Agility architecture - A cross cutting architecture paradigm
LEA defines agility architecture as the cross cutting architecture paradigm. the horizontal architecture domain to include reference models, reference architecture, the engineering of reuse, the engineering of consolidation, the politics of standardization, and the issue of compliance, as shown in the following figure. It is difficult to under the concepts of EA from simply vertical top-down solution architecture; for example, reference models cannot be easily defined. Clarity can be achieved by embracing horizontal architecture.EA professional are familiar with vertical architecture in a top down approach without explicit recognition of horizontal architecture. The first generation EA is a vertical architecture centric approach, they invest most of the effort to design the target architecture blueprint and looks for the opportunity for reuse as an sidekick. However, It is impossible to achieve the EA goal to overcome the challenge of stovepipe system and adapt change adapt change without recognize the horizontal architecture approach explicitly because horizontal architecture approach is a very different discipline from vertical architecture discipline as John Zackman said
"Reuse or interoperabitliy does not happen by accident. It is the result of engineering"
Organic EA propose Agility Architecture as an explicit horizontal architecture approach. It overcome the challenge of stovepipe system and enable the agility to adapt change via:
. The discipline to learning the right experiences of the others,
. The Engineering of reuse and consolidation.
. The Politic of governance and compliance.
Agility Architecture is a very different discipline from the vertical solution architecture. The IT professional in stovepipe culture tend to become the frog under the well and are too proud to learn from the others. The IT professional in EA culture must be knowledgeable of the outside world, humble to learn experience of the other, trained in the engineering of reuse and consolidation and sensitive to the political environment to earn buy-in from stakeholders.
Background
Agility Architecture leverage on the past study of agility to adapt change and the EA effort to enable agility via reusing the enterprise primitives. The problem of how organization can successfully deal with unpredictable, dynamic, and constantly changing environment has been a prevailing topic both in industry and academic for a few decades. Many different solutions have be proposed. In general all concepts were considered as posing the ability to adjust and respond to change. [A review of enterprise agility: Concept, Frameworks, and attributes]. Yusuf et al. (1999) proposed that agility is the successful application of competitive bases such as speed, flexibility, innovation, and quality by the means of the integration of reconfigurable resources and best practices of knowledge-rich environment to provide customer-driven products and services in a fast changing environment. Despite the differences, all definitions of ‘‘agility’ emphasize the speed and flexibility as the primary attributes of an agile organization (Gunasekaran, 1999; Sharifi and Zhang, 1999; Yusuf et al., 1999). This section discuss why agility architecture? What is agility architecture? The agility architecture principle and the agility architecture model and the agility architecture framework.
1. WHY AGILITY ARCHITECTURE ?
Agility architecture is suggested consider Enterprise Architecture form a horizontal direction. The first generation EA effort is vertical architecture centric to design an Enterprise wide solution architecture. It requires significant investment of time and resources. Unfortunately, Enterprise is a living thing, the hard work to design the enterprise solution architecture blueprint become obsolete before the ink dry. The Agility Architecture take a horizontal aspect to address the issue of stovepipe systems and enable agility to adapt change from a horizontal for the following reasons:
1.1 Agility architecture is the core of Enterprise Architecture
Enterprise Architecture was initiated to overcome the challenge of stovepipe system via the engineering of reuse to establish the Enterprise primitive as John Zachman said:
“ Based on the Framework for Enterprise Architecture, I would suggest that Enterprise Architecture is the set of primitive, descriptive artifacts that constitute the knowledge infrastructure of the Enterprise. …Reuse or interoperabitliy does not happen by accident. It is the result of engineering “ [15].
1.2 Agility architecture to adapt change in time of need. Enterprise is a living thing rather than a static building. The challenge of an organization is not only on how well is the planning but also on the agility to adapt change. Agility architecture enable the agility by keeping architecture simple via encapsulating complexity and establish Enterprise primitives.
1.3 Agility architecture distinguish EA from solution architecture
It is difficult to distinguish the first generation EA from solution architecture because both approach follow the vertical top down approach. Organic EA propose the agility architecture approach to distinguish EA and solution architecture from the aspect of horizontal architecture direction. It have give a very different perception for IT community to distinguish EA and solution architecture.
^ TOP
Bottom up via learning experiences of the others
4.0 Bottom up via learning experiences of the others on common foundationThe business oriented reuse approach enable to predict the enterprise’s common foundation based on their line of business without the delay of water fall analysis. It justify the reality of bottom up solution which is not a direct contest to the top down principle in which business drive IT.
The subject of top down or bottom has always a intrigue topic for discussion in the IT community. There is no doubt that , in theory , Business drives IT solution instead of the other way around. However, in realty, bottom up solution does not go away as you wish. On the contrary, it is gaining momentum such as the Services Oriented Architecture.
The popular bottom up solution by many software developers are not a direct contest to the theory of business drive IT. Rather, there are practicing a thin top down concept to learn the experience from the others. Knowing that there is nothing new under the sun
, they are able to predict the common IT foundation and building blocks from repeatable IT solution patterns from the similar lines of business without conducting redundant patter recognition effort over and over again. This is only true for the common foundations but not for the solution because foundations are common but solution are unique for every enterprise. An enterprise need the common foundation for agility and they also need uniqueness of identity to exist.
The thin top down approach leverage on the IBM patterns approach but it is not a redundant effort. It is a effort from the aspect of Enterprise Architecture rather than from the aspect of application development as it is in the IBM patterns for e-business. The thin top down approach only intend to establish the enterprise common foundation rather than provide a complete solution. It incorporates the associate data patterns which is overlooked in the IBM patterns.
4.1 Predict the common foundation from similar line of business
4.2 Service oriented architecture is a bottom up solution
5.0 Bottom up is the illusion of thin top down
Although, SOA appears to be a bottom up solution, it is a matter of fat top down or thin top down which is defined as
A thin top down approach learn the experience of IT solution patterns from the similar line of business to predict the common IT foundation, services and building blocks without conducting redundant pattern recognition effort which requires significant time and effort”
EA is the discipline to learn from the others. It is not a human nature to learn from the other’s experience. The wisdom from king Solomon in the Bible said that “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun “ (Ecclesiastes 1:9-14 NIV). Put aside the religious aspect, this is true then and it is true now.
A thin top down approach learn the experience of IT solution from the similar line of business to predict the common IT foundation, services and building blocks without conducting redundant pattern recognition effort to identify the common foundation and services. For example : The IBM business patterns.
5.1 The Water fall solution
A fat top down is stove pipe oriented without learning the experience from the others. It is a water fall approach where the up stream must be full before comes down. Therefore to establish common foundation, services and building blocks, the enterprise must analyze the entire business and conduct pattern recognition to identify the commonality from scratch as if no one have done it before. However, there is nothing new under the sun as king Solomon says people are reluctant to learn from the experience from the other. The traditional EA approaches such as EAP is stove pipe oriented EA approach
5.2 The thin top down
The term of “Thin top down” is suggested to indicate that this is a top down approach to align IT with business. But it is a thin top down approach compare to the traditional waterfall approach. The Thin top down approach enable the enterprise architects to establish the enterprise IT common foundation with minimum effort an in time for practical use. It does not requires significant effort and time to determine the business area of the enterprise and the LOBs in the enterprise.
6.0 THE THIN TOP DOWN APPROACH
This approach align IT to business based on the LOBs in the enterprise.
Pattern analysis has been the industry solution for the engineering of reuse, many reusable general patterns have been established by the industry, the government and business segments. Instead of reinvent the wheel to perform pattern recognition within the enterprise in a stove pipe approach, LEA suggest to leverage on established patterns from industry, government or other institutions.
^ TOP