It can sometimes be quite difficult to articulate quite what architecture is outside of the context of buildings, I thought this was an interesting take on the subject.
Architecture from MAYAnMAYA on Vimeo.
Posts Tagged ‘Enterprise Architecture’
Architecture
Friday, June 5th, 2009So, what is Enterprise Architecture?
Thursday, February 26th, 2009Yesterday I spotted a post from Server Management magazine titled ‘What is Enterprise Architecture?’. It’s a good question, it’s something I’ve been asked more than once. The answer they gave (in a round-about way) is:
Using one of the more general descriptions I’ve heard, you could say that EA is the Big Picture of the Enterprise, now and in the future. If that is the case, then truly knowing that picture is probably impossible for any individual person.
If I said to you “What is the World?” the question would have almost no meaning. You cannot know what the world is, you can only have a viewpoint onto the world, which is tainted by your personal experiences, your areas of expertise, and your natural biases. So, while the world continues to exist, a true Big Picture of it is inherently impossible.
No wonder architects argue about what EA is. So if I’m asked today what Enterprise Architecture is, probably my best answer would also be my most enigmatic. “It is whatever the Enterprise needs it to be”.
They are right that Enterprise Architecture (EA) represents the big picture, and it does need to be whatever the business needs it to be. For me however such vague descriptions do nothing to help EA or its practitioners. If businesses are to invest scarce resources on EA, and IS in general, then I reckon the Architects better have a pretty good description of what they do and what the business will get from it.
In many cases when people talk about Enterprise Architecture they mean Enterprise IS Architecture. The objective being to better align the IS to business objectives. In it’s purest form EA can extend that scope out into the business to align non-IS business processes to try and get the most benefit for the organisation. For a lot of companies that’s a step to far, although there can be fantastic benefits it represents a huge business change so EA remains a primarily IS lead initiative. At least at first.
So how would I describe EA?
For me Enterprise Architecture is a framework that helps a business guide decisions on investment and design. It acts as a link between the overall business strategy and the specific IS strategy. By specifying processes, standards and interfaces, and defining common IS services, it can guide the design, implementation and operational of IS to best support the objectives and strategy of the business.
Most importantly EA can’t be static – you can’t just ‘do’ an EA and leave it. It has to be a living part of the business/IS so it can evolve over time with the business.
Back to work…
Sunday, January 4th, 2009Despite my best efforts to catch the flu, it’s looking like Monday morning will bring with it my first working week of 2009 (booooo!). It’s set to be a busy start of the year, with quite a lot of projects and work carrying over from December. As well as the big Enterprise Architecture project I’ve been working on there are a host of smaller things that will be taking up my time.
I’ll be following up with Apple and O2 on the iPhone Exchange ActiveSync issues we’ve been seeing. Hopefully now we have some repeatable scenarios we can provide to Apple we’ll be able to help fix the issues.
There’s some ongoing work to streamline our supply chain for desktop (and laptop) computers. This has been hanging around for months and although nothing is actually ‘broken’ there’s a general feeling that we can do even better. We should be able to work with our suppliers to cut some slack from the supply process and with any luck cut some costs at the same time. In truth this isn’t strictly my job anymore, but as it’s what I used to look after I’m giving the guys a helping hand. Plus it should put us in really good stead for the Desktop/Windows 7 work we have pencilled in over the next year.
By far the most varied – and time consuming – chunk of work is the ongoing programme of work my team has put together for the remainder of the 2008 FY and 2009. Ensuring the these projects make a successful transition from our drawing board into actual working projects is incredibly important. Our project guys are all pretty good, but there’s a lot of projects to keep track of. One thing we need to do better is to both better publicise – and ‘market’ - the roadmap of work coming up (and it’s implications/benefits) and also ensure the we have a clearer view of the status of the programme and it’s component projects. Again nothing is broken as such, but I’m a stickler for the details and making things better! :) Fortunately some of this ties in nicely with the Enterprise Architecture so I should be able to bring it all together into something more consistent.
Hopefully I’ll be able to get my hands dirty in a few more technical projects this year as well. Whilst I enjoy the higher level architecture work, I do miss the more immediate satisfaction of getting a script to run or seeing your freshly installed system work for the first time. I won’t get too much time for this, but if I pick the right projects I’ll be able to get stuck in. We’re doing some good work on the development side with Agile working, it’d be great to try and translate some of this into the more infrastructure related projects that are my background.
So a busy January awaits… It’s good fun work, but I’m still not looking forward to the alarm clock going off at 6am on Monday!
