Aggregated enterprise architecture wisdom
Here recently there has been a fair amount of activity happing in academic community around enterprise architecture. Most notably Penn State University and Kent State University. Both focus on Enterprise Architecture but have differing approaches. This is clear of recognition…
In the wake of this historic, global economic downturn there is little room for error among financial services companies. Volatile market conditions, impending regulatory requirements, and an intense competitive atmosphere have banking and insurance companies of all sizes rethinking risk, streamlining operations, and seeking new ways to create a more adaptable enterprise. Now, more than […]
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Translating a visual enterprise architecture book from Dutch to English one is confronted by the syntax. In Dutch sentences can draw out over four, five or six lines yet they need to be broken up, turned around and harmonised in order to present reada…
For the last few months, I’ve been hunkered down applying my SOA, active-information and execution skills on a [redacted] project for an organization in the [redacted] industry. It’s a cool project. But, it seriously stymies my writing. First, I can’t write about it. Second, I don’t have time to write, or hardly think, of anything else.
So, for me — a so-called low metabolism writer — it’s a good thing I was previously contracted to write for Esther Schindler at the HP Input Output site. Over the last few weeks, I’ve published the following Active Information posts:
“As digital emitters and sensors pervade the physical world — cars, bridges, medical devices — the opportunity to exploit active information patterns for business and societal innovation increases exponentially.
However, with technology-driven innovation comes risks. The most cited risk associated with digital pervasiveness is lack, or even absence, of privacy. But those of us with development and engineering backgrounds realize there is another, potentially more significant risk. Bugs…” [Read the post.]
Lessons from US CIO Vivek Kundra: Data-driven innovation:
“Buried between tech bubble talk in the most recent Fortune Magazine is a good interview of Vivek Kundra, US CIO. The interview is a retrospective on Kundra’s term as the first CIO of the US…
…The interview covers a lot of ground, including Kundra’s Cloud First technology plan [pdf], being stymied by bureaucracy, the power of data for transparency and publishing data to spur innovation…” [Read the post]
Big Data as Story Teller — Story of Big Data:
“…Too often, we geek types think about visibility in terms of business analytics and intelligence tools. However, an interesting, and very powerful technique is data visualization.” [Read the post.]
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Packaged Applications (such as PSFT, eBiz, etc…) are the very operational heart and soul of most companies. Whether it is human capital management, logistics, sales, or any number of other fundamental applications – they are most valuable when …
Packaged Applications (such as PSFT, eBiz, etc…) are the very operational heart and soul of most companies. Whether it is human capital management, logistics, sales, or any number of other fundamental applications – they are most valuable when they are customized to fit YOUR business and integrate with YOUR systems. The problem is that these customizations and integrations are most often done with built in (proprietary) tools or using things like PL SQL, batch files or other less-than-optimal (often proprietary) solutions.
Enterprise Architecture steps in at this point because the move from one major version to the next is a major undertaking for most companies; one that takes month (sometime as much as a year) to plan and implement. When the applications have been customized to meet the business’s requirement, these very customizations make upgrading more complex. One of the tasks of EA is to establish guiding principles which help shape decisions at every level of the architecture. One key principle here is “Keep COTS Packages as Vanilla as Posible” – meaning do as little customization as possibly directly in the application itself. The more vanilla the application is kept, the easier it is to upgrade.
It is a best architecture practice to place these customizations in the middleware layer where standards such as Java, Web services, XML, and the like mitigate the risks of using proprietary technology. They also provide a more comprehensive and faster-development-lifecycle framework for integrating with the entire corporate IT ecosystem while greatly enhancing the possibilities for service/integration reuse.
So, with all that being said, a common question I get is “OK, where do we draw the line between using the built-in tools vs. using a middleware layer?” This chart helps answer and provides delineation between the reasons to use one approach over the other. Though not exhaustive, it should provide a framework for figuring out which customizations/integrations should go where.
A picture may be worth a thousand words. But business leaders won’t hear anything an EA model has to tell them unless it’s in a form they can understand and find value with. That’s why the architecture team at USAA is using circular E…
A picture may be worth a thousand words. But business leaders won’t hear anything an EA model has to tell them unless it’s in a form they can understand and find value with. That’s why the architecture team at USAA is using circular E…
Oops… running late again… apologies. Here it is, anyway: another week’s collection of Tweets and links, somewhat delayed. Hope it’s useful to someone, anyway. Usual categories, of course, after the ‘Read more…’ break.
Enterprise-architecture, business-models and all the usual ‘business big-picture’ stuff:
vernaallee: RT @siraju: John Seddon: Why Lean is a Wicked Disease http://bnet.io/dBvsFj #lean #collab #orgarch […]
I wrote a post titled How Would You Reorganize an Application Service Delivery Model? in March 2010 and thought it was time to update you on the changes we made to our Application team. At that time, my team was structured by role: DBAs, Developers,…
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis: the old Hegelian triad. But what’s that got to do with enterprise-architecture and the like?
Quite a lot, as it happens – though we might need to take a detour or two to get there, of course.
One point is that it’s not quite as simple as ‘thesis, antithesis, synthesis’. In the classic […]
In most architecture related works there is a framework. The framework is most often a tool to enable the architects in creating plans and drawings. Another use of the framework albeit mostly from the viewpoint of the authors is to hold the majority of ideas within a reasonable sized knowledge domain.The third and perhaps most […]