The Open Group’s Allen Brown and the Changing Nature of Enterprise Architecture

I had a chance to meet Allen Brown, CEO of the Open Group, over the weekend, specifically on the golf course Sunday morning in a golf event sponsored by the Enterprise Architecture Summit held this week Palm Springs California. Allen and I managed not to embarrass ourselves on the links, indeed I was pleased with my game. I don’t remember what we shot, but clearly Tiger Woods’ job is safe. I have not played 18 holes of golf in a year, too many other priorities, such as this blog.

This morning Allen did a talk on the changing nature of enterprise architecture, here are some of the highlights from his talk:

• Allen questioned the role of technology, and talked about how the I in IT, or information would be the focus going forward.
• This leads to the “5^th Information Revolution” as defined by Drucker.
• History is repeating itself, “software development with its focus on technology, is being off-shored and outsourced.”
• Their place is being taken by architects, focusing no longer on technology, but information.
• Need to go outside of the enterprise for information. That information we used for making business decisions.
• The problem is that we’ve been set up within silos, and we’ve been working get create cross functional teams that span the silos. While there is some success, typically this is very hard.
• Thus, there are multiple systems, conceived and developed individually, compounded by the problem of cross-functional teams.

• Need to raise the level of professionalism around enterprise architecture.

  • Should be professionals such as accountants, lawyers, doctors, etc.
  • Provide a way that employers can look at people, and understand that they are indeed enterprise architects.
  • Need the right qualifications to drive enterprise architecture.
• The Open Group provides the Association of Open Group Enterprise Architects (AOGEA). This is for individuals, raising the level of professionalism.
• The Open Group uses TOGAF Architecture Development Methods which provides the toolset. They are now on TOGAF 8. “Standards for doing architecture.”
• TOGAF is compatible with other major EA frameworks, such as the Zachman Framework, and the Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework.
• Then Allen went into the qualifications for their ITAC Program (Industry IT Architect Certification).
• The Open Group has a SOA workgroup defining what they meant by SOA, and the mission of the workgroup, and what are the things they are going to work on. SOA is a style of architecture, according to the workgroup, and is able to coexist with existing enterprise architecture approaches such as TOGAF.

I like discipline around enterprise architecture and SOA, so what the Open Group is proposal is a good thing. The issues are around the number of competing ideas and concepts out there now, both within industry organizations, such as Open Group, and even vendors organizations, such as Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle. Around SOA this is very hype-driven, and confusing.

The core issue here is driving this into the industry so that people think about it as a true professional organization. This is really good for SOA as well, considering that there will be a common architecture framework around SOA, and standard frameworks and approaches.