Enterprise Architecture Center of Excellence (COE)

Enterprise architecture governance, enterprise architecture change management and enterprise architecture framework are three core areas of establishing an enterprise architecture practice at your organization. Creating an enterprise architecture center of excellence (COE) at your organization is one of the best way to kick-start the enterprise architecture practice. The Enterprise Architecture COE should be charter to help not only to develop enterprise architecture strategy at your organization, but also to build enterprise architecture awareness, evangelize enterprise architecture, bring architecture best practices, enterprise architecture standards and...

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Master Data Management

Master Data Management

“Master Data Management (MDM) is the collection of policies, processes, framework and tools to enable the management of the master data in an organization. MDM is not a technology, rather it is the processes and governance around how you manage your data life cycle through acquisition, data quality and enrichment, sharing, storing, securing, synchronizing, archiving and disposing your master data. Tools and technologies will help you enable and automate these processes. In order to have MDM success, your entire organization need to be aligned...

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Enterprise Architecture Program and Practice

Enterprise Architecture Program and Practice

Enterprise Architecture has earned enough awareness and strength these days that it has become a strategic and most critical part of any major business or technology transformation and modernization programs. However, there are still questions and confusion about an Enterprise Architecture program, its practice at an organization and the organization structure, how to start enterprise architecture and where does it fits in overall business strategy and how it will all play out. These questions if not answered early can lead into failures and potentially...

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Starting Enterprise Architecture Program

Starting Enterprise Architecture Program

Enterprise Architecture Program continued… Once you have chosen a business area where you can start with, you could potentially conduct application portfolio analysis on that particular business domain. Within this portfolio analysis, you should be able to identify and collect application characteristics such as Owners What operating business functions and processes does it support? Physical characteristics such as O/S, version, software Operating matrix such as cost, license, help tickets Shared service characteristics such as integrations, dependencies At the end of this exercise you would...

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Enterprise Information Management

Enterprise Information Management

Enterprise information management is the process of managing organization assets of information, optimally and efficiently to support the quality, accuracy and timely availability of data for executive and strategic business decision making process. Data is the most valuable asset of your organization. Data plays the critical part of all business decision. Without accurate and useful data, your decision can take wrong turns. Being able to access timely and accurate data has become daily mantra for every business leaders. During the last decade, we have...

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Solution Architecture and Application Architecture

Is Enterprise Application Architecture = Solution Architecture? Steve Armstrong • Enterprise Architects frequently refer to different domains such as Business, Data, Technology, Solution, and occasionally Application. I’d like some input on the differences between an Application domain and a Solution domain. My sense is that for many the Application domain refers to the higher levels of the technology stack (eg: models, principles and patterns for Process, Views, and Services) which should of course should be modeled based on the business domain. Conversely, the Solution...

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Application Modernization

Business agility and cost reduction are two fundamental factors that drive modernization. Added to this are the growing technology obsolescence. According to Gartner, by year-end 2010, more than one-third of all application projects will be driven by the need to deal with technology or skills obsolescence. Forrester’s new survey revealed that modernizing key legacy applications is the top software initiative for businesses in year (2009). Rising cost of maintenance, integration challenges, technical skill obsolescence, demanding market and industry regulation changes are front runners business...

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Enterprise Architecture KPI

Enterprise Architecture KPI

Enterprise Architecture is understood to benefit business in multiple ways. It helps business to rationalize its processes and applications and establish an enterprise architecture governance,  technology standards, processes and best practices. A modern and standard based technology architecture helps better enterprise information sharing, reduce costs and improve ROI and ultimately help executives in making effective business decisions and drive revenue and growth. That being said how do you prove and show business the benefits of enterprise architecture has realized? How do you measure and...

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Enterprise Architecture Governance Framework

Enterprise Architecture Governance Framework

From the early IBM system journal article in 1982, which defined “enterprise architecture” there have been many enterprise architecture framework evolutions such as Zachman, OpenGroup TOGAF in mid 1990′s, and lately Gartner enterprise architecture framework in 2005 defining enterprise architecture principles, enterprise architecture governance and how to establish enterprise architecture best practices. Most recently, the need for enterprise architecture is growing and more and more businesses are realizing the strategic value of enterprise architecture. Business are establishing enterprise architecture center of excellence as one...

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Enterprise Architecture Organizational Readiness and Change Management

Enterprise Architecture Organizational Readiness and Change Management

For a successful enterprise architecture program it is absolutely necessary that you prepare your organization for the long journey. Organizational readiness include not only making sure that everyone is aware about enterprise architecture program, but also making sure that you get the buy-in from all user group, and make necessary changes in the structure of the organization to support the program successfully. The activities include getting commitment from the executive sponsor and having that commitment passed down to the entire organization and involve a...

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What is Enterprise Architecture

The definition of an architecture used in ANSI/IEEE Std 1471-2000is: “the fundamental organization of a system, embodied in its components, their relationships to each other and the environment, and the principles governing its design and evolution.” An enterprise architecture (EA) is a conceptual tool that assists organizations with the understanding of their own structure and the way they work. It provides a map of the enterprise and is a route planner for business and technology change. Normally an enterprise architecture takes the form of...

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Measuring Enterprise Architecture Performance

QUESTION (By Victor Brown): One of the requirements of an effective and sustainable Enterprise Architecture practice is the ability to accurately measure the results of EA efforts in terms that show its impact on the business, and then use those results to both improve and drive support for EA. Can you relate positive experiences (cite case studies) where a system of measurement has provided significant, actionable information that enabled your IT organization to improve its EA practice and/or improve its partnership and alignment with...

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Virtualization Trend

Virtualization will be the highest-impact trend changing infrastructure and operations through 2012, according to Gartner, Inc. Virtualization will transform how IT is managed, what is bought, how it is deployed, how companies plan and how they are charged. As a result, virtualization is creating a new wave of competition among infrastructure vendors that will result in considerable market disruption and consolidation over the next few years. “Virtualization is hardly a new concept; storage has already been virtualized — albeit primarily within the scope of...

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