implemented through approved platform automation whenever practical.

Automation may support:

• Service onboarding
• Identity integration
• Monitoring integration
• Governance integration
• Automation-service integration
• Landing Zone integration
• Workload onboarding
• Shared-service registration

Shared Service Definition
        |
        +-- Identity Services
        +-- Monitoring Services
        +-- Governance Services
        +-- Management Services
        +-- Automation Services
        |
        v

Reusable Service Components
        |
        v

Landing Zone or Workload Deployment
        |
        v

Integrated Shared-Service Architecture

Shared-service automation components should be reusable across supported hosting architectures, workload classifications, and platform products.

Reference Architecture Outcomes

A workload implementing this pattern should provide:

• Service reuse
• Reduced platform duplication
• Centralized platform capabilities
• Identity-service integration
• Monitoring-service integration
• Governance-service integration
• Management-service integration
• Automation-service integration
• Operational sustainability
• Repeatable onboarding
• Reusable platform architecture
• Support for workload and obligation-specific extensions

Exceptions

Exceptions to this pattern must follow approved architecture governance and information security exception processes.

Approved exceptions must be periodically reviewed and must not be treated as permanent architecture patterns.