Information Technology has never been more complex or difficult and expensive to manage. Fortunately, as the complexity has increased, so have the skills to manage complexity. Most companies which we have consulted have been so focused on the development of business functionality and the support of their IT infrastructure that they haven't had the opportunity to implement these leading-edge IT skills to lowering the cost of supporting their information infrastructure

One of the keys to managing complexity is to take an architecture-centric approach to managing the IT infrastructure. There are as many definitions of architecture as their are resumes for Enterprise Architects, so it makes sense to define what we mean by architecture.

The Enterprise Architecture describes the structural shape of the software and hardware services that support IT systems. It isn't one thing, it is many things. The Enterprise Architecture for most organizations should include the following architectural domains:

• Physical Architecture - The physical architecture contains the specific vendor products and implementation technologies that have been deployed in the enterprise. This is the most tangible and tactical of the architectures. For many enterprises, this is the only recognized architecture, but there is much more that should be done to manage the IT infrastructure than product and technology selection.
• Network Architecture - This defines the structure of the network resources, including routers, redundency, network resource addressing, address translation, etc.
• Data Architecture - This covers the organization of, and access to, data resources. This includes the strategy to gather, verify and enable access to operational and decision support data.
• Security Architecture - This covers the approach to identify human and non-human users of information technology resources, enable access to those resources and audit access to those resources. Access includes network connectivity as well as application security and data security issues such as encryption.
• Operational Architecture - This involves the structural elements that are required to support hardware and sofware once they are deployed. This involves process scheduling, diagnostics, problem resolution, capacity planning and deployment planning.
• Application Architecture - The application architecture defines how internal applications are structured when they are developed. For purchased applications, the analysis of the application architecture will define how the application will fit into the existing IT infrastructure and expose the hidden costs in supporting and integrating the application.

Architecture is about people, not just technology. The effective Enterprise Architecture contains the system of checks-and-balances that allow your IT professionals to have voice in the technical issues that arise in their area of expertise. We advocate an approach that finds balance in all of the architectural domains listed above. In conjunction with our business partners, we have the expertise in all of the architectural areas listed above.

We have a white paper that goes into much more detail on the approach that we advocate toward an enterprise architecture.

Let us work with your IT staff to empower you with an architecture-centric enterprise