A five-layer deterministic framework for enterprise architecture assessment, integration mapping, and migration planning. Built across real engagements — not adapted from a textbook.
A diagram lists what exists. It cannot tell you which integrations will break, what the impact costs, or in what order to cut things over.
Adding more lines and labels to a 2D map does not change the questions it can answer. The gap is methodology, not effort.
A programme commits to a sequence it cannot execute. A cutover discovers three undocumented systems depend on the one being retired. A financial integration drops records silently.
A PRISM assessment delivered before programme planning begins is not a cost. It is the document that prevents the programme from committing to a plan that cannot be executed.
The cost of getting this wrong is not a failed sprint. It is an AI component that modifies production data without a review gate because nobody asked whether one existed. It is a financial integration that drops records silently because nobody defined what happens when it fails.
Five layers. Five pipeline zones. Fifty deterministic rules. The same input always produces the same output.
Every integration must define its failure disposition, escalation threshold, escalation owner, and recovery procedure. An integration without this documentation does not pass the assurance gate.
AI generates, analyses, and recommends. Humans decide, approve, and execute. Without exception — regardless of how sophisticated the AI system is or how urgent the use case feels.
Zero Trust: every access request is authenticated, authorised, and continuously validated. Every integration authenticates explicitly. Every data asset is classified. Every access event is logged.
What a standard architecture review does not produce:
A migration, a replacement, an estate nobody fully understands. The risk is in the architecture — find it, quantify it, present it.
Programmes with 40–100 integrations, many undocumented, several carrying PII or financial data. PRISM finds them before the cutover.
Which integrations change, stay, or retire — classified by risk, documented with error handling, and sequenced for cutover.
Ungoverned AI components, undocumented security gaps, endpoints not reviewed in years. Fifty rules produce a findings report on day one.
A quantified risk score, a priority action list, and a phased migration plan you can take to the steering committee. Not a whiteboard diagram.
Where a 2D diagram shows you what you have, PRISM shows you what it means. Five layers. Five zones. Fifty rules. One complete assessment.
What exists. Every system catalogued by category and zone.
What moves, what breaks, what stays. 50 deterministic rules across 5 groups.
What is missing, what is fragile, what should be automated.
Where data sits in the flow. Refracted from a single beam into five distinct zones.
The role data plays at each stage. A second independent dimension that runs across the zones.
Every system is classified by both a zone and a data layer — two independent dimensions that together define its role in the architecture.
Platform Assessment
Systems registry: every platform catalogued by category, zone, data layer, API capability, status, and ownership. AI systems carry governance fields — human review gate, action scope, evaluation strategy, rollback capability.
Risk Classification
Risk-scored integration register. Each integration gets a change type (Change / No Change / Retired / TBD), a complexity rating, and a contribution to the 0–100 migration risk score weighted across complexity, PII, financial risk, automation gaps, and TBD items.
Integration Mapping
Interface specs, data contracts, error handling, and the endpoint registry. Blast radius analysis downstream and upstream to depth three. Compliance mapping across PCI-DSS, GDPR, SOX, HIPAA, ISO 27001 and others.
Systems Analysis
Architecture health report against 50 rules covering change impact, platform governance, automation, AI governance, observability, security, and endpoint security. Every finding severity-rated with remediation guidance.
Migration Planning
Phased sequencing, testing specs per integration, runbooks for high-risk integrations, RTO/RPO profiles, cost summary, decision log, accepted risk log. Output split: executive summary for the board, full technical spec for delivery.
Rule 37 fires on every PII or financial integration without encryption in transit, every time, regardless of who runs the assessment. That is the difference between an opinion-based review and a rules-based assessment.
Client name, size, engagement type, primary objective. Five questions that frame the entire assessment.
Every system in the landscape registered with its category, zone, API status, and replacement status.
Every integration between systems defined: method, frequency, PII, financial flags, error handling disposition, and indirect dependencies. API endpoints registered and security-assessed per system.
50 deterministic rules fire automatically across change impact, architecture health, AI governance, cybersecurity, and endpoint security. Every finding ranked by severity with remediation guidance.
Professional PDF report with executive summary, integration assessment, migration roadmap, and supplementary sections covering AI governance and security compliance. Suitable for programme boards and executive stakeholders.
Most reviews stop at the assessment. PRISM produces the full planning toolkit — phased roadmap, risk scoring, dependency analysis, runbooks, endpoint registry, AI governance, and compliance mapping. All deterministic. All auditable.
Five-zone swim lane, current and future state side by side.
Select any system; see exactly what breaks during cutover. BFS traversal, 3 levels deep, severity-rated.
Auto-generated from system ownership. Named R, A, C, I per integration.
Sequenced by criticality with pre/post validation and rollback triggers for every integration.
Every integration tagged by GDPR, PCI-DSS, SOX, HIPAA with exposure per framework.
Deterministic test requirements per integration. Exportable as PDF.
Failure disposition, escalation threshold, escalation owner, and recovery procedure per integration.
Every API endpoint assessed for authentication, encryption, input validation, rate limiting, and credential handling.
SUPP A: AI governance for every AI component and autonomous agent. SUPP B: cybersecurity posture mapped to the ACSC Essential Eight.
Every rule traces to one of four documented playbooks. Not a consultant's opinion.
Deterministic first, AI second. Every AI component has a human review gate. Every AI agent defines its action scope. Six rules fire against AI systems.
Zero Trust across eight security domains. Governs Rules 35–50 covering identity, encryption, patching, logging, backup, access, and the endpoint security registry. Mapped to the ACSC Essential Eight.
No error goes unhandled. Every integration defines its failure disposition, escalation threshold, escalation owner, and recovery procedure. Governs Rules 29 and 30.
One standard for every pipeline. Orchestrator-module architecture, Bronze-Silver-Gold layers, deterministic transformations, no runtime AI.
No silos. All data lives in one system.
Deterministic first, AI second.
Every component belongs to one of five zones: Input, Transform, Loop, Output, Interface.
Every pipeline needs at least one feedback loop.
Right-size the platform. Snowflake is not the answer for a small business.
Consolidate redundant processes. Three payment portals doing the same job is one process waiting to be built.
No manual processes. Everything should be automated.
AI is never used unsupervised at runtime. Every AI component has a human review gate.
No error goes unhandled. Every integration defines its failure disposition, escalation path, and recovery procedure.
Every data pipeline follows the Bronze, Silver, Gold medallion pattern.
25 years designing data systems across gaming, fitness, retail, and professional services. PRISM was built from the ground up across real engagements — not adapted from a generic framework.
Most organisations know their headline systems. Few have a complete picture of the 60, 80, or 120 integrations between them — many carrying PII, financial data, or compliance obligations nobody has documented.
PRISM finds them and classifies each by change impact, risk, and complexity. It identifies what breaks when a system changes, how far it propagates, and the cutover sequence that avoids cascading failure.
Mid-market estates face enterprise architectural problems — platform consolidation, legacy replacement, data estate modernisation — without the enterprise budget.
PRISM scales. The same methodology that supported a multi-year government migration of 32+ systems and 62+ integrations applies to a 15-system organisation replacing its CRM. Same output: risk score, findings report, migration plan.
Most architects on enterprise programmes apply experience and judgement — output quality is a function of who you placed. PRISM changes the equation: documented methodology, deterministic rules, consistent output regardless of landscape complexity.
For clients running platform migrations, transformations, or estate modernisations, PRISM is the differentiator between a diagram with observations and a quantified, auditable assessment.