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In my experiences the difference between companies that have an effective risk control function and those that don’t is night and day. Businesses take risks, good businesses take measured risks. The same approach applies to the IT department. A good risk controller needs to have the confidence of the business combined with complete respect from the [...] According to my good friend Martin Williams there is a take away restaurant in the North West where you can get a Vegetarian burger topped with Bacon and Cheese. It’s called the contradiction burger. I think the new DirectAccess feature in Windows 2008 R2 is brilliant, however, the early documentation is a little short in terms [...] I remember a few years ago Microsoft created linkage between product releases (to generate cumulative sales?). I believe the trio were Exchange, Vista and Office. While the cumulative features had merit I don’t think there was a strong enough business driver. So now we have a similar linkage between Windows 2008 and Windows 7. This time [...] 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 [...] For those not into Nuclear Physics; Half Life is defined as the amount of time for the atoms in a radioactive substance to decay to half the level they started with. The IT Industry may enjoy a minor boom once the effects of the global recession diminish but ultimately I suspect we are heading for a [...]
I see Commercials and Capability progressing a lot faster than the ability to tackle Compliance. What’s more some of the issues faced here are related to people perceptions and they are not easily fixed with technology alone. Take a SaaS example in Google Mail. Its low cost and highly capable (ok a few more bells and [...] I met with my old friend Steve Tuppen this week who is incredibly sharp with regard to driving cost savings into large IT Service Delivery Contracts. I learned a thing or two about how financial (not capability) drivers are likely to shape IT Architecture in the future. In a nutshell organisations will expect to switch IT suppliers [...] If trends such as Cloud, Web2:0 and Virtualisation don’t shake up the role that IT plays within organisations then SOA certainly will. So what does the CEO/CIO need to know and care about SOA? Its almost certainly an ongoing and iterative process so the old culture of a fixed time/cost project needs to transition to iterative improvements to [...] I have just finished reading Web 2.0 Architecture: What Entrepreneurs and Architects need to know. A rather good book which pulls together content from an awful lot of places. How will the cloud influence IT architecture? I suspect Legal restrictions on data will force some adopters to operate in a mix of local and cloud infrastructure. Certainly it will force EMEA adopters to position customer data into the cloud making sure its not held in the US. The nature of eggs in one basket [...] Having been in many organisations where methodologies are not talked about at parties I was keen to make sure this one was adaptable. TOGAF is iterative and oh joy the recommended first iteration sees the tuning of the methodology to suit the organisation (the methodology is called the ADM :Architectural Development Method). The Open Group book [...] |
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