Yesterday I spotted a post from Server Management magazine titled \u2018What is Enterprise Architecture?\u2019.\u00a0 It\u2019s a good question, it\u2019s something I\u2019ve been asked more than once.\u00a0 The answer they gave (in a round-about way) is:<\/p>\n
Using one of the more general descriptions I\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n
If I said to you \u201cWhat is the World?\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
No wonder architects argue about what EA is. So if I\u2019m asked today what Enterprise Architecture is, probably my best answer would also be my most enigmatic. \u201cIt is whatever the Enterprise needs it to be\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
They are right that Enterprise Architecture (EA) represents the big picture, and it does need to be whatever the business needs it to be.\u00a0 For me however such vague descriptions do nothing to help EA or its practitioners.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
In many cases when people talk about Enterprise Architecture they mean Enterprise IS Architecture.\u00a0 The objective being to better align the IS to business objectives.\u00a0 In it\u2019s 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.\u00a0 For a lot of companies that\u2019s a step to far, although there can be fantastic benefits it represents a huge business change so EA remains a primarily IS lead initiative.\u00a0 At least at first.<\/p>\n
So how would I describe EA?\u00a0<\/p>\n
For me Enterprise Architecture is a framework that helps a business guide decisions on investment and design.\u00a0 It acts as a link between the overall business strategy and the specific IS strategy.\u00a0 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Most importantly EA can\u2019t be static \u2013 you can\u2019t just \u2018do\u2019 an EA and leave it.\u00a0 It has to be a living part of the business\/IS so it can evolve over time with the business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What is Enterprise Architecture, and how can it help businesses acheive their strategies and objectives?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4],"tags":[237,35,199],"class_list":["post-300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","category-work","tag-business","tag-enterprise","tag-enterprise-architecture","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":305,"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions\/305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refraction.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}