Enterprise architecture is a comprehensive framework used to manage and align an organization’s IT assets, people, operations and projects with its operational characteristics. It defines how information and technology will support business operations, and is an important company asset that must be managed and updated on an ongoing basis to ensure its relevance.
To successfully adopt enterprise architecture there has to be complete buy-in across the entire organization, with an understanding of the allocation of the roles and responsibilities. Technology and business areas within the enterprise must work together to ensure that the architecture stays in line with the strategic objectives of the company, and adequately reflects the IT services available now and those planned for the future.
To provide maximum flexibility, an IT strategy must be developed that is guided by enterprise architecture and which is supported by a services-centric approach. It must also have its foundation in a common platform. This interlinked approach and use of a layered architecture shields the inherent complexity of the IT environment from users, which, as a consequence, speeds up deployment, lowers the cost of integration, and exploits existing investment in IT applications and infrastructure.
Going forward, IT delivery is moving towards shared services. Therefore, when developing an IT strategy, due consideration must be given to the methods and models likely to be deployed that enable the delivery of IT as a service. When considering how IT will be consumed in organizations, the influencing factors include distribution, competence and flexibility. The impact of these different aspects on an IT strategy focuses attention on what is delivered to whom and when. This may be a combination of different delivery mechanisms to suit the organization’s specific requirements; in other words, a ‘one size fits all’ approach will not be appropriate.
IT trends play a significant role in the architecting of any organizational infrastructure, and therefore by implication the IT strategy. In the past, trends such as the internet, client/server, and wireless communications have all caused organizations to make changes which created disruption during the transition period. The issue with these previous trends is that many organizations did not plan to deploy the technology initially, but were forced to implement due to prevailing market conditions and their need to remain competitive.
Many architecture modeling solutions have previously failed to meet the needs of an important constituency: the senior business decision maker. Complex modeling solutions lack a way of presenting a sufficiently abstract and easily modifiable view of the enterprise, especially when it comes to the aggregation and analysis of data relating to architecture, strategy and operations. Many decision-makers typically turn to the ubiquitous spreadsheet for such capabilities. This approach is less than ideal, lacking vital elements of control, governance and collaboration. However, there are indications that enterprise architecture is starting to be used as more of a strategic tool by the entire organization.
While organizations have benefited from establishing reference architectures, and cascading requirements and constraints to downstream activities, architecture still lacks the data- and performance analytics-driven approach that is slowly becoming pervasive in IT. Without a fact-based assessment of each architecture option, enterprise architecture is prone to be guided by opinion. In this way, it is open to manipulation and can prove relatively expensive and, sometimes, inefficient.
