Aggregated enterprise architecture wisdom
Angry Architect Recently I’ve spent a lot of time investigating a system that’s been around for about ten years. Like many systems the developers are long gone and the system, ticking over reliably, has been ignored. Well its time to replace the system and also like many other similar systems no one actually knows what the thing […]
The other week, I’m being deliberately obtuse to spare some the embarrassment, I had to engage with a number of people, some in my organization others from outside. What struck me was that everybody was an architect! But wait a minute I thought are they really? The first architect I encountered was a Java architect. […]
Intangible value and Enterprise Architecture are two kindred topics. Accountants would have us believe that if you can’t value something it has no value. Which is kind of hypercritical when you consider that the biggest number on a balance sheet is usually depreciation and that’s a guess! Anyway if you find yourself in the […]
A little time back, I’m being deliberately vague which is a sin for an architect, to avoid embarrassing the presenter it’s not their fault. I had the somewhat dubious pleasure of attending a vendor briefing. The vendor in question had just been acquired by a very big software company and was on a road trip […]
“There is no significant meaning to the arrows between the boxes”. Ain’t that the truth! Perhaps more readily than any other profession IT architects reach for the whiteboard marker to try and explain themselves. It’s amazing given our limited symbolic repertoire, typically boxes, arrows, clouds and stick men that we so often fail to drive […]
You know how it is, you say stuff and you don’t expect it have any effect because you’ve said it over and over and no one’s listening. Well, did I get a surprise! Catching up with a couple of guys I’d done a project with quite some time back one of them ambushed with my […]
Typically the EA books I review are a summary of the author’s heuristic experiences; they provide viewpoints, models and tools for managing the challenges of EA. Fewer authors opt for an holistic approach; perhaps these books are best described as being about “approaches to EA” rather than methodological detail. Zoom Effect is unique in the […]
I recently received an updated version of the Zachman Framework from the Zachman Framework Associates in Toronto. I must say that Stan Locke and his people at Metadata Systems have done a great job renovating this iconic artifact and I unreservedly rec…
One point emerging from the research is the importance of architecture being in alignment with the business. Which on the face of it seems logical. But here’s the rub; how do we know this is true? Why do we believe this? Who told us it is so? And if it is so obvious why can’t […]
I’ve wanted to get my hands on a copy of this book for a numbers of years and it didn’t disappoint me. Written by one of the doges of EA this 500 page tomb will have no doubt attracted more than its fair share of detractors. In this world of short attention spans almost anybody […]
I woke this morning to hear the news that a certain bank was in its fourth or was it the fifth day of computer difficulties. Apparently some branches had stayed open all weekend so that their customers could get some cash. No doubt, by shear determination the bank will overcome its issues. And no doubt […]
The production survey has now need up since late October and we have a couple of things to report. The response has been good; particularly when you consider the commitment need to tackle the monster, we have respondents from, Australia, Canada, Colombia, France, India, Iran, Israel, Netherlands, New Zealand, Romania, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and […]