Enterprise Architecture Flashcards
Enterprise Architecture
What does Enterprise Architecture try to answer?
How does architecture fit into the corporate structure
Enterprise Architecture is super specific, right?
Nope. It’s broad.
Enterprise Architectures attempt to do what things?
Bring order to chaos.
Is legacy bad
Not necessarily
What is a legacy system
Something that’s quite old.
What is the average life of a business strategy?
Less than 12 months
What is the average life of an IT infastructure?
5-7 years
Name a type of ‘standard’
plug and play
Why bother about standards?
They allow you to work in an already established framework
What are the benefits of an EA
Cost effective
Easier to implement new business solutions
More secure and robust
An environment with standards = good for data
A consistent dataset is what?
A powerful dataset.
Typical IT environments are what?
Messy
Point-solution heavy
Difficult to maintain
Expensive and unruly
IT Investment is often
Reactive
Focused on point solutions
Poorly informed
Not robust
EA is a blueprint that defines what things?
Idealised configuration of organisations IT and systems and their connections
EA needs to be what?
Reliable, flexible, affordable
What is the corporate view
Group wide rather than division video of IT
What is the long view
long term view of IT investment
What is end to end
Including all elements of design
What do you need to know to develop an enterprise architecture?
Business knowledge
How IT works in enterprise
Understanding business constraints
How do you develop EA
- Spend time with business leaders
- Categorise how technology works
What is a business focused princple?
Align EA with business needs
What is independent principle
make the architecture independent of organisational structure
what is standards-based
use standard / industry-based stuff
what is state of the market principle
use solutions that are proven to work rather than bleeding edge
what is robust, reliable, supported principle
adopt solutions with well-defined roadmap
what is flexible principle
allows for business change
what is reuse technology principle
exploit existing technology
what is buy service first principle
use cloud services first, then off the shelf, then custom
what is a public facing channel
functions visible outside of company (like a website)
what is a department function
business functions in a single department (legacy management)
what is a group function
business function used across departments (document management)
what is technical infastructure
all the tech needed to run stuff (desktops)
Does an EA need to be updated?
Yes. But not every month.
What is EA perched between
A science and an art
What are the four views an enterprise architecture needs to take?
Corporate view
Long view
End to end
Standards-based
What are the four benefits of having an enterprise architecture?
Reduced costs
Faster to development
More robust
Connected
What are the four things that can happen without an enterprise architecture?
Expensive, point solutions
Isolated pockets of data.
Disparate units that are hard to connect
Huge maintainability burdens
What three things do you need to have to develop an EA?
Business knowledge
IT knowledge
Business constraint understanding
What are the 5 things you should do to develop a EA?
Spend time with leaders Spend time with users Research technology Define ideal environment Develop a roadmap
What are the high level blocks of an EA
Public facing
Departmental functions
Group functions
Technical infrastructure
