Happy Holidays from EA

We will be taking some much needed time off for the holidays. We'd like to thank you for your readership and we encourage you to check back with us next year for more innovative thought, perspective and news surrounding the world of enterprise architecture.

We wish you a joyous holiday season!

Evolve EA: Best of 2008

With 2008 drawing to a close, we're going to share the best articles of the year. We look forward to keeping you up to date on enterprise architecture in 2009!

Microsoft’s Enterprise Architecture Toolkit (EATK)
Types of Enterprise Architecture
FEMA Gives EA Subcontract to REI and IBM
What is the role of a Enterprise Architect in a programme?
Putting the 'E' in TOGAF

Sun Microsystems Value Proposition

James McGovern highlights in his latest post in Enterprise Architecture how he has recently switched IDEs away from Eclipse and towards Netbeans. James believes that Sun Microsystems does not do a good job of selling their value proposition. Do you agree?

What are the Benefits of Enterprise Architecture?

It seems as if upper management still doesn’t quite understand the benefits of EA. So here’s a post from Shrikant Mulik on his blog in which he lists some business-related benefits of EA taken from a research briefing written by Jeanne Ross and Peter Weill. I’ve listed them below.

The business-related benefits include the following:

• shared business platforms - greater data sharing and integrated process standards
• senior management and business unit management satisfaction
• strategic business impact - operational excellence, customer intimacy, product leadership and strategic agility

What to Put in your First Release of EA?

Tony Abel, CEO & Chief Solutions Architect at dotNet Framework Solutions, mentions in this post on CIO Knowledge Base that a good enterprise architecture model always starts with the business element in order to encompass the entirety of the enterprise. Tony always begins his projects with top-management so that they can be more educated to the essences of enterprise architecture. Do you have a similar process in your organization?

More Findings from the Infosys Survey

Infosys recently completed their 3rd annual survey on Enterprise Architecture which you can view here. Sohel Aziz brings up some interesting findings in this post on the Infosys blog when he mentions:

One of the key findings is that participants of the survey saw Enterprise Architecture as a capability that was core to their business and inherently part of their organization's crown jewels. However, given the daunting set of activities that most Enterprise Architecture functions have to execute today, the opportunity to work with ESPs and enlist them to execute some of these activities is real. In other words, some activities (the more tactical ones), can be outsourced to a strategic vendor partner.

Read the full post here.

Enterprise Architecture is Essential to Protect Government Networks from Cyberattacks

This post on GCN discusses how EA plays an integral part on stopping cyberattacks from occurring within government networks and computers. Ron Ross, a National Institute of Standards and Technology senior computer scientist mentions:

“When I got into actual discussions, I turned my view around to the point to where I think we can’t be successful as security professionals unless enterprise architects are successful on their end. Enterprise architecture, I believe, is going to drive the ultimate success of protecting our critical infrastructures.”

Read the full article here.

60 Second Guide To Enterprise Architecture

Every now and then we need to revisit what exactly is enterprise architecture. I came across this basic presentation on slideshare that does a good job of revisiting this question. Take a quick look!

60 Second Guide To Enterprise Architecture

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: enterprise architecture)

No SmallTalk in Enterprise Architecture

James McGovern’s has an interesting post on Enterprise Architecture this morning. He explains how even though Wall Street has failed the consumer, the blame should be placed on the consumer themselves because they didn’t take the time to know better.

He applies this same methodology in Enterprise Architecture. Even though sales people are pitching SmallTalk in the enterprise, James claims that the marketplace knows better. I guess time will only tell.

Money Savings Tips on EA

This post on Agile Enterprise Architecture discusses how organizations can save thousands of dollars by starting with what everybody wants to know, the to-be architecture instead of the as-is architecture. Switching to as-is architecture, might anger the enterprise sales reps though as this model does not benefit enterprise architecture consultants.

SOA Governance

I recently came across an interview with enterprise architecture blogger Todd Biske, who talks about his new book SOA Governance. In part one and part two of his interview with Loraine Lawson at IT Business Edge, he gives some great insight on governance and SOA solutions. Enjoy!

What is the role of a Enterprise Architect in a programme?

This post on CIO Knowledge Base explains how an enterprise architect is not needed if enterprise architecture is present and a manager is simply trying to ensure that a new project will fit with the existing architecture. On the other hand, if the project involves changes a scope of the enterprise architecture, then managers will have to consult with the enterprise architect. Program managers have the ability to monitor implementation of enterprise architecture as long as no changes needed to be made to the infrastructure itself. How does your company define the role of an enterprise architect in a progamme?

Alignment of IT Strategy and Business Strategy Doomed to Fail?

Mark Blowers mentions in his latest post at the Report Buyer blog that the latest report shows that attempts to align IT strategy with am abstract business strategy are doomed for failure. Mark believes that to successfully adopt enterprise architecture across the board, the whole organization, both technology and business areas, must work together to ensure that the architecture stays in line with the strategic business objectives of the organization and reflects the IT services that are available at the current moment and the future.

Do you agree with Mark’s ideals on EA?

Enterprise Architecture as Strategy

Andrew Sparks recently posted over at the Oracle blog how the book Enterprise Architecture as Strategy written by Ross, Weill, and Robertson has helped him come to a better understanding of enterprise architecture maturity and the underlying IT architecture that supports it.

The book as described by Andrew, uses the concept of EA as a framework to bind the existing business operating model to IT architecture. Here are 3 disciplines that are needed in order to execute this foundation.

1. Operating Model The level of business process integration and standardization for delivering goods or services to a customer. a framework of four generic operating models is described, each with differing emphasis on business process integration or standardization.
2. Enterprise Architecture This is the organizing logic for business processes and IT infrastructure reflecting the integration and standardization requirements of the operating model. The book also describes how organizations go through four stages of maturity in applying Enterprise Architecture to design their business processes. It is exactly this maturity model that provided key insights for me (see below)
   
3. IT Engagement Model This is the governance that you put in place to ensure that business and IT projects meet local and corporate objectives.
   

Do you agree with the Enterprise Architecture as Strategy framework?

What impact will Cloud Computing have on your enterprise architecture?

Browsing the blogosphere I came across this podcast from the SOA Infrastructure blog where David Bressler, SOA Evangelist at Progress Software, presents his thoughts on how cloud computing will make it simpler for businesses to get critical information to their consumers, and help them make better decisions. David brings in several examples in this podcast including one from Salesforce.com. The podcast is about 10 minutes long so take a few moments to listen to it and share your thoughts here. Enjoy!

Listen to the podcast