|
The intent of the Capstone Newsletter is to keep you informed of industry trends that can shape how you do business. You will also find information on upcoming technology events as well as interesting and timely technology articles.
We hope you find the information in this newsletter relevant. Your feedback on these or potential future topics is welcome at feedback@capstonec.com.
Capstone Consulting is proud to introduce the newest member of our team. David Kramer has joined our team as of
August and brings to Capstone a wealth of I.T. knowledge and over 20 years experience developing solutions.
David's fields of expertise are in Enterprise Architecture, Systems Engineering and Integration, network design,
application and systems integration, capacity planning and performance optimization.
Prior to joining Capstone, David has worked in Boston, Washington D.C., Omaha, and New York City. David has
diverse experience in the fields of transportation, defense, finance, and manufacturing.
For more information, or questions regarding Capstone's service offerings, please contact John Blach at
john.blach@capstonec.com or 402-597-3664 x 243.
Enterprise Architecture (EA) is the sum of all behaviors within an organization.
It is the who, what, why, how and when of the business. EA impacts business
processes at every level from executive goals to the programs being executed
in support of the business. In the past, businesses found it difficult
to establish and maintain enterprise architecture because of the following:
- Inability to communicate a common vision
- Obstacles with keeping the information current
- No standard modeling tools
- No standard notation for an enterprise architecture
In recent years, several technologies, such enterprise portals, architectural frameworks,
and standardized modeling languages, have removed the obstacles from establishing
and maintaining Enterprise Architecture. Capstone Consulting has guided
and educated many of our customers in developing an enterprise architecture
that ensures that all I.T. resources can be directly traced to a specific
piece of business strategy.
The Capstone Framework, shown in Figure 1, is an industry proven standard that can
provide your business with an architectural framework from which to develop
Enterprise Architecture. This step-by-step process will be outlined over
the next three issues of the Capstone Newsletters.
Figure 1 The Capstone Framework
Part 1 of the series focuses on "Establishing an Enterprise Architecture".
We will start with an introduction to the Capstone Framework and its four
major components:
- The Strategic Plan
- Obtaining Executive Level Support
- Architectural Governance
- The Architecture Process
Business Strategy is the direction management sets and the actions that must be
taken to produce successful results for the business. In regard to information
technology, this means that all solutions must be driven from the business
strategy. This kind of effort requires skills in performing a functional
decomposition of the organization into its most efficient set of business
processes.
Executive Level Support is essential if any endeavor is to succeed, but specifically
enterprise architecture. Establishing an EA will require resources from
across all areas of the business and it is crucial that support of this
initiative be downward directed. Boards of Directors and executive steering
committees need to be aware of the impacts of not having EA and the dollars
it is costing their business.
Architectural Governance is the metering that will ensure successes are continued and
failures are stopped. Assembling a governance board creates many challenges
that can test a businesses resolve to have EA. Architectural Governance
Boards will often find it easier if they have an outside mentor, experienced
in facilitating EA, on the board. This will ensure that the focus stays
on the "big picture" and not a particular silo of the business.
The Architectural Process is the playbook, which will guide an organization in developing
EA. The framework guides the process and each component is interdependent
upon the others. However, when developing architectural solutions, it
is possible to produce them as point solutions, but still keeping all
the other pieces in mind.
Th Enterprise Architecture ideally, is composed of five sub-architectures as shown in
Figure 2:
- Business Architecture(BA)
- Data Architecture (DA)
- Infrastructure Architecture (IA)
- Application Architecture (AA)
- Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
Figure 2 Enterprise Architecture Sub-Architectures
The Gaps and Roadmaps create a relationship between the "As-Is" architecture
and the "To-Be" architecture. The cycle is constantly changing
and impacted not only by shifts in the Strategic Plan but also by shifts
outside of the business. Current economic conditions, technology trends,
and world events can all have an impact on what the "To-Be"
architecture will look like. The "To-Be" is an ideal state and
may never be reached.
In the next issue of The Capstone Technology Journal, part two in the Enterprise Architecture
Series, we will discuss "Applying the Framework". This will
build upon the architectural establishment concepts and lead into solving
real world business issues. Capstone Consulting has assisted many of our
customers in developing solutions and every member of our team is committed
to assisting our partners in obtaining tangible results.
|
