James McGovern’s latest post on Enterprise Architecture discusses how many enterprise architects are favoring contract/consultant work over permanent work because of the better paying opportunities and offers.
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Business Standard mentioned today, in this article, that
“As organisations become more global, SOA will become an integral part of their strategy. It is aimed at lowering the total cost of ownership, simplifying integration and customisation. Organisations are increasingly embracing SOA as a means to access and distribute information in real time”
It is cautioned, however, that organizations need to be aware of disappointment that some companies may announce. As Chandika Mendi, director and head of Virtusa Corporation, explained
“The reason for the disappointment will be due to taking a much narrowed approach while defining SOA, which could lead to failure of implementations. Also, the initial investment in SOA is high and will reap benefits slowly as the entire enterprise moves to it, which is a fairly long journey,”
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Anton Venter’s latest post on the IT Knowledge Exchange argues that the real ROI of EA comes from information and its use. Anton makes another great point that documentation of architecture makes finding information easier and readily available. It also becomes easier to provide outsourcers info on the architecture should they need it to support an organization’s applications. What do you think is the real ROI of enterprise architecture?
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In our attempt to deliver the latest updates and insights within the EA space, we’ve scheduled a series of free webinars that will happen over the next couple of months. The first webinar in the series “Putting the "E" in TOGAF: An EAdirections Webinar,” will be presented by three managing directors of EAdirections: Larry R. DeBoever, George S. Paras, and Tim Westbrock. Register now for the webinar on Thursday, Sep 4, 2008 from 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EDT to save your webinar seat. Here’s a brief description of the webinar and what you can expect to take out of it by attending:
A number of EA practitioners have concluded that TOGAF is not an effective framework (and ADM is not an effective methodology) for
If you are a Chief Architect or IT manager evaluating EA frameworks, or if you are struggling to apply TOGAF (or another framework), on an enterprise-wide basis, then this webinar is for you. Topics will include:
What you will learn:
This webinar is being brought to you by the Enterprise Architectures Conference, don’t forget to take a look at the lineup of speakers we have this year. Click on the link below to register for the free webinar.
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/924415223
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Alan Inglis, in this blog post, discusses the above chart. He comments that he would add a business entry point, and would also like to see an entry point from an “information or data perspective”.
What are your thoughts? Is there anything else you would add to build on these two authors viewpoints?
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What matters most in enterprise architecture? Is it the business model, or the people who lead the organization? Chris Potts reviews this question in his latest post on CIO. One of the points Chris brings up relates to the Economist’s article "No Size Fits All", which explores whether the business model or the people managing it were responsible for the credit crunch.
According to Chris, replicating a business model within organizations does not guarantee success or failure. Only people, ex: customers, suppliers, partners, and employees are able to make a model work. Chris states that business instead, should start on the right hand side like the Zachman Framework for EA (Who, When, Why), not the left (What, How, Where).
Is your organization more concerned with its structure than management?
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Every organization defines the goals of Enterprise Architecture in their own distinct way. Anton Venter lists six goals of practicing enterprise architecture in his latest post on the IT Knowledge Exchange. Here they are:
What are your company’s goals of practicing EA? Do they differ from Anton’s?
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As reported by this article at CIO, Carphone Warehouse, a mobile phone retailer in the
As a result, they adopted HP Systinet. This SOA governance tool helped 95% of new service designs pass the governance test. It has also estimated that this new software will save them £526,000 over the next three years, due to the avoidance of duplicating processes. It also will allow the IT department to deliver new services to the business in the shortest amount of time possible.
Do you think that corporations selling SOA governance tools are starting to respond more to customers needs?
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A recent study by Gartner has revealed that 90% of Ecommerce sites will utilize SaaS by 2013 as reported in this article from ebizQ. The results of the study indicate that Ecommerce sites will use at least one of the following services: product reviews, product recommendations, or social sales capabilities. A statement from Gartner to ebizQ announced that:
“The trend toward SaaS applications has affected customer relationship management (CRM) and other applications, and e-commerce isn’t exempt from this trend. E-commerce SaaS solutions enable companies that couldn’t afford e-commerce to have these capabilities and compete online. It provides organizations with live Web sites, and enables e-commerce SaaS service providers to provide individual services, such as product reviews or click to call, that can be incorporated into e-commerce SaaS platforms, as well as on sites that are using licensed software.”
Gene Alvarez, research VP for Garnter, cautions Ecommerce companies to investigate before jumping to use SaaS tools. According to him it is very important for organizations to
“develop a SaaS strategy that accounts for the scoping, evaluation, selection, operation and different architectures or SaaS solutions, as well as determines the organizations comfort level in leveraging externally provided IT applications.”
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Chris Potts reminds us in his latest post on CIO where the balance lies between the
He begins his explanation with a definition of
The real benefit comes when the enterprise drives the architecture and not vice versa.
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An article at CIO recently defined service oriented architecture as:
a broad, standards-based framework in which services are built, deployed, managed, and orchestrated in pursuit of new and much more agile IT infrastructures that respond swiftly to shifting business demands.
Also according to the article, SOA also has the potential to reduce your IT costs and improve your business agility, all while taking many of the tools already at use in the organization and conforming them to a new structure that will help align the business.
Do you agree with this definition, if not, what would you change?
Recently I saw this interesting slideshare presentation that discusses Service Oriented Architecture titled “The Service Oriented Elephant”. Some of the main points that it covers include: Building Blocks of SOA, Organization Roadmap – How much SOA, and Implementation scenarios. Take a few minutes to go over this and let us know your thoughts. Do you have any observations or musings regarding the presentation?
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This latest post on the SOA Network details how the latest report from Input, a leader in the authority of government business, discusses that the government’s growing adoption of SOA practices will fundamentally change how it delivers internal citizen-facing services. The federal market can benefit from increased agility and better IT alignment that SOA brings to the table.
Deniece Peterson, senior analyst at INPUT mentions:
"SOA shifts the concept of the application into a highly dynamic and fluid marketplace of plug-and-play services. A function previously performed by one vendor's application could now be completed by a number of discrete services provided by a multitude of providers. The standardized environment required to make this happen could severely impact the provider who relies heavily on proprietary elements for competitive advantage."
It is still early in the process to see a dramatic change in the federal SOA market as SOA solutions are slowly being integrated into the customer’s environment. The findings from Input can be found here, “Service-Oriented Architecture: Implications for Government and Industry”.
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I came across this interesting post today regarding the hiring of Enterprise Architects. It poses the interesting question of by simply hiring and enterprise architect, does that mean that you will automatically have enterprise architecture? This blogger says no. In fact, in his opinion, many companies would like to believe that having an architect qualifies them to say that have architecture in place, but in fact there is more to the process than simply having the personnel in place. The blogger also contends that EA is a “necessary evil” and in order to hire the best architects they
“must be a dedicated and well rounded man that has to apply creatively the existing body of knowledge since the current state does not support well your endeavor to create your enterprise architecture.”
Do you think that some companies simply believe that by having an architect it means that they have an architecture? What are qualities you look for in an enterprise architect, who would need to successfully build a framework for enterprise architecture from the ground up in an organization?
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on IT-Business Alignment. Neil states that even though EA is extremely effective, it is at best only shaping the way that IT supports changing business conditions and not “changing” business focus. New forces (new product launches and development, acquisitions and mergers, new regulations) will always drive business to further develop its technology focus. The best EA teams provide a way for organizations to adapt to these changes with the least amount of stress possible. Do you think that enterprise architects are realigning or “architecting” the enterprise?
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This article from Collaborative discusses funding of SOA. As the article states, before commencement of a project of this kind it is important for organizations to consider their investment principles, current assets, and option that they have for IT funding. Some other highlights included in this article is that to succeed with funding it is imperative for an SOA initiative to
align with one or more core investment principles, such as:
The paper also informs that the basic funding models include:
1. Project-based
2. Enterprise-based
3. IT-based
4. Charge-back
I found the overall article to be very helpful in providing a focus when discussing the need for funding of SOA projects and recommend it for reading.
Mike Kavis from Techworld posted this informative article on what makes SOA fail in businesses. In summary he provided these 10 reasons of why people are responsible for the failure:
It was interesting to see his opinion on what needs to change in the way in which people incorporate SOA into their respective organizations. What are your viewpoints on what makes SOA work in the workplace? Can you think of any improvements you would recommend for individuals within companies?
Alin Ingis at the Chief Architect blog recently took time to discuss the third part of what he believes as the enterprise architecture cycle, the migration planning state.
He believes there are two types of migration plans:
However, there are always things that do not fall into the categories listed above. He took time to highlight the different types of business cycles that need to be observed so that they don’t disturb the practices being put into place: business cycles and business events. The three types of business cycles that Alin highlighted were: annual financial cycles, business planning cycles, and seasonal sales cycles. Companies always need to pay attention to business events, as they can occasionally put stress on some of the business processes and supporting systems.
He states that enterprise architecture shouldn’t be measured purely based on activity and it can’t be measured from a time perspective. It also shouldn’t be based on artifacts, as these architects create many references to other architectures.
There should be no template to measure the progress of enterprise architecture. It can be measured by viewing improvements in the IT system. Another way to measure this is to look at the management of the enterprise spend, which should be spent in a strategic manner.
What do you think are the best ways to measure your accomplishments of an enterprise architect?
I came across an interesting post on the IT Knowledge Exchange from Anton Venter in which he describes what the ideal role of an Enterprise Architect should be. One of the important factors of an enterprise architect is the ability to hold both a macro and micro view of business strategy. An architect must have knowledge of the architectural approach (macro view) and must also be to work with individual projects (micro view), merging both views together for successful implementation.
Today’s enterprise architect must understand business problems and know what technology is needed in order to provide solutions for it. What’s your take on the role of an enterprise architect?
