What's Enterprise Architecture?
Ask 10 people in an IT team what enterprise architecture is - and you will get about 15 answers between "Very strategic work" and "No idea". Ask 3 enterprise architects, and you will get as many answers, all of which sound impressive, but none of them appears too conclusive - which may indicate that the "No idea" at least was honest...
Software architecture is a rather young discipline (Mary Shaw and David Garlan published their wonderful book in 1996), and it became very popular in the last 5 years. Nowerdays, everybody calls himself an architect - I recently saw a job advert for an "Outlook Architect" - and the questions mount what this architecture thing is. For a couple of years now, we have ISO 1471-2000, so it should not be so complicated.
But what are we doing about this "Enterprise" Architecture thing? Not the toy version, where IT people construct IT systems, and call it enterprise, because they just discovered that there is a world outside IT they have to service.
Enterprise Architecture - that simply means applying architecture to the enterprise, to processes, to org units, HR, finance and whatever else you can think of. Does that work? Can we architect an "enterprise" (that is, a living, breathing company) the same way we construct a new billing system?
I am not sure yet to which extent it does fly. But I do believe that architectural approaches, that the capabilities of an architect can help the enterprise. Create structure. Use repeatable patterns, bring in best practices. And I am not the only one - many large companies are embracing the concepts of business architecture.
Thomas Obitz
Principal Architect - Strategic Technology and Architecture Consulting
Comments
Architecture is the bridge between Strategy and Implementation
- Strategy is often expressed in ways that are not implementable
- Architecture is a design activity bridging the gap
- Architecture principles (values) enable consistent decision making
- Enterprise Architecture is more of a business management activity than a technology effort
Current Typical Industry State
Most current EA efforts are actually software design, and should be called “Application Architecture” or high level software design
Some more mature / larger scope software oriented EA efforts actually take into account data or software product relationships across the enterprise.
The Problem - relatively low dollar (software / data driven) architecture efforts typically drive the bigger dollar I/T infrastructure investments – often not the best approach.
True enterprise architecture span platforms, communications, database, application, security, enterprise management, methods, staffing, organizational design, and is driven from strategy, budgets, legacy environment, skills availability, technology and industry trends. The EA role is the composer of a musical score that the conductor (CIO) can direct to make beautiful music.
Posted by: Kirk Rheinlander | May 7, 2008 02:53 AM