Understanding your enterprise architect

Over at CIO, they've got a great article for the managers of enterprise architects. Is one new to your company? They suggest following these simple rules:

1. Establish clear goals and expectations before day one.
2. Introduce the EA to the key players at a single meeting, no later than day two.
3. Run blocker for your EA.
4. Don't expect your EA to drive the business.
5. Your EA is not just the über-tech-geek.

SOA is Not Dead

The figures from our latest poll show us 60% of enterprise architects believe that SOA is indeed, not dead. Do you agree with these figures?

2009 Focus for EA

In a recent article by James McGovern, he pointed out that companies are focusing too much on the processes and loosing the human aspect of the enterprise. He also believes that IT processes are not truly saving businesses money, and is certainly not getting more efficient. Do you believe this is true for EA? Do enterprises need to focus more on the human aspects of EA?

Worst practices of Enterprise Architects

James McGovern recently posted a list of the ten worst practices of enterprise architects. Here are his top 5:

1. Instead of focusing on perception management, concentrate on becoming a skilled negotiator. We need to strike balance between technical complexity and business needs. Don't just change perception, focus on reality.

2. Spread the wealth. Enterprise architects who are the single source of knowledge on a given topic within an enterprise is dangerous. We all need to plan for when we all get thrown under the bus and the best way to do this is to make all decisions transparent and all communications open.

3. Governance is not about financial controls but is all about a behavior model. Command and control doesn't work, neither does design by committee. Remember that the best architectures are realized by self-organizing teams.

4. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Enterprise architecture is not about posturing and hand waving. It is important to understand your limitations and ask for help when you don't have a clue.

5. Think like a developer. Way too many architects throw daggers at developers, yet we haven't thought about what it is like to walk in their shoes. By using minimalist architecture approaches such as keeping things simple, you increase the odds that the code will be as high quality as the architecture.

For the complete list, click here. Were there any practices you noticed missing from the list?

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?

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.

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.

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

Infosys Report: Findings from the Enterprise Architecture Survey 2008

We recently posted the findings from a recent report from Infosys that details the results of their annual EA survey. As a refresher, here are some trends we learned from those findings:

• EA is enabling business transformation
  
• EA practices continue to mature with increasing use of metrics and processes
  
• Increased outsourcing of EA functions are a strong possibility in the future
  

As an update to this, here’s the pdf of the actual report put out by Infosys. Enjoy!

US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement adopts EA

Dynamics Research Corporation won a contract to develop enterprise architecture for the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. The deal is for one year, and has four one-year option extensions. This follows DHS working with the US Air Force and an inventory program along with supporting the US Coast Guard with IT Services. Read more here.

Acquisition system of federal government in need of EA

According to Jim Williams, the acting GSA Administrator, the current acquisition system needs structure and a common way of looking at processes. Enterprise architecture would provide these things. It needs to have a standardized process, to be able to join various parts of the process and provide consistency.

With his vision, enterprise architecture would: change how the government looks at a system comprised of people, the complex processes, and how the technology fits in.

Are Enterprises Training Developers to Write Secure Code?

James McGovern discusses in his latest post on Enterprise Architecture that companies are missing out on important opportunities of securing the enterprise by simply encouraging staff members to attend local OWASP chapter meetings.

Security will always be a factor in the enterprise. The training of security awareness in employees will only further their understanding about the importance of information security. It also makes architects more receptive to certain vulnerabilities that exists in current code.

Is your enterprise ensuring that developers write secure code?

Layers of Enterprise Architecture

David Linthicum discusses in this post on InfoWorld that well-designed enterprise architecture will provide a stable platform for computing. He goes to on mention how working up from ring 0-2 you will come across many different layers, and how they need to be managed very carefully to ensure that the enterprise will not lock up. So indeed, process architecture and enterprise architecture has a lot in common. Make sure to read entire article here.

Apache Tuscany Enables SOA solutions to More Easily Respond to New Business Requirements

The SOA Network reports that Apache Tuscany has released version 1.3.2 of its Service Component Architecture (SCA) for Java.

Apache Tuscany provides a dependable infrastructure for deploying, running, and building SOA solutions as well as addressing real business problems posed by SOA. Anthony Elder, ASF Vice President and Chair of the Apache Tuscany Project Management Committee mentions:

"Over the past two years, the Tuscany community has focused on developing fully open, standards-based, large-scale SOA solutions. We continue to receive enthusiastic support for Tuscany's simple, highly extensible Service Component Architecture (SCA), Service Data Objects (SDO), and Data Access Service (DAS) subprojects. Becoming an ASF Top-Level Project and great ideas for future development -- including improvements in application server integration, distributed runtimes and Web 2.0 support -- underscore how Tuscany continues to go from strength to strength."

It will be interesting to see how this infrastructure will play out in the upcoming months.

Outsourcing Enterprise Architecture

James McGovern brings up an interesting concept in his latest post on Enterprise Architecture. There’s an outsourcing trend that not many companies have caught on to yet. Many times when developers are outsourced to India, the architectects jump into American forums and ask them to help them write their codes.

Open source communities are made in order to support people and not help them write their codes for them. Has anyone else caught onto this trend? Are corporations really getting a deal when outsourcing personnel?