This is a genuine question. I want to learn and I am not trying to provoke. I've asked this within my team and folks are having hard time explaining. I am on the business side.
Thank you.
6 replies (most recent on top)
LOL! When a position was opened up for MP and then they moved about ten people under the incompetent architect (loosely used), I knew we had reached a new level of low. I wonder if she and MV are flirting back and forth like she does with all the dorky architects that are so enamored with her. Get a room!
EA at WF is a retirement job
@trg+1fZxgEW2 pretty much nailed it.
Key thing though is EA at this point is all the architecture groups collapsed into the EA umbrella. It used to be like s/he said, a lot of "beard strokers" pontificating on stuff and not really delivering anything. The (good) architects you really want to work with are those that can be your partner in advising you on solutions to what you need (and just as importantly, understand the business). They would (or should) be the ones that guide the dev groups, infrastructure and other groups on what should be done.
EA has historically been a bunch of ivory tower pontificators with black and green belt certifications, who spew out nonsense like TOGAF patterns that do not match the real world. Even though we try to lay them off, they keep coming back.
The new EA we have here is a brand new umbrella group with all the architecture disciplines. They are trying to Star Trek Borg us into rigid pattern framework thinkers. Resistance is futile, we will be assimilated because Saul drank the Kool Aid.
Start with the six architecture fingers: data, information, application, security, infrastructure and business, and I guess, a 7th, the babbling id--t in the corner, enterprise.
Infrastrucutre is the hardware, network, data center, cloud. Security is security.
Information is the most difficult to understand. they worry about governance and rules classifications about data. Extremely boring stuff. Like a PM, this is a role we can do without.
Business architects try to model the business and would be the most useful if they would ever get assigned to projects. I've only had one once in my two decades here, and that was a giant project. Data modelers are the next best at coaxing out business requirements.
Application architects are the most aligned to the modern Solutions Architects. In other companies, these architects are skilled tacticians who were probably once coders of some kind. they understand how everything connects and recommend to you, the business, what the best solution would be. Better yet, ranked choice solutions based on time, resources, cost.
Data could be aligned to application, or may be more tied to data movement and storage. they are often confused with ETL developers and BI. IMO, they are application architects specialized in all things data.
To recap, at WF, EA is everything. Solitions are too conplex for just one architect to solve a problem. Then there are all the supporting disciplines, the ones who build, test and manage the apps and infrastructure.
Here, mostly Tetris.
I've been told they architect the 'patterns'. But when it comes to architecting an actual implementation or solution, they don't do much except send around a bunch of inaccurate spreadsheets.