Concept of Enterprise Architecture
Enterprise Architecture (EA) has become a major focus area in medium and larger companies, but ask anyone who has been involved with Enterprise Architecture for a reasonable basic definition of Enterprise Architecture, you would probably get a different answer every time. If you read all the web blogs, articles and responses thereto on Enterprise Architecture one has to come to a conclusion - Enterprise Architects have a different opinion on about every facet of our profession.
Before we get to the detail, how best can we then explain what our concept is of Enterprise Architecture?
Enterprise Architecture or rather the lack thereof can best be explained through an example such as the Winchester Mystery House.
In 1884 Sarah Winchester moved to what was then a rural area near San José, California. There, she purchased an eight-room farmhouse on more than 160 acres of land. Very shortly, a work crew began a perpetual construction project which would ultimately last for nearly forty years.
Construction was continuous, with a team of 16 men always at work and well-paid. There was no plan for the house overall, although Sarah Winchester had sketched plans for a number of the rooms individually.
The clear lack of architecture resulted in the cost for such constant building being estimated at about US $5.5 million (if paid in 1922; this would be equivalent to over $71 million in 2010).
There are 160 rooms, including 40 bedrooms, 467 doorways, 950 doors, 6 kitchens, 2 ballrooms (one completed and one unfinished) as well as 47 fireplaces, 10,000 window panes, 17 chimneys (with evidence of two others), two basements and three elevators. Some of the awkward and impractical concepts included:
- Columns being installed upside down.
- A window in the floor.
- Switchback staircase that has seven flights, forty four steps and rises only nine feet.
- Grand Ballroom cost $9,000 where an entire house was estimated to cost less than $1,000!
- A window that opened onto the top of a flight of steps.
- 20,000 gallons of paint per year.
- Front porch never used to receive guests, even President Roosevelt.
As systems become more complex, they generally require a bigger focus on architecting.
Why Enterprise Architecture?
The inception of enterprise architecture can be traced back to 1987 when J.A. Zachman published "A Framework for Information Systems Architecture" in the IBM Systems Journal. In this seminal work, Zachman articulated the challenges and envisioned enterprise architectures that would shape the field for years to come. The central challenge identified was effectively managing the complexity of increasingly distributed systems, as Zachman emphasized the critical role of disciplined management in the face of rising costs and the growing impact of information systems on business success.
The field initially tackled two pressing issues: the escalating complexity of IT systems construction and the challenge of aligning these costly systems with evolving business needs. Over the past two decades, these problems have escalated into a crisis, marked by exponentially rising costs and complexity, coupled with diminishing returns on investment. Large organizations can no longer afford to overlook these issues.
In the current economic climate, characterized by ongoing financial upheavals, companies must ensure that their decision-makers align with business priorities. Enterprise architects play a pivotal role in this alignment, being at the forefront of major business decisions. This realignment of priorities is evident in contemporary market trends, including:
1. Accomplishing more with fewer resources, reflecting the need for improved service-level agreements despite reduced budgets.
2. Strategic cost-cutting in existing projects, emphasizing pragmatism and actionability over ambitious, multi-year initiatives.
3. Heightened relevance of architects in mergers and acquisitions, where understanding and providing insights into technologies are crucial decision-making factors.
4. Renewed focus on revitalizing the skills base, recognizing people as valuable assets and leveraging tough times for leadership and technical acumen enhancement.
While the field's history spans more than two decades, it continues to rapidly evolve, facing challenges such as being under-skilled, lacking standards, and often failing to deliver success. Nonetheless, Enterprise Architecture remains indispensable, as its core mission is not merely creating organizational models but maximizing business benefits through minimal models and related information.
Enterprise Architecture, in essence, is about gaining control over change, ensuring its rapid, accurate, and efficient implementation, and guaranteeing the longevity of the solutions affected by change. Its mission is to offer a comprehensive view of enterprise-wide business architecture, processes, information systems, and technology requirements in partnership with the business.
The value of having control over Enterprise Architecture is manifested through:
1. Facilitating understanding of business activities by providing a common overview model.
2. Predicting and quantifying the impact of changes.
3. Explicitly focusing on strategic priorities for quick business results.
4. Making the "invisible" aspects of the business visible and manageable.
5. Defining business processes, needs, and relationships.
6. Minimizing the risk of failure in business and changing utilization through well-represented rules.
7. Scanning the external environment intelligently and aligning internal environments accordingly.
8. Providing a common language for change management and ensuring controlled business-wide change.
9. Containing the effect of business change and delivering it accurately and in a controlled manner.
10. Optimizing configuration management, business system redevelopment, and maintenance.
Enterprise Architecture delivers by providing designs for businesses, processes, organizations, applications, technology, and information. It offers universally available meta-information, incrementally generated documentation, and specifications. It aligns solutions with business requirements, outlines migration priorities, and facilitates speedy, structured, and accurate change management. Additionally, it anticipates, initiates, and scopes changes, offering an audit trail for the entire change process. Enterprise architects act as guardians of the methodology process, guiding the journey from business needs to the implementation of integrated solutions. They provide viewpoints for any design component in the business context, fostering a holistic understanding of the surrounding components.
What Does Enterprise Architecture Deliver?
- Designs for business, process, organization, applications, technology, and information.
- Universal availability of meta-information.
- Incrementally generated documentation and specifications.
- Alignment of solutions with business requirements.
- Prioritization of migration from current to desired future state.
- Speedy, structured, and accurate change management.
- Anticipation, initiation, and scoping of change.
- Provision of an audit trail for essential documentation throughout the change process.
- Custodians of the methodology process (Continuous Business Engineering).
- Guidance from business needs identification to the implementation of integrated solutions.
- Viewpoints of each design component in the business within the context of surrounding components.
Who Benefits from Enterprise Architecture?
Enterprise Architecture delivers a multitude of benefits to various stakeholders:
1. The Business:
- Ensures that the business and organizational structure align with the business strategy.
- Aligns processes and technology requirements, maintaining consistent harmony.
2. Project Management:
- Provides the program portfolio, strategically derived priorities, and expert facilitation skills.
- Offers precise project scoping, impact analysis, and modeling.
3. Application Developers:
- Supplies comprehensive systems design, along with detailed application and data analysis.
4. Solution Providers:
- Ensures integration of processes and systems from business needs to implementation.
5. Technology Implementers:
- Facilitates timely identification of future business requirements.
- Enhances the implementation of technologies such as data warehouses, workflow systems, enterprise resource planning, and packaged solutions.
- Takes care of Configuration Management.
6. Executives:
- Enables information and decision support needs by maintaining a comprehensive information repository.
- Proactively determines the effects of the business intelligence it collects.
In summary, Enterprise Architecture acts as a strategic enabler, fostering alignment, efficiency, and informed decision-making across the spectrum of business and technology endeavors.