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It looks like 2010 could be the year most organisations kick start a desktop refresh. I suspect many held off on upgrading to Vista so for many it’s a Windows XP to Windows 7 upgrade path. I wanted to revisit some of the old challenges in these projects and look at some of the new [...] I recently finished an exercise defining the technical standards for one of Europe’s largest managed service providers. As part of the exercise I gathered the key capabilities across the various infrastructure silos across the Data-centre. I found that it was a trawl to separate the facts from the fiction in the vendor marketing. I have gathered [...] TOGAF has a method called the ADM (Architectural Development Method), the good news is that the same method applies to defining any Architecture (including setting up the Architecture Practice itself). The ADM breaks down into phases that are run iteratively (not always in a set sequence). So lets get started with Phase A: Phase A – Setting [...] TOGAF breaks down Architecture into the following pillars: Business Architecture Phase B on our quest to establish an EA practice focuses on Business Architecture: Terminology: Define a set of standards so that everyone is talking consistent language (formal term here is Ontology) TOGAF uses a term “Enterprise Continuum” and I wish they would think of a different phrase as it throws me each time. It’s important we know exactly what it is as it’s the key deliverable for Phase C. It relates to three elements: Architecture Continuum Consider the repository as a folder full of documents, the usual [...] The good news is that most of the legwork to get the ball rolling is done in phases A to C. Here is what is left: Phase D: Define the technology that is used within the EA practice, ideally a TOGAF aware repository. If nothing else set standards for people to follow; for example always create [...] Let’s start by establishing what does an EA practice do for your organisation. The EA practice should identify Where are you? The reason the methodology is so important is that all three of these answers are always changing. The wind of change blows in for a huge array [...] I mentioned in an earlier blog that I would dig deeper into some of the Web 2:0 Architectural patterns. Well I came across a very good web site whichI think shows very simply a web 2:0 mashup. They are essentially mashing together a database of information (prices of houses sold from the UK Land Registry) with a map, not [...] I have been off to the States and Canada for the past month hence no blog entries, that’s not to say I have not been doing my usual when I am on a long flight, thinking about past projects or companies that I can extract some lessons learned from. One such company under financial pressure had blended [...] A lot of people ask what architecture actually is. This is an interesting question as there is I believe no single definition of architecture. Additionally, architecture is often slightly different things to different people, and varys to some degree across technical competencies (application, infrastructure, security, etc). Throughout my career, I have performed various roles in [...] One of the largest challenges I have faced over the years is implementing distributed solutions in a secure way while keeping the companies IT operations centralised. I have often found that more than a little politics gets in the way. I recently worked in a PCIDSS environment and the overhead to operations was significant, passing [...] I have worked in some large corporates and while people talk of methodologies I don’t often see them followed. Classic example is PRINCE2 on the project management side. In the life of an Architect I see a lot of Frameworks but again not a lot of companies diligently following them. If anyone has any experiences of [...] It would be nice if a single operating system would fit the needs of most data centres but it never does. Often politics and cost will influence selection but in some cases you get caught with little choice due to application dependencies.
I bet I could inspire debate just trying to define the breakdown of components in an IT Infrastructure Architecture so here we go:
Platforms Database Security Storage and Backup
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