References
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What is Architecture?
Enterprise Architecture (EA) is unfortunately an ill-defined term. What it certainly is not is “technical architecture” across an enterprise of organisation. EA has far more in common with business strategy and IT alignment to that, ensuring IT investment and planning is in support of where the business, or enterprise, is heading.
There are similarities between the architecture of buildings and of organisations. Both need to be built on solid foundations and with a sound structure to ensure they won't fall down. Both also need to interact with others.
Buildings need to have common utility processes. For example, electric sockets in the UK need to supply 240 volts electricity (and it needs to be AC, rather than DC) and to allow access for square-pin plugs. Indeed, town planners lay down minimum specifications for new buildings to ensure that you can plug in an appliance with some confidence that it will connect and work properly. Having Continental-European or North-American electric sockets supplying 200 or 110 volts wouldn't be much use for someone living in the British Isles!
The video below shows this need.
Enterprise Architecture
EA is about helping the company to decide which systems are purchased, developed and implemented in support of the business needs. Part of this is, over time, ensuring that the company reuses its investments, where applicable, and to design for that reuse where possible. Thus, if a company has a customer database, how can that data be shared among the company, rather than have the overhead of creating a second database, and maintaining changes in both.
Part of the EA approach also needs to embrace the interfaces between systems, allowing them to share data. Just as the house infrastructure provides a power socket, with no “knowledge” of what it will be used for, so EA can help design the infrastructure which can support existing or new systems, allowing them to cooperate and share.
Just as buildings require
- town planners
- building architects
- utility planners
enterprises need
- enterprise architects
- mission architects and
- infrastructure architects
Why do I care? I don’t have an architecture?
Actually, if you have an existing system, or systems, then you already have an architecture. Like the video, it may be unplanned and unstructured, and may just support what you are currently doing. However, should you want to expand, or add new functionality, that’s where EA can help. Or often you inherit an architecture – through purchase of a new system, or a merger with another company – and it needs to operate with your existing, unplanned architecture. You need EA to help address this situation before it becomes an issue – planning rather than reaction!
Summary
- Enterprise Architecture is the application of architectural processes and techniques across the enterprise, leading to a holistic architectural model for the whole enterprise.
- It is closely aligned, even joined, to the enterprise strategy.
- The word ‘enterprise’ is not prescriptive. The enterprise can be the entire organisation, or a discrete operating subset of the organisation, as required. The skills and capabilities are the same regardless of the scope of the enterprise.
