The Infrastructure layer is the foundation layer for the entire platform. This layer represents the base IT infrastructure. It includes the physical implementation of the platform, and management of all its technologies.

The infrastructure layer is made up of five major sections: hardware, networking, operating systems, management, and security. The management and security sections are common to all layers, but vary in their implementation from pattern to pattern. In this pattern, the management section represents such capabilities as hardware / OS / application monitoring, software deployment, and configuration management. The security section represents capabilities like enterprise identity management, single sign-on, and malware detection and prevention.

Virtualization is an important, but optional, implementation of the infrastructure layer; IT infrastructures can and do run without virtualization, but adding virtualization to this layer enhances the layers above / that depend on it.

Examples of infrastructure components are server and client hardware and their operating systems, network switches, IP address to name resolution (DNS), network directory and identity services, anti-malware, and management capabilities such as monitoring, software deployment / patch management, and recovery management.

Architectural pre-requisites: IT Process

Architectural recommendations:

Solution patterns it enables: User Experience, Integrated Communications, ECM and Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Web and Social Computing, SOA & BPM, Data, Security