Cutter Consortium: Enterprise Architecture

How to Win at Punkin Chunkin and Architecture

21 Oct 2009 22:47:31 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 21 October 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

I live in the state of New Hampshire, in the Northeast corner of the US. It's a major pumpkin-growing region of the country, and October is harvest season. Truckloads of pumpkins head south and west, and local farm stands are bursting with the orange globes. But what do you do with all the misshaped or leftover pumpkins? Chuck 'em, what else? A local farmer has turned this into an art with his World Champion 'Yankee Siege' Trebuchet (www.yankeesiege.com). This is something you really must see to comprehend. The top of the mast rises to more than 60 feet, and when the 12,000 pounds of weight are let loose, pumpkins fly for about 2,000 feet.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea091021.html

Service Orienting Your Business Processes, Part IV: Multichannel Capability

14 Oct 2009 22:36:13 GMT

Allen, Paul | E-Mail Advisors | 14 October 2009 | Business-IT Strategies; Enterprise Architecture; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Increasingly, we find business processes that are offered in alternative ways using different channels. For example, purchasing vehicle highway tax in the UK over the counter or online over the Internet. At the same time, as well as offering a process in its entirety over one channel, the same process can be supported by different channels at different points in the process.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit091014.html

Economics of Cloud Computing: 5 Operational Steps

14 Oct 2009 22:35:15 GMT

Orr, Ken; Maher, Andrew | E-Mail Advisors | 14 October 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

In a recent interview, Mike Culver, the cloud computing evangelist for Amazon.com, clearly stated the cloud computing value statement for his company: "Amazon's goal is to take the fixed cost out of computing!" That's pretty simple. There has been a great deal of discussion of the TCO of one thing or another over the years, but rarely is the entirety of the operational overhead really factored in. We can learn what the TCO is for a desktop or a server or an Oracle product, for instance, but nobody goes to the trouble to include all of the factors involved.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea091014.html

Webinar: BEAM 4.0

14 Oct 2009 00:58:00 GMT

Orr, Ken | Events | 20 October 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

In 2005, Cutter Fellow Ken Orr introduced Business Enterprise Architecture Modeling (BEAM), a state-of-the-art methodology that uses a business-driven strategy as the key to the long-term success of your enterprise architecture program. In these 5 years since it was announced, BEAM, which is based on real-world applications, has been successfully used by organizations to create a long-view of their current and future business architecture needs. In this webinar, Ken Orr will talk about what’s been learned on these projects that used BEAM, how it’s been updated to make it an even more robust tool, and how you can use it to guide business-IT alignment, support business initiatives, enhance IT strategic planning, manage IT projects more effectively, and understand your organization’s total set of IT assets and their context. Ken will be joined by Enterprise Architecture Practice Director Mike Rosen, and Senior Consultant Mitchell Ummel, with whom he recently completed an award-winning project using the BEAM methodology. Register now to join Ken Orr for this webinar on Tuesday, October 20, 12:00 EDT (see your local time here).

http://www.cutter.com/events/multimedia/beam4.html

How EA Shapes Urban/Transportation Planning

8 Oct 2009 00:52:26 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 07 October 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise architects often ask me why the Business Enterprise Architecture Modeling (BEAM) EA approach is based on an "urban/transportation model" rather than the "building architecture model" favored by many organizations and groups. The short answer has to do with the similarity of the model to actual enterprise architecture in both change and complexity. By and large, buildings don't change1 as much as urban areas; nor do they change for the same reasons. Urban areas, on the other hand, are constantly changing: new buildings replace old ones, whole areas are torn down in order to make way for new shopping centers or expressways.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea091007.html

Defining Architectures for the Cloud, Part II

30 Sep 2009 19:23:05 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 30 September 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

In my previous Advisor ("Defining Architectures for the Cloud, Part I," 23 September 2009), I looked at the enterprise architecture domains of business, information, and application and how cloud computing would affect those areas. This week, I'll finish the series on the cloud with the additional architectural considerations of technology, operations, security, and implementation.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090930.html

Why a Top-Down Approach Leads to Death by Dogma

25 Sep 2009 01:46:34 GMT

Kellen, Vince | E-Mail Advisors | 24 September 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Enterprise Architecture

Recently, a well-known IT advisory group brashly announced a "new" approach to enterprise architecture that it described as "emergent" and "nondeterministic," with central IT and its architects ceding some control and choice to constituents rather than trying to design and control everything. Wow. When I read the release, I had to pinch myself and ask, "What decade am I in? This news is so 1999." I double-checked the date on the release. Sure enough, it was this year. Why is this news in 2009?

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090924.html

Service Orienting Your Business Processes, Part III: Adaptation

24 Sep 2009 01:43:17 GMT

Allen, Paul | E-Mail Advisors | 23 September 2009 | Business-IT Strategies; Enterprise Architecture; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Many of our business processes -- operating over the Internet or otherwise -- remain wedded to a production-line mindset that is stuck in the world of the 1980s. A well-planned business process managemenht (BPM) and service-oriented architecture (SOA) strategy needs to encourage the use of services as a tool to improve processes and solve specific business problems. At the same time, organizational politics and the investments in BPM and SOA already made mean that we need to tread carefully.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090923.html

Defining Architectures for the Cloud, Part I

29 Sep 2009 01:41:52 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 23 September 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

In my previous two Advisors ("Selected Innovations in Cloud Products," 9 September 2009, and "SOA and the Cloud: Getting Past the Hype," 19 August 2009), I talked about the different styles of the cloud (infrastructure as a service [IaaS], platform as a service [PaaS], software as a service [SaaS], public, and private) and some of the products that are now available in those areas. This week, I look at the cloud from an enterprise architecture perspective. To do that, I start with the typical breakdown of EA into domains of business, information, application, and technology. For each domain, I look at some of the typical questions that are answered by that architecture and that will be affected by the cloud. I also list new questions that will need to be addressed.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090923.html

Getting Lean with the Line of Commoditization

22 Sep 2009 01:36:02 GMT

Allen, Paul | Executive Updates | 21 September 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

The idea of separating an organization's core functionality from its contextual functionality, with the view of concentrating its own resources on what it does best -- the "core" -- and outsourcing what others can do faster, cheaper, and better -- the "context" -- is highly prevalent and well known. Difficult economic times have served only to fuel the core/context strategy in one form (e.g., business process outsourcing) or another (e.g., cloud computing), making it highly influential in boardrooms keen to cut costs.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/updates/2009/eau0918.html

Visiting the Oracle

17 Sep 2009 01:28:50 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 16 September 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Business-IT Strategies

In ancient times, the Oracle (the person, not the database) was someone to whom you addressed important questions. The answers that the Oracle gave were always true, but were often given in an elaborate code. I imagined recently that I took some of my clients' questions to a modern version of the Oracle for enlightenment. I imagined further that this modern Oracle allowed me three questions.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090916.html

Enterprise Architects and Organizational Change: A Requirement or an Option?

10 Sep 2009 19:50:28 GMT

Teeuwen, Paul | Executive Updates | 10 September 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

As a CIO or enterprise architecture (EA) manager, you will have experienced that some of your enterprise architects seem to get along just fine with the user community, but others seem to run into arguments with their customers time and time again. These are problems that you have to solve, committing time and prestige to fix things while you do not understand why things got out of control in the first place. The first time I got this cry for help from the corporate EA manager of a large bank, I realized that it is not the quality of the architectural deliverables that makes the difference -- so what is it?

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/updates/2009/eau0917.html

Selected Innovations in Cloud Products

9 Sep 2009 19:46:26 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 09 September 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

In my last Advisor, "SOA and the Cloud: Getting Past the Hype" (19 August 2009), I introduced the main categories of cloud computing. This week, I'll cover some of the product innovations taking place in those categories. Of course, I can't begin to cover everything, so this is just a selection of things that I found interesting. I apologize in advance if I left out your favorite item.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090909.html

Complex Event Processing: The Vendors

2 Aug 2009 19:37:03 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 02 September 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Business Intelligence

As I pointed out in last week's Advisor (see "Complex Event Processing," 26 August 2009), complex event processing (CEP) remains an emerging technology that holds the promise of enabling companies to increase operational efficiency by providing a means to identify and interpret the effect of seemingly unrelated events taking place across the organization and then notifying the appropriate stakeholders with near zero latency.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090902.html

How to Measure Software Agility

31 Aug 2009 19:31:31 GMT

Allen, Paul | Executive Updates | 31 August 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

Too often, the term "agility" is bandied about, especially in relation to SOA, without real meaning. For example, we are used to measuring the various quality attributes of a piece of software. Performance comes in the form of response time; capacity is expressed, among other things, in terms of bytes of storage; security is expressed in terms of freedom from denial-of-service attacks, and so forth. But what about agility? Is it just a good thing, as many seem to assume, like happiness or moral goodness? Or can we define it and measure it, as with performance, capacity, and security? Due to its importance in addressing ever-demanding and more complex business requirements, it is imperative to define and measure agility.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/updates/2009/eau0916.html

New Additions to the Enterprise Architecture Resource Center

31 Aug 2009 16:00:18 GMT

Systems Breakdown Case Study: A Square Peg and a Round Hole by Phil Simon

Holistic Service-Oriented Management by Paul Allen

Life Is Service: Even for the IT Shop by Gabriele Piccoli

IT Service Management: Improving Customer Service Through Better Relationships by Geneviève Bassellier and Ron Cenfetelli

IT Service Management: Culture as a Solution? by Bob Furniss

IT Service: It Begins with Business Knowledge by Gabriele Piccoli

IT Service Management Survey Data

Agile Service Orientation: Avoiding the "Ivory Tower"

1 Aug 2009 15:55:48 GMT

Allen, Paul | Executive Reports | 01 August 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

A harsh economic recession calling for renewed cost reduction with an emphasis on tactical solution-delivery projects causes concern over the effectiveness of enterprise service-oriented architecture (SOA) and puts agile back in the limelight. SOA and agile methodologies are commonly seen as opposites, but opposites that don't attract. On the one hand, agile methodologies emphasize the short game, human interplay, and exploration, while SOA is inherently a long game that is about discipline and formality. Each approach is not without success. At the same time, agile projects have often struggled with delivering the long-term quality and scalability that SOA promises. Conversely, SOA efforts are often plagued with difficulties in delivering rapid business value. Is it really possible to have the best of both worlds? Or is "agile SOA" a contradiction in terms? In this Executive Report, Paul Allen argues that, yes, there are many ways in which agile and SOA can work effectively together and provide guidelines for achieving a balanced approach.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/reports/2009/08/index.html

Service-Orienting Agile: Enhancing the Process

27 Aug 2009 15:45:10 GMT

Allen, Paul | E-Mail Advisors | 27 August 2009 | Agile Project Management; Enterprise Architecture

In this Advisor, we'll consider some tactics for employing service-oriented architecture (SOA) techniques to improve your agile projects -- in other words, at service-orienting agile. While our focus is very much on enhancing the process of agile, the intent here is to stay in tune with agile principles and avoid the stifling bureaucracy that has plagued traditional software processes.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2009/apm090827.html

Service Orienting Your Business Processes, Part II: Partner Connectivity

26 Aug 2009 15:39:56 GMT

Allen, Paul | E-Mail Advisors | 26 August 2009 | Business-IT Strategies; Enterprise Architecture; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships

Service-oriented viewpoints are a way of gaining early measurable business value through reuse of existing services, including external cloud services as well as internal legacy services. Think of each viewpoint as a different pair of spectacles through which the analyst views the process. There are eight viewpoints; in the previous Advisor (see "Service Orienting Your Business Processes, Part I: Customer Fit and Transparence," 12 August 2009), I described the transparency and customer-fit viewpoints. In this Advisor, I'm going to concentrate on the partner-connectivity viewpoint.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090826.html

Complex Event Processing

26 Aug 2009 15:22:52 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 26 August 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

Complex event processing (CEP) generated a lot of hype in 2007 and 2008. By 2009, however, the hype has died down. With the recent "Community Technology Preview" release of Microsoft SQL Server StreamInsight, I expect the hype meter to begin revving up once again. No doubt about it, StreamInsight is an important development because it heralds Microsoft's eventual entry into the CEP market, which although currently small, is expected to grow considerably over the next few years. And, although pioneers hate to hear this, Microsoft's entry will also help to "legitimize" CEP as an enterprise application by focusing attention on what the technology has to offer.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090826.html

Feature vs. Component Teams, Part II: Separate Teams

20 Aug 2009 15:15:45 GMT

Highsmith, Jim | E-Mail Advisors | 20 August 2009 | Agile Project Management; Enterprise Architecture

Recently, looking at scaling issues for a couple of multinational organizations, the issue of feature teams (customer-oriented) versus component teams (technically oriented) arose again. In an earlier Advisor (see "Feature vs. Component Teams," 6 August 2009), I proposed a three-tiered solution: projects with a single-feature team and specialists, projects with multiple feature teams and virtual component teams, and projects with multiple feature and component teams. This Advisor addresses the separate feature team tier.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2009/apm090820.html

SOA and the Cloud: Getting Past the Hype

19 Aug 2009 15:11:52 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 19 August 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

I suppose I ought to know better, and I do, but the marketing hype still never ceases to impress me. The latest victim: "the cloud." It is reported by our friends in the hype-cycle department that cloud computing is at the pinnacle of being overblown. This is characterized by vagueness in the marketplace, many different definitions of what it means, everyone and their brother jumping on the bandwagon, and of course the pathetic marketing literature with claims of being "in the cloud, cloud friendly, cloud based," and more. Note to marketers: here’s a dollar; buy yourself a clue!

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090819.html

Service Orienting Your Business Processes, Part I: Customer Fit and Transparence

12 Aug 2009 15:01:28 GMT

Allen, Paul | E-Mail Advisors | 12 August 2009 | Business-IT Strategies; Enterprise Architecture

Service-oriented viewpoints, which I outlined in an earlier Update (see "Service-Oriented Viewpoints," Vol. 12, No. 1.), provide a useful, low-risk approach that can help leverage your investment in existing process models and services as part of a well-planned business-IT alignment strategy. There are eight viewpoints -- transparency, customer fit, partner connectivity, adaptation, multichannel capability, optimization, one-stop experience, and governance -- that can be applied in various ways to improve an existing business process design (typically in the form of a swim-lane diagram) using services. Think of each viewpoint as a different pair of spectacles through which the analyst views the process. In this Advisor, I'll home in on the transparence and customer-fit viewpoints.

http://www.cutter.com/content/alignment/fulltext/advisor/2009/bit090812.html

Clouds Roll In: The Changing Face of IT

12 Aug 2009 14:55:07 GMT

Davis, Christine | E-Mail Advisors | 12 August 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

Utility IT support and systems development for small, medium-sized, and large companies have been and will continue to be transitioned to a service that is supported and managed by external IT service providers. This transition is continuing for many reasons, and the two most significant are reduced cost and the fact that utility IT does not provide differentiation that leads to competitive advantage.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090812.html

A Forensic Approach to Information Systems Development: Part II -- Ways to Fix the Problem

10 Aug 2009 14:48:19 GMT

Bailey, Ian | Executive Updates | 11 August 2009 | Enterprise Architecture In the first of this two-part Executive Update series,1 I took a swipe at the currently accepted approach to systems development. My argument was that if a system is to adequately support a business, the information it handles must be rigorously derived from the business itself. By producing a process model, then an information model, then a data model, and then handing it all over to an implementation team, we can end up somewhat removed from the reality of the business. The people responsible for each of these steps in the chain usually don't have a good understanding of each other's specialities, and the result can be "Chinese whispers."http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/updates/2009/eau0915.html

Love of Coffee, and What's Agile Got to Do With It?

5 Aug 2009 14:40:12 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 05 August 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

A few weeks ago, I had a little electrical incident at my house. After the fire department left and the mess was cleaned up, we took stock of the damage. Except for the offending surge "protector" that caught fire, our UPCs pretty much did their job. No computers were damaged -- just a dead scanner, a zapped paper shredder, fried cordless phone, and, most frustrating of all, an ex-coffee maker.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090805.html

Understanding the Trend Toward BPM and SOA Convergence in Cultural Terms

30 Jul 2009 16:43:03 GMT

Allen, Paul | E-Mail Advisors | 30 July 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Enterprise Architecture

We read much these days about business process management (BPM) and service-oriented architecture (SOA) converging. Is that just hype, or does it really make sense? And if it does make sense, just what might that mean for our organization -- not just in terms of technology, but also in terms of that subtler, softer kind of thing we call "culture" -- the unwritten rules of the game?

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090730.html

Avoid the Static: Think of Nodes, Not Cells

29 Jul 2009 16:40:12 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 29 July 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

I was startled a few weeks ago while talking to someone about enterprise architecture, when a question about data architecture came up. One of the EA folks in the group said, "3,3" -- as if that was the conclusive answer to a question, and a number of people nodded knowingly.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090729.html

Enterprise Mashups in the IT Environment

28 Jul 2009 16:34:54 GMT

Dooley, Brian J. | Executive Updates | 28 July 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

Mashups are lightweight integrations of one or more Web applications used to create a synergistic result, with the outcome often delivered through the Web. Although use of data from Web sources has been going on for some time, mashups represent a new level of functionality characterized by ease of use, programmatic access to data (e.g., through APIs), combination of data from multiple sources, and sharing of results. Many of the earliest mashups involved charting data -- including apartment advertisements, real estate, and even Flickr photos -- to Google Maps. Since about the year 2000, the possibilities have been growing steadily, in presentation-oriented and data aggregation applications, as well as in more sophisticated process-oriented applications. The use of mashups has since grown quickly within the consumer sector, and it is now heading into the enterprise space.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/updates/2009/eau0914.html

What Does It Mean to Be Green?

22 Jul 2009 16:26:46 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 22 July 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Business-IT Strategies; Business Technology Trends & Impacts

What do we mean by green computing or sustainability? Does it mean a focus on energy efficiency in the data center through less heat-producing and lower power-consumption server blades? Is it virtualization and shifting computing into the cloud to reduce carbon footprint or reducing paper consumption through new paperless processes? What about recycling and reduction in the manufacturing process? Or is it all of the above? Your guess is probably as good as mine.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090722.html

EA Meets SOA in a Challenged Global Economy

1 Jun 2009 14:32:24 GMT

Allen, Paul | Executive Reports | 01 June 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

Many approaches to enterprise architecture (EA) are based upon ideas that are rooted in the 1970-1980s world of internal IT shops, which puts the focus on the framework as an instrument for keeping internal IT assets in order. These approaches tend to neglect both the "soft" people-related factors that are central to successful EA and the fact that business is increasingly conducted in a collaborative fashion, using distributed Internet technologies. In this Executive Report by Paul Allen, we provide guidance that addresses the needs of organizations operating in a continually challenged global economy by harnessing ideas from service-oriented architecture (SOA) in an EA context.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/reports/2009/06/index.html

A Forensic Approach to Information Systems Development: Part I -- Describing the Problem

17 Jul 2009 14:28:19 GMT

Bailey, Ian | Executive Updates | 17 July 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

The gap between what the business requires and what IT delivers is well recognized. The premise of this two-part Executive Update series is that although approaches such as enterprise architecture go some way toward closing this gap, a fundamental problem remains with the way systems are specified and delivered. That problem lies in the information analysis and modeling that takes place early in the development of systems. The process of information modeling is opaque to most end users, and most IT professionals consider it a "black art." As a result, it gets little scrutiny, and only the data modeler can have any kind of certainty that the model accurately reflects business requirements.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/updates/2009/eau0913.html

Agile and SOA -- Two Dimensions of a Corporate IT Strategy

16 Jul 2009 14:27:19 GMT

Coldewey, Jens | E-Mail Advisors | 16 July 2009 | Agile Project Management; Enterprise Architecture

In his recent Advisor "Achieving Agile Software: Fail to Scale -- Prepare to Fail" (25 June 2009), Cutter Senior Consultant Paul Allen had raised the issue of the connection between agile and SOA. In conclusion, Paul states, "What I am suggesting is that SOA has a key role in coming to [agile addressing its shortcomings on large projects], and conversely that agile has a key role in improving SOA-related work." I tend to agree with Paul, but would like to add a slightly different perspective on the connection between SOA and agile.

http://www.cutter.com/content/project/fulltext/advisor/2009/apm090716.html

If You Have to Justify IT ... Look Carefully

15 Jul 2009 14:19:01 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 15 July 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

Like you, I try to keep up with what's going on in the industry by reading magazines, articles, and so on. Perhaps it's the economy, or just coincidence, but in the past few months, there seem to have been more than enough articles about the impotence of IT.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090715.html

New Additions

21 Jul 2009 14:40:49 GMT

"The Web as Platform": What Does It Mean? -- Part III by Joseph Feller
Metrics Show Architectural Impact on IT by Michael Rosen
Potemkin Architecture by Lou Mazzucchelli and the Cutter Business Technology Council
An Integrated Approach to SOA Governance by Paul Allen
Frames: How to Treat Software Components as Capital Assets -- and Why You Should by Paul G. Bassett
Negotiating the Path to Business Architecture/IT Architecture Alignment by William M. Ulrich
Finding -- and Filling -- the Real Business Gap by Greg Suddreth and Whynde Melaragno
Seven Rules of Business Alignment by Alan Inglis
Vision and Values: A Model for Business/IT Architecture Alignment by J.M. Sampath
Aligning Business and IT Architectures: A Seven-Step Approach by Tushar K. Hazra
The Role of the Value Flow in Business-IT Alignment by Neal McWhorter
A Requirements Approach to Enterprise Technology Architecture by Dan Berglove and Jeroen van Tyn

http://www.cutter.com/architecture.html

Key Steps to Ensuring Successful EA

8 Jul 2009 14:09:38 GMT

Berglove, Dan; van Tyn, Jeroen | E-Mail Advisors | 08 July 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

Recently, we've written about some core strategies that help ensure the success of enterprise architecture, such as developing key EA capabilities (see "Six Key Capabilities on Road to EA Success," 18 March 2009) and employing an iterative and incremental approach to EA programs (see "Take Iterative Steps: Start Small, Empower Team Via Vision, Value," 29 April 2009). In this Advisor, we provide an overview of several other pervasive themes that provide broad but powerful guidance to EA efforts.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090708.html

Is Your Perimeter Secure?

17 Jun 2009 19:58:09 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 17 June 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

Is your perimeter secure? The answer to that is simple: NO. As business has become more distributed, outsourcing has gone global, supply chains are more connected, employees have become teleworkers, customers demand better information, and so on, we have systematically punched holes into perimeter security until it now resembles Swiss cheese.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090617.html

Are You at the Controls? Do You Know Where Your Data Is?

10 Jun 2009 19:43:38 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 10 June 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Business Intelligence; Enterprise Risk Management & Governance

Perhaps you remember the public service campaign from 1960s television that went something like, "It's 10 pm. Do you know where your children are?" For IT, we could rephrase it as; "It's 2009. Do you know where your data is?" You probably don't, especially if it's in the hands of your partners or outsourcers. So, the answer to the question in the title of this Advisor is most likely, "I don't know."

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090610.html

Open Source Java Frameworks: Development/Testing, Middleware, and Comprehensive Frameworks

5 Jun 2009 16:21:10 GMT

Welsh, Tom | Executive Updates | 05 June 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

In Part V, I move on to the findings for development/testing, middleware, and comprehensive OSJFs. Then, before summing up the series and to put the OSJF findings into context, we take a look at the non-Java frameworks that respondents have been using.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/updates/2009/eau0911.html

The Cloud Machine: Some Tips to Get Behind the Haze

3 Jun 2009 16:15:40 GMT

Seiden, Mark | E-Mail Advisors | 03 June 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

"The cloud" is important, yes, but in my view it isn't rocket science (or even atmospheric science). I think of it as just another step in outsourcing and pushing everything into a commodity, which for me creates only "modified rapture."

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090603.html

Enterprise Collaboration Architecture Webinar

3 Jun 2009 16:14:46 GMT

Rosen, Mike | Webinars/Multimedia | 03 June 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

Collaboration is a hot topic within Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 technologies. It seems that everybody wants it, but what does it really mean for an enterprise? How can collaboration help improve internal processes and development? And how can it improve interactions with customers and partners? In this Webinar, Mike Rosen, Director of Cutter's Enterprise Architecture practice, first looks at what we mean by collaboration and why we do it. Then, he looks at the impact on traditional business transaction processing when we try to add collaboration. Mike will discuss a detailed example of an extended business transaction and the benefits it can deliver, and finally he'll take a look at the application architecture necessary to integrate Enterprise 2.0 technologies into real business transactions at an enterprise level. Join Mike Rosen for this hour-long, interactive webinar. Ask questions, get answers. Discover the opportunities opened by Enterprise Collaboration Architecture, consider some approaches, and anticipate the obstacles.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/webinar/2009/enterprisecollaborationarchitecture.html

For Hybrid Clouds, Fog of Confusion Is Burning Away

28 May 2009 16:05:28 GMT

Hall, Curt | E-Mail Advisors | 28 May 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Sourcing & Vendor Relationships; Enterprise Architecture

Most of the attention being paid to cloud computing has focused on public cloud providers, such as Amazon and Google, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendors, such as Salesforce.com. However, based on my research, including feedback I've received from readers, I believe that the future of corporate IT, especially when it comes to larger companies, will be based on "hybrid clouds" -- those employing both public and private clouds to meet business goals.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090528.html

EA and SOA: A Marriage Made in Heaven?

27 May 2009 16:03:30 GMT

Allen, Paul | E-Mail Advisors | 27 May 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Business-IT Strategies

While EA and service-oriented architecture (SOA) have their own advocates and camps of followers, recent developments have seen many of the EA approaches and frameworks looking to offer increasing support for SOA. The fact that business is increasingly conducted in a collaborative fashion, using distributed Internet technologies, makes this very welcome. While I review these developments and more in an upcoming Executive Report ("EA Meets SOA in a Challenged Global Economy"), right now I want to offer some general observations on extending your EA to support SOA.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090527.html

Architectural Challenges in Transforming to SaaS Solutions

22 May 2009 15:50:46 GMT

Markande, Krishna | Executive Updates | 22 May 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

To fully understand the advantages and challenges in software as a service (SaaS), we must analyze the emerging model thoroughly from the viewpoint of customers and independent software vendors (ISVs). The aim of such scrutiny is to reap the benefits and mitigate possible risks of SaaS.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/updates/2009/eau0910.html

Aiming for the Big Picture, EA Goes Beyond 3D

20 May 2009 15:40:43 GMT

Orr, Ken | E-Mail Advisors | 20 May 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

For a long time, I have been advocating that the right analogy for enterprise architecture is urban/transportation planning versus building architecture. Now, while designing and building a single large building is a complex, difficult problem, what large IT organizations everywhere are faced with is not just developing or replacing individual systems, regardless of how difficult that that may be. Rather, they are managing networks or systems; in some cases networks of networks of systems. Enterprise architecture, like urban/transportation planning, is involved with trying to understand and shape the really big picture.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090520.html

COBIT Primer

13 May 2009 15:30:20 GMT

Rosen, Mike | E-Mail Advisors | 13 May 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

There are so many different frameworks with which architects work -- TOGAF, Zachmann, FEAF, ITIL -- to name just a few. All have different goals, strengths, weaknesses, audiences, and so on. The one that I find to be the least well known among architects is COBIT. Yet I find that many CIOs and executives are familiar with this framework and that it is important in communicating up to the C-level. COBIT, originally released in 1996, is currently at version 4.1 (you can download the guide from www.isaca.org).

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090513.html

Open Source Java Frameworks: GUI, Web, Web Services, and Persistence

12 May 2009 14:52:03 GMT

Welsh, Tom | Executive Updates | 12 May 2009 | Enterprise Architecture
This is the fourth in a series of Executive Updates in which I analyze the results of a recent Cutter Consortium survey on the subject of open source Java frameworks (OSJFs). Part I1 explored Java EE's perceived strengths and weaknesses, to find out whether there is good reason for developers to look for alternatives. In Part II,2 we saw that nearly three in four respondents think that OSJFs always or often offer good solutions to Java's shortcomings, though there was some concern about the risk of lock-in, uncertainty over future plans, and lack of standardization.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/updates/2009/eau0909.html

A Capability Trilogy, Part III: Triage Comes Into Play

6 May 2009 16:00:35 GMT

Allen, Paul | E-Mail Advisors | 06 May 2009 | Enterprise Architecture; Business-IT Strategies

While the notion of core/context capabilities is central to the whole capability-driven approach, it is sometimes quite difficult to take a strictly binary view. Graduating capabilities in terms of their degree of commoditization can help, and it is possible to use several classifications along a spectrum from high to low commoditization. At the same time, it's important not to overegg the pudding.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090506.html

Harnessing Your Architecture Repository to Value

30 Apr 2009 15:52:20 GMT

Rosen, Michael | E-Mail Advisors | 30 April 2009 | Business Technology Trends & Impacts; Enterprise Architecture

As more and more enterprises realize a need for architecture, the vendors of tools that support architecture are jumping on the opportunity. I'm seeing a growing trend in the acquisition of enterprise architecture repositories. Unfortunately, I haven't yet seen most organizations realize the value that these tools can bring. As always, technology itself does not provide business value; it only enables solutions. It is how you use the technology that brings value, and repositories are no exception.

http://www.cutter.com/content/trends/fulltext/advisor/2009/btt090430.html

Take Iterative Steps: Start Small, Empower Team Via Vision, Value

29 Apr 2009 15:50:35 GMT

Berglove, Dan; van Tyn, Jeroen | E-Mail Advisors | 29 April 2009 | Enterprise Architecture

The iterative and incremental approach to software development has become a well-established best practice, as evidenced by its centrality to any number of software development methodologies, including agile and variations on the Unified Process.

http://www.cutter.com/content/architecture/fulltext/advisor/2009/ea090429.html