Tag: Architecture
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Groupthink and the Agile Architect
Need uber-guru types who are willing to challenge the existing groupthink on design and architecture, especially on TDD and emergent design and pair programming anti-pattern” – job post at Monster.com 2/9/2010 I stumbled upon that quote following links on the role of the architect on an agile project. Maybe one important role of the architect…
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On DW federation, whac-a-mole, and integrating business data
Information Management recently sent around their pick of best IM blog articles of 2009. Among them was Forrester’s James Kobelius’s reaction to Bill Inmon’s “incineration of a straw man concept that he refers to as ‘virtual data warehousing (DW).’” According to Mr. Inmon, virtual data warehousing reminds him of the carnival game called whac-a-mole. He…
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Stuck inside of problems with the business blues again?
Many see IT as application of technology to solve business problems. Of course, this is true but it leaves out the third element, which is to apply the right architectural pattern to solve the problem. For example, when the business problem is that reporting is slow and reports from different departments don’t match, the astute…
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Cloud databases and business/IT alignment
Today, the foundation of most of our custom-built systems is a relational dbms. While development frameworks vary, they overwhelmingly access and maintain data in relational tables and columns. As I write I routinely save this post in a MySQL database, and at work I tend SQL Server applications. Millions of others develop, use, and extract…
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A proposal for Enterprise Information Architecture
While many organizations understand the value of managing the information resource, for many others information management remains abstract and difficult to define. In an effort to make it concrete here’s a hypothetical proposal to provide an Enterprise Information Architect for a hypothetical organization that really needs one.
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Someone’s integrating your data
Here’s a little-recognized fact about data integration: if you run a business or any sizable chunk of one, someone is integrating your data. In my professional life I have on occasion suggested data integration efforts. Sometimes my suggestions have been accepted and sometimes not. As an IT professional I understand that different managers have different…
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Free form diagrams part 3: just right, with a few rules
Free form diagramming doesn’t only mean “no rules”, it also means “just right”. This post, last in a three part series on free form diagramming, gives some simple guidelines for getting the technique right. Part one talked about the tension between rigor and expression in diagramming for analysis and design, and how more precise diagrams…
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Free form diagrams part 2: real world applications
This is part two of a three part series on free form diagramming for IT projects. This entry reviews free form diagramming in practice. Part one talked about the tension between rigor and expression in diagramming for analysis and design, and how more precise diagrams can hinder rather than help communications with business people. Part…
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Free form diagrams part 1: rigor versus business appeal
One effective way of communicating complexity, especially in the overall architecture of a system, is the free form diagram. A free form diagram can directly address unique characteristics of a system in a way that business people can understand. Out on a walk some years ago I met an acquaintance who happened to be a…