Part 1 of 5 part article…

The primary purpose of an Enterprise Architecture (EA) is to inform, guide, and constrain the decisions for the enterprise, especially those related to IT investments.

The true challenge of enterprise engineering is to maintain the architecture as a primary authoritative resource for enterprise IT planning. This goal is not met via enforced policy, but by the value and utility of the information provided by the EA.

In general, the essential reasons for developing an EA include:

• Alignment—ensuring the reality of the implemented enterprise is aligned with management’s intent

• Integration—realizing that the business rules are consistent across the organization, that the data and its use are immutable, interfaces and information flow are standardized, and the connectivity and interoperability are managed across the enterprise

• Change—facilitating and managing change to any aspect of the enterprise

• Time-to-market—reducing systems development, applications generation, modernization time frames, and resource requirements

• Convergence—striving toward a standard IT product portfolio as contained in the Technical Reference Model (TRM).

Selling EA vs. Building Support

The single most difficult task in delivering and developing and Enterprise Architecture program is gaining support from the enterprise itself. This is why I was so passionate about writing this report. There are many bumps and detours along the way, and if we all can avoid and maneuver them, EA will advance as a whole and become more accepted and understand.

There is little reason to start an EA program itself unless it is supported by the business and treated as a business initiative. It will require executive level commitment and persistence. The IT department should not have to continually go to the well in various user organizations to get their support if there is a good plan and strategy in the beginning.

Want to read the rest? Get my Ten Secrets to Selling Enterprise Architecture and download the entire 33 page article.

** Note – As of Jan 1 2009, this report is no longer available publicly.  If you want the details, go to our Membership Portal **

Architecture requirements are typically those you collect during the initial scoping and context setting sessions at the beginning of a project while you are collecting high level system requirements. You need to determine the business objectives for the system, and for the architecture specifically.

It is so important to ensure that the architecture is aligned with the business drivers and objectives for the project. The architect keeps his or her eye on knowing where VALUE WILL BE ACHIEVED. What are the stakeholder goals? Main criteria for success?.

Setting system context helps to measure scope and set the appropriate boundaries. The architect needs to understand what the system interface will be, and what factors will characterize the architecture. Getting a list of top-level and high-priority goals will assist in setting this scope. This list can be further expanded when moving towards the elaboration phase of the project, and further gather the functional requirements.

The infrastructure must be designed to support the services and functionality that users require. It must deliver the appropriate levels of performance, security, usability and flexibility. All are factors that must be considered at the very beginning during the structure design and concept building of the solution architecture.

If the product is being purchased, the solution or system architects must review the requirements in order to determine their relevance and completeness. Specifically – those relating to non-functional requirements – specifically in the areas of performance, volume, methods of doing transactions or using the system, whom will use the system, how they will use it, etc. require review by the architects.

The architect must also ensure that these architectural requirements align with the