Solutions Architecture Training

Introduction

Enterprise Architecture (EA) and Solution Architecture (SA) are frequently viewed as different practices. Of these two, EA may also be regarded as because the wealthy and decadent relative while SA may be the honest, reliable, and difficult-working one.

That perception isn't necessarily unfair. It is common to locate questions in forums, for example "Are you able to explain EA's value in a single sentence?" or "What's the primary obstacle for EA's success?" or perhaps worse. The mere proven fact that these questions are requested signifies that very frequently EA is totally misinterpreted and eventually ends up being an isolated function with little connection with the organization's real problems and possibilities.

But however, it's really not confusing where EA can offer value-lots of value. Concepts of reuse, standardization, understanding of innovation, alignment between IT and business, and so forth all can clearly help any business reduce maverick and unnecessary costs and rather use its pricey IT department to attain efficiency gains and boost business. The issue is not the "why" or even the "what" however the "how." And "how" is precisely where SA performs exceptionally well.

Quite simply, for that architect to possess a real look at the IT landscape and also the future needs from the business areas, he must engage in the IT projects. Only then is he going to have the ability to justify his recommendations used and not simply theoretically. Cash is not abstract, so utilizing it can't be according to abstract buildings.

So clearly, EA and SA need to interact to effectively build an architectural landscape and reap its advantages to the utmost extent with minimum waste. Actually, EA and SA (including network, software, security architecture, and so forth) are facets of the identical business function: architecture. It is all about optimizing using assets to fulfil small business in compliance using the focal points from the organization. You will find many challenges to building an ideal landscape, that is unquestionably with different Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).

The stages in the next sections describe one way and a few tools you can use for this projects and alter management methods. It's simpler to influence change when it is going to happen anyway.

Modelling the company Architecture using the Business Customers and Business Experts

The initial step in creating an architecture concept for any product is to model the company. In most cases, in almost any organization, people play roles, by which they execute business processes that offer business services to a person. Application services are supplied to aid individuals processes and therefore are materialized in application components and processes. These use infrastructure services and physical nodes, for example systems, servers, storage, and so forth. This gives a layered type of the company, that contains the majority of the information that's needed through the architect to begin creating the machine. The ArchiMate® meta-model captures this idea very well:

Modelling the company enables the architect to obtain participation in the business areas directly, and it is an excellent exercise to complete at the outset of any new project, the moment the consumer needs (or use cases or user tales, with respect to the methodology) can be found. As anybody that's been involved with IT projects lengthy enough knows, so that as any statistics on project failures show, the majority of the problems in projects are produced lengthy prior to the implementation begins. Insufficient clearness and completeness within the needs, poor knowledge of the company processes, and altering needs (which often happens because of among the previous reasons) are the most typical and also the most costly causes of problems. Agile methods help in working with them, but it is still difficult to get a typical language between IT and business.

What's missing may be the large picture. When the architect can create a model and show it towards the business customers, they'll immediately recognize when the business roles, services, and procedures are symbolized precisely. This creates discussion that enables the architect to know the company processes. However, the company customers may also have the ability to know how the architect is shaping the systems that they'll use.