Consider yourself a practitioner in computer technology, telecommunications and Software system, who is interested in acquiring skills through knowledge of the most advanced application tools and methods both present (such as MIT programme) and coming.
You have consequently been charged with planning, developing, applying and delivering advance information systems, architectural solution and programming products. Identify and critically analyze cognate enterprise architecture and new generation information system required to accomplish your goal.Solution In management, enterprise architecture (EA) is the art and science of enterprise design. The hope for enterprise architecture is that applying systematic rational methods to the design of an enterprise will produce one that more effectively and efficiently pursues its purposes. In order word enterprise is any collection of corporate or institutional task-supporting functional entities that have a set of common goals or a single mandate.In this context, an enterprise is, but is not limited to, an entire corporation, a division or department of a corporation, a group of geographically dispersed organizations linked together by common administrative ownership, a government agency (or set of agencies) at any level of jurisdiction, a group of government agencies, and so on.
This also encompasses the concept on an extended enterprise, which is a logical aggregation that includes internal business units of a firm along with partners and suppliers (sometimes customers are also considered part of an extended enterprise).Large organizations and government entities may comprise multiple enterprises; however, there is often a lot in common about overall mission, and, hence, the ensuing need for (minimally) interoperable information systems, consistent data representations/extracts; in turn, this drives the desire for a common architecture framework. One of the many examples that could be given deals with having a set of common radio frequencies (and supportive infrastructure, whether that be physical, logical, or IT system level) that could be used by first responders. A common architecture supports cohesive multi-organizational operation.
A common architectural framework, in turn, can provide a basis for the development of an architecture repository for the integration and reuse of models, designs, and baseline data. The phrase "enterprise architecture" can refer to both the process and the product of this application of systematic methods. As a complex process, enterprise architecture may use a framework of methods and conceptual tools.An enterprise architecture description gives a holistic, systematic description of an enterprise.
It encompasses business functions, business process, people, organisation, business information, software applications and computer systems with their relationships to enterprise goals. Enterprise architects use various business methods, analytical techniques and conceptual tools to understand and document the structure and dynamics of an enterprise. In doing so, they produce lists, drawings, documents and models, together called " artifacts". These artifacts describe the logical organization of business functions, business capabilities, business processes, people, information resources, business systems, software applications, computing capabilities, information exchange and communications infrastructure within the enterprise.This is the definition of enterprise architecture implicit in several EA frameworks including the popular TOGAF architectural framework. The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) is a framework for enterprise architecture which provides a comprehensive approach to the design, planning, implementation, and governance of an enterprise information architecture.
The architecture is typically modeled at four levels or domains: Business, Application, Data, and Technology. A set of foundation architectures are provided to enable the architecture team to envision the current and future state of the architecture. An enterprise architecture framework collects together tools, techniques, artifact descriptions, process models, reference models and guidance used by architects in the production of enterprise-specific architectural description. Trends in Enterprise ArchitectureEnterprise ArchitectureEnterprise architecture has been around since the mid-1980s, but it has only recently begun to transform from an IT-centric exercise in mapping, controlling, standardizing and consolidating into something new—a function entrusted with creating a permanent process for alignment between IT and the business. This mandate is new, and forward-looking firms are just beginning to move beyond the IT architecture umbrella (which usually includes the data and infrastructure architectures).Advances in integration technology—primarily intelligent and flexible middleware and Web Services—are providing new ways for designing more agile, more responsive enterprise architectures that provide the kind of value the business has been seeking.
With these new architectures, IT can build new business capabilities faster, cheaper and in a vocabulary the business can understand. These advances are giving new life to a couple of old concepts that could inspire new enterprise architecture efforts and revive failing ones.Technology ArchitectureA press time survey of companies shows that having a technology architecture is as common as having the enterprise architecture as a whole. New data center technologies such as blade servers, grid computing, IP storage, storage virtualization, tiered storage, Internet Fibre Channel Protocol (iFCP), Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI), 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE), storage attachment (only) via Storage Area Networks (SANs), MultiProtocol Label Switching backbone services, metro Ethernet services, and Voice-Over-IP (VoIP)/integrated networks are now become prominent for the technology layer of the enterprise architecture.
The following press time observations describe the technology environment and trends that likely will impact the technology architecture of an enterprise in the near future.Virtualization is a well known concept in networking, from Virtual Channels in Asynchronous Transfer Mode, to Virtual Private Networks, to Virtual LANs, and Virtual IP Addresses. However, an even more fundamental type of virtualization is achievable with today’s ubiquitous networks: machine cycle and storage virtualization through the auspices of Grid Computing and IP storage. Grid Computing is also known as utility computing, what IBM calls on-demand computing.Areas where firms may look to develop an architecture include the following: Business function: This is a description of the all business elements and structures that are covered by the enterprise. These aspects capture the business logic functionality, specifically business processes.
Information function: This is a comprehensive identification of the data, the data flows, and the data interrelations required to support the business function. The identification, systematization, categorization, and inventory/storage of information are always necessary to run a business, but these are essential if the data-handling functions are to be automated.(Systems/application) Solution function: This is the function that aims at delivering/supplying computerized IT systems required to support the plethora of specific functions needed by the business function.Technology infrastructure function: The complete technology environment required to support the information function and the (systems/application) solution function.
