The iPad and IT
February 26, 2010
On the day the iPad announcement was made, I wrote a post sharing my enthusiasm for the device. Since that time, I’ve watched the Twitter community go out with its trash and praise for the device and Apple in general, I’ve talked about it with my friends, and I’ve listened around our own office. The feeling is mixed on what this device will do to computing. Here at thefuturevalueofbusiness.com, we also conducted a poll. Here are our results:
As you can see, the results are a bit mixed, with the clear interpretation being that the iPad is just a giant iPhone (which was my vote by the way). I’ve found it really funny that people think of this as a BAD thing! I think extending the capabilities of the iPhone makes a lot of sense. Giving me the ability to compose documents, prepare (and deliver) presentations, manage email and read web pages on a full size screen are major parts of my day. As a matter of fact, I’m not alone in this. John C. Welch (be careful if you Google him – he’s…a…how do you say it…”colorful”) an IT Director and long time writer/advocate of Macs wrote that nearly 90% of his employees are just heavy web and mail users. He mused that this device would be great for road warriors and sales people alike. He, like I, believes that this will not likely be the only device used by his people, but rather another complimentary device. Now, John works for an advertising agency so his experience may not be like yours. I do, however, believe that this device may become the primary device for the following groups of people:
- Busy Execs (which ones aren’t busy??) - especially those that are primarily reviewing company metrics, business plans, emailing, and traveling
- Salespeople – these guys and gals spend the majority of their time updating their CRM system, emailing customers, and delivering presentations written by someone else
- Road Warriors – I’ve spent enough time in airports to know that getting through security with that bad is a huge back killer…this would be a great alternative, especially for those consulting types where the work PC/laptop needs to remain at the client site. No need to keep a second laptop with you during the week if you have an iPad
- Students / Teachers - University students and even high schoolers (and below??) will find this a great alternative to the laptop. Less likely to get broken and more powerful then pen and paper. Imagine if you are a grad student working during the day and going to school at night. The iPad can stay with you all day and fits neatly into your existing laptop bag (I have this BIG idea for the paperless classroom too…if only!)
- Plant Managers / Ops Managers – Now that most ERP systems are on the web, I can see all of my daily production data on my iPad. This would allow me to spend more time on the floor and still be able to answer any production/operational issues on the spot.
Notice, I did not mention IT, Accounting, Finance or Engineering. These are traditionally very heavy users of a PC. They are creating large spreadsheets, writing complex equations or programming all of those great apps that we use today. They may WANT an iPad, but it’s not likely going to become a primary device for them.
So I fall somewhere into categories 1-3 above. I’m still excited for the iPad release and plan to stand in line the day the 3G model comes out. I’ll take pictures and let you know if it lives up to the hype.
- Jodie
Do you really want an iPad
January 27, 2010
iPad
I wrote a post earlier today prior to seeing the official “unveiling” of the iPad. After watching 10 minutes of the broadcast, I trashed that version. Here is what I saw in the iPad…
1. It’s a iPhone on steroids. All of the things I love about my iPhone are here.
2. It’s cool…yeah, I mean it…cool.
3. It replaces the newspaper…with a newspaper. You wanna read the NY Times? They’ll have an app for that. With a crystal clear 9″ x 7″ screen it will be better than the newspaper. I sure hope my Cincinnati Enquirer gets on board with this! Here’s a few more specs for you: http://www.pcworld.com/article/187870/ipad_specs_what_apple_announced_and_what_we_still_dont_know.html
4. For business apps, like mail, I can type longer messages with the larger keyboard. My fingers won’t get tired from the one key at a time keystrokes. This will be great when out of the office. I’ve often waited to get back to the office to respond to a mail message that I say when I was out, simply because my response would take to long on the little keyboard. Even blog posts could be written on the iPad.
5. Small & lightweight – THIS is the device to take with you on your next trip out of town!
So it has no hard drive…so what! With Google docs, I don’t need one. If I keep my files on SharePoint, I can use Lucrum’s own iPhone app – Attache to access those docs. (Hey Steve – the SDK is already available for the iPad…can you work on that Attache app??)
Wow! So excited! Wonder how long I’ll be able to keep from buying one of these??
- Jodie
If I Had A Hammer…
January 14, 2010
If I had a hammer…
No not the song… There is a story that the IT people like to tell, not sure if it is true but I love it so well…sorry Jimmy B. It goes something like this.
A manufacturing company with a complex assembly line had a machine break down on them. The machine was critical in the production of their products, yet try as they might to fix it themselves, they just could not keep it running 24×7. Pridefully, the plant manager didn’t want to admit that his team couldn’t solve the problem, but he knew that soon enough the company’s product yield would be impacted and someone way above his pay grade would notice. Time to call an expert.
The following week, the expert arrives at the plant. The plant manager escorted him to the offending machine. The expert set down his briefcase and began to ask a few questions of the plant manager and the line supervisor. He then walked around the machine, climbed up the maintenance ladder looking around. Climbing back down the ladder, he asked the line supervisor if he had a hammer. The supervisor looked at him sideways and said, “well, uh, yea, I got one.” So the supervisor went to his toolbox, retrieved a well worn ball-peen hammer and handed it to the expert. The expert climbed back up the maintenance ladder and leaned over the side of the ladder to reach the broken machine. He swing the hammer down sharply with a loud “bang”. Instantly, the machine began to whir, the indicator panel on the side of the machine lit up with all green lights and production was running again!
The plant manager and line supervisor thanked the expert for his help to which the expert replied that he’d send his invoice for services later that week.
The invoice arrived on the plant manager’s desk and when he opened it the invoice contained a single line item for services.
- Repair of Machine…………………………………………………………………………………………………….$10,000.00
The plant manager was not happy. He thought to himself, “How in the world can that guy charge me ten grand for swinging a hammer?” He immediately called the expert and asked him for a detailed invoice. The expert told him he’d send out another invoice immediately. Two days later the invoice arrived. The plant manager tore open the envelope. The invoice read:
- Use of Hammer………………………………………………………………………………………………………..……….$1.00
- Knowing where to strike hammer………………………………………………………………………………$9,999.00
Isn’t this story much like business today when it comes to knowledge? Many companies are now measuring their enterprise data storage in petabytes. Yet with all that data, they still struggle to answer questions such as—Who’s my most profitable customer? Or, Who’s my most in-need customer? Or, which customer is likely to leave for my competition? How can I increase my business? Where should I focus my efforts? The answers are very likely embedded deep in the data stores of the company but the decision makers can’t get the answers they need, when they need them, how they need them, and how to apply the answers. And therefore they aren’t getting the knowledge they need. They have the “hammers” but they aren’t helping. Enter Business Intelligence. Sure, BI has been around for a long time, but it’s evolving just as today’s businesses are. In today’s world, you need more than data. You need more than information. What you need is knowledge. The fluid, meaningful, applicable evolution of data that allows you to “fix your broken machine”. BI is your answer to unlocking the knowledge you need.
If you’re asking yourself important questions to which you have no answers, might be time to call the expert.
The VLOOKUP Hookup
December 22, 2009
Companies invest large amounts of money, time, and other resources acquiring and implementing reporting and analysis software. I’ve seen organizations invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in projects and fail to realize a decent return on their investments. The point of this series of posts is to educate you about the reporting and analysis capabilities of a tool your organization probably already owns: Microsoft Excel.
In this series of posts, I will discuss a number of these capabilities and will give some concrete examples of how to utilize them.
I will be using Excel 2007 for these examples. Much of this functionality is also available in Excel 2005, it’s just not as easy to use and does not have some of the more advanced features.
Getting the Data
The first step in any effort is to get some data into Excel. We’ll start out using a simple static list. You probably already use lists like this regularly. If you don’t utilize Excel in this way today, think of the reports that you work with from the various systems that you run your organization with. In most cases, you could probably either copy andhttp://thefuturevalueofbusiness.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=745&message=6 paste or import these reports into Excel to get some data to work with.
In future posts, we’ll cover a much more powerful method of acquiring data by connecting to external databases from within Excel. For now though, we’ll stick with this simple example.
I’ll be working with the sample database that comes with Microsoft’s SQL Server database software. This sample database contains information about a fictitious company called Adventure Works. Below, you can see that I have an extract of order information that I’ve pasted into Excel.
This is the most common manner in which people utilize Excel for reporting purposes: simple lists of data pasted or imported from other sources. In most situations, this data comes from existing reports or queries. My example above is a very simple query…you can see that we don’t even have names or descriptions for most of the data. For example, Column F is showing us the Product ID instead of the Product Name.
The best way to solve this problem is to have the author of the report or query modify it to include the Product Name in addition to the Product ID. Let’s imagine that this is not a realistic option though; there is a way that we can solve this problem using an extremely powerful Excel formula called VLOOKUP.
Using VLOOKUP
To expand on our situation above, let’s imagine that I have a second worksheet in my Excel workbook. I have an image of this second sheet below.
The Product ID in column A corresponds to the Product ID in column F on the Orders List. We are going to use VLOOKUP to take the Product ID in the orders list and lookup the Product Name in the product list.
To make the formulas a little more understandable, I am going to rename the Sheet with the order list “Orders” and I am going to rename the Sheet with the products list “Products”.
On the “Orders” sheet, let’s insert a column immediately to the right of the Product ID. We’ll label it “Product Desc” in Row 1. In Row 2, we’ll enter the VLOOKUP formula:
| =VLOOKUP(F2,Products!A:B,2,FALSE) |
The parameters (the information between the parentheses) tell Excel how to lookup the value we want:
- The first parameter, “F2”, tells Excel what value we are performing the lookup for. In this case, we are looking up the Product ID.
- The second parameter, “Products!A:B”, tells Excel where to go to do the lookup. Here I selected the first 2 entire columns on the “Products” sheet.
- The third parameter, “2”, tells Excel to bring back the data in column 2 from the lookup list when it finds a match for the value from cell F2. I know that’s a confusing sentence at best, but it will make sense in a moment.
- The last parameter, “FALSE”, tells Excel that we want it to return only an exact match for the value we are looking for. If Excel cannot find an exact match for the Product ID, it will return an error indicator.
The Results
Now, let’s take a look at the results of our formula. The screenshot below shows what I have now.
This screenshot shows a few rows from the “Products” sheet:
Hopefully you can see how VLOOKUP works now. Excel took the value in F2 in the “Orders” sheet, 776. It went to the first column of the range we gave it; that range was Columns A and B of the “Products” sheet. It scanned through that range until it found a match for 776. It then took the value in the 2nd column of the range, column B, in the same row and returned the value in that cell (“Mountain-100 Black, 42”).
One thing I didn’t make clear before that I want to point out now. VLOOKUP is always going to look in the first column of the lookup range for the matching value. In our example, the lookup range was columns A and B of the “Products” sheet, so Excel looked in column A for the matching value. There is no way to tell the formula to look anywhere other than the first column; so you either need to cut and paste the columns to get the right one first, or just change the reference so the lookup column is first.
To complete our list, we can just fill down the VLOOKUP formula in column G to the bottom of our orders list. Now we can analyze our order data with actual Product Names instead of just Product IDs.
Summary
VLOOKUP is useful in many other situations…you can probably imagine a few other uses for it yourself. It is very handy to use it as we did in this example though. Even though we could have accomplished the same goal by having someone in IT modify the query or report, now you can be a little more self sufficient with your reporting needs.
In my next post, I’ll cover a few more features like filtering and date manipulation. Ultimately, we’ll move on to Pivot Tables and External Queries which provide very powerful mechanisms for analyzing data and can compete with some features offered in expensive reporting software.
Sprechen sie…IT?
December 17, 2009
Tonight I was at a local grocer (that’s headquartered in Michigan). I was at the “No Limit Self-checkout” at around 9:45 PM. (I have a BUNCH of kids so I shop after bedtime…) Anyway…while I was there, they began to shut down ALL of the checkout lines except for the 12 items or less lanes. They explained to those in line that it was time for “change over” and that the lanes would be open just as soon as they were finished. Um…huh?? It’s 9:45PM. I want to go home. I don’t care why my line just got shut down…what are my other options? “Change Over” means nothing to me. I just want to check out.
The whole experience reminded me of what it’s like to be in the operational side of the business requesting services from IT. Think about the SNL sketch with Nick Burns the Help Desk guy. He speaks a language that his customers don’t understand and then treats them like they are stupid for not getting it. The customers eyes glaze over thinking, “so…um…ok… how will you fix my problem?”
Is your IT department speaking your language? If not, then how will they ever help you to solve your business problems? Chances are they don’t understand you either. Bridging the gap takes a skilled interpreter who can understand both. Your best BI architects do this and don’t try to explain ETL, Dimensional Models or ODS to you…cuz really…do you care how it works if it answers your questions and helps to make sense of your data.
Moderation
May 14, 2009
Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to have been chosen to moderate a panel discussion put on Technology First in Dayton, Ohio. The event was entitled “My Web 2.0 Story,” and featured a diverse and talented panel made up of the following professionals:
- Alan See – Berry Network
- Doug Ross – Western Southern
- Tony Blankemeyer – PicsMatch
- Joshua Smith – NCR
- Neil Arthur – Dayton Business Journal
The panel was great – Alan is a Marketer, Doug is an IT Guru, Tony a young entrepreneur, Joshua is an HR professional, and Neil a newspaper publisher. They provided an excellent mix of viewpoints, backgrounds, and skills. Each panel member contributed unique ideas to the conversation, and they worked surprisingly well with one another to articulate their views. I dropped in my two cents from time to time as well.
Common themes included transparency, service, and innovation. There was considerable discussion around the idea of using web 2.0 as a business tool for listening – both internally to the needs of employees and externally to customers, competitors, and influencers. Finally, just about everyone recommended that the best way to understand web 2.0 was, as Alan See put it “to get in the water and swim.”
Interestingly there was considerable discussion around the measurement of social media. I am fascinated by this concept, and view this as an emerging area of opportunity in the technology space. The ability to measure not just activity on the social web, but to then link it to internal metrics and measures is fascinating. I am currently exploring this space as part of my job here at LUCRUM, so it was good to hear so many questions about it. (I will be discussing this more in upcoming posts, but suffice it to say I am excited about it.)
Andy Hickey, with the Technology First, had the great idea of having the tables construct questions during the lunch portion of the meeting at the begining. I then called on the tables throughout the meeting to ask questions – sort of analog web 2.0 style. We bounced back and forth between my questions and those of the crowd – all of which were exceptional.
I made a number of new connections at the meeting and picked up some great ideas as well. My thanks to Andy, Ann, the panel, the crowd, and everyone who made the event so much fun.
If you were there, I would love to hear your thoughts on the event. What did you like? What didn’t you like? What was the best question / answer you heard? Who was your favorite panelist? Chicken or beef? Please share your comments…
Stories
December 18, 2008
What happens after we roll our applications into production? We are left with the stories?
It’s like raising a child, isn’t it? We spent so much time and pour our lives into the development of those much needed applications. As we trade hours for dollars as we watch them grow…
A problem turns into an opportunity.
That opportunity turns into a solution.
That solution gets a sponsor and a team.
The team raises that young solution.
Suddenly it blossoms into a application…a production application!
It may have taken us weeks, months or even years, but we were given guardianship over that child for a period of time. As it grew, and that production day came closer and closer, we felt the awkward anxiety of letting go. Yes, we know the dangers out there waiting for our young application; potentially low chance of adoption, push back, rejection, even the fear of death.
That young application is safest in the test environment. At least we can control its exposure and limit its risks. But in our heart of hearts, we know that the application was build for production. We know that it was designed to take on the hardest of situations and out perform expectations – that this application will make an impact in the business; making things better, faster, cheaper!
That day comes and we let it go and watch it fly. For a period of time, we watch it closely and ensure its safety. We anticipate the missteps and try to head them off. We add to it and extend its capabilities as new challenges are seen. We pour more and more of our time and energy into that application.
Soon, it grows mature and reaches the stage of life where it takes on its own personality. It reaches critical mass and there is no slowing it down. That application forms new relationships and makes new friends.
Then in a cruel twist of fate, it forgets about you. After all, you have other children to raise. While we may look back in pride, our jobs demand we look forward with a combination of power, agility and leveraged experiences to make an impact for the future.
Now the question remains; “What are we to do about this?” The answer is easy but it does draw against your heart. The answer, my friend, is that we are left with the stories, those fascinating stores of how we did it. Yes, some people call that experience, but who wants to hear about experience when they can listen to a story.
What are your favorite stories?
I’ll never forget leading a large government Oracle-based BI project back in 1998 when you couldn’t get an Oracle person for 100 lbs of gold. I brought in 4 network engineers – yeah you guessed it, they were Novel network managers. I trained one to be a DBA and the other three to be developers. What a time that was; gathering requirements, navigating the murky waters of government contracting, designing complex integration between the US Air Force and the US Navy, data architecture and applications development…and at the same time training four people in the art of Oracle! The point that I remember most was bringing that last person on board. You see, the contract stated that the person had to have a 4 year degree. Well, that last person had only an A.S. degree – well to be exact, she had two A.S. degrees. I remember it well; walking into the General’s office to get an exception. It had come down to that…asking a General! I walked into his office and after I gave my 2 minute context introduction, I said “Sir, this person has two 2-year degrees and the last time I checked…2 plus 2 equaled 4″. Then I shut my mouth and waited for what seemed to be a very long time and he looked me up and down and finally gave me the go ahead to move forward.
What attachment do I have with that application that is still in production today? My attachment is through those stories which make up the sum of my experiences. It is from these stories that I am forming who I am and amassing my worth.
Happy Story Telling!
~Scott Felten
It’s 11 O’Clock. Do You Know Where Your Databases Are?
November 11, 2008
Where are your databases? (And what is your strategy for knowing…)
Saying and doing are two different things. This is true and it’s also a good delineation along the lines of databases. How’s that you say? Well, for one thing, I have never worked anywhere recently (last dozen years or so) that had one database technology in play. Different products have different value propositions, especially over time – as new features and capabilities are rolled into existing product lines and even new database technologies are introduced. Recently I had an engagement where they used IBM’s DB2, Oracle 10g, Sql Server, Sybase, My Sql, Informix and even Red Brick (never heard of that one before). Sounds like it’s out of control, doesn’t it? Well, to tell you the truth, it wasn’t and here’s how I got there.
First of all, they had a strategy. This strategy was built on a common taxonomy of terms that was agreed upon by all parts of the organization. These terms were used to classify and underpin the database technologies. With these terms, there was a foundation and a single version of understanding in which to base conversations and negotiations on. Here is an example that might be helpful for you.
Proposed (or Candidate) – This category represents those technologies (databases) that someone or a team would like to be considered as part of the enterprise architecture. The process has not yet started for technologies with this classification, but they have been identified as having some initial momentum towards inclusion.
New (or Emerging) – This term does not reflect the current state of the technology, but rather the current state in the context of the organization. For example, the technologies with this classification have been approved and accepted as part of the enterprise’s strategy, but with a limited focus. These technologies indicate that there is a high degree of oversight in when, how and where they are used. It could well be that there is a need for DB2 (which is not a new technology by any stretch of the imagination), and in this case it could be that DB2 is ‘emerging’ in the context that the organization does not yet recognize this as a standard, but has agreed that it can be (should be) used within limited scope with oversight.
Standard (or Approved) – This term denotes that these technologies and products are used within the normal business practices. When these products are leveraged, there is not much discussion on scope and the oversight is usually limited to the technical framework in place versus the bigger discussions of should we and could we and how would it impact the rest of the organization and so on… We like to have standards so that we can focus our attention on solving business problems and not on political positioning and other side issues.
Contained (or Restricted)- This term refers to those technologies that are ‘restricted’. These are non standard and are usually relegated to existing applications. This is an important part of the strategy. While the scope is known, the oversight is focused on limiting the proliferation of these technologies for reasons of enterprise impact on the overarching strategy.
Declining (or Phasing Out)- This term refers to all those technologies that are being identified as ones we wish to sunset. Here this technology, while still in production, is not allowed for any new use and a plan is in place (that also includes a sunset date) for its removal from the organization.
Retired (or Removed) – This term refers to those technologies that are not allowed to be used at all under any circumstances within the organization. A formal write up of the justification and historic retirement plan must accompany the technology.
One important thing to note is that this taxonomy of classification is not linear. It could be that My Sql was identified as a candidate and after the proper feasibility discussions and general impact analysis, it was promoted to emerging. After some experience and discussions, it might be that My Sql becomes established within a niche use. When this is the case, My Sql would be promoted to contained; not that we want to phase out the product, rather, we want to liberate is growth but highly restrict it to a certain scope of use.
Start to understand your environment and where your technologies are located within the database strategy 101. Set goals to identify those that are too costly and create a strategy to sunset them. At the same time, look out on the horizon and see those new (or new to you) technologies that may play a part in your organization in the (near) future – start to embrace them and set processes up to manage them as they flow from term to term within the organization. Determine what your real standards are and socialize them. It could be that your headaches of the future can be averted if you properly set up a containment strategy. The benefits are there for you to harvest, but you have to do your part by leading the way.
Once we know what we have and classify those database technologies (or any technology or practice), we can then focus on the implementation of the strategy; Better, Faster and Cheaper. For without this mature taxonomy and disciplined approach, we will struggle to get a hold of our infrastructure and we need to be able to not only get a hold of our infrastructure, but to wrestle it to the ground an show it who is boss!
Enjoy the Journey!
~ Scott Felten
My Definition of Architecture
September 17, 2008
What is an architecture? Well, let’s dissect that and see what we come up with. For starters, it is needed before we solve business problems, before we design and build systems and applications and before we put ‘things’ into production. If you build and deploy applications without an architecture, prepare for a long entrenched battle that threads through the realms of data, information, technology, and infrastructure. Saying that, I realize that most organizations do not have a formal architecture, but rather have general principles, standards and practices. This is one reason that IT is so challenging. Meeting agile business needs requires a dependable foundation of decisions.
An architecture is something that is addressed at the enterprise level. It is something that exists across the organization that enables an infrastructure (be it data, information, technology or infrastructure) to work together. So, in simple terms, an architecture is an enterprise wide agreed upon set of standards or direction. This implies that there is an overarching group that has responsibility across business and technical domains. And in turn this is enabled and actualized because someone, somewhere both understood and was able to sell the value of having a solid foundation.
Drilling down a bit further, the ‘agreed upon set of standards or direction’ really boils down to be a set of decisions. These decisions are made at all architectural levels; data, infrastructure, technology and information (to name a few important ones). These standards are in fact agreed upon rules of engagement that must exist. Further, these rules are derived only after a decomposition of systems (existing and non-existing) into its individual units. This decomposition is complete when each design orientation is at its most granular level. This is different for the different architectures.
The idea of an architecture is to break systems down to the specialist levels, so that these specialists can address the system (application) within their specific domain. Meaning, developers can receive requirements and think them through in the context of their specific architecture. And data folks can work from a common set of dependable rules of engagement that when followed across the enterprise provides them with a solid foundation on which to build, knowing that integration points, naming standards, metadata nomenclatures, taxonomies, etc. are there to rely on. The application folks can depend upon the architecture for proper building techniques, technology strategy, supporting documentation and so on. The information folks rely on the horizontal assurance that the right levels of metadata is in place and they anticipate the use of data to be consistent and so on.
So, an architecture is really a set of decisions that must be made across the enterprise, hopefully before the release of chaos (in the form of applications and system) at the most granular of forms so that it helps to manage this chaos from the bottom up as opposed to the top down. Managing from the bottom up is done via principles and standards, methodologies and best practices, governance and stewardship. Managing top down is just that, a downward spiral that is manifested by political infighting, protectionism, stagnation and a complete stoppage of the value chain (IT no longer can meet scope, costs, and schedules).
Happy architecting!
~ Scott Felten
Architect’s Outline
September 11, 2008
Someone asks, “What do you do for a living?”
You respond, “I’m an architect.”
They reply, “Really, what buildings have you built?”
You reply, “I’m in IT. We build systems.”
They respond, either “Oh, my brother in law fixes computers too!” or “Oh, my friend is a computer programmer.”
I have had many of these types of conversations. Of course, I look at them as a learning situation, a chance to teach someone the finer points of IT and to introduce some of those concepts. But, in the end, they mostly still don’t get it.
They really need to have a dozen years of war wounds, they need to get their hands involved and develop a thick gnarly skin, grizzled by years of scratching and scrapping to get things done. This level of understanding is best learned by participation.
To know the intricacies of this field, one must be driven to understand how things work and why things break. Why can’t we segment our customers this way or that way? We have the data! Why are we not able to align hard project costs, labor, revenue and customer attributes to get a 360 degree view of our business – our competitors do? It’s not until you are faced with these big challenges that you pick up your weapons and go to battle.
Well, I could go one with these stories, but my real point is that even dealing with IT managers that have 10 or 20+ years of experience, they often times still don’t get it. In this blog, I’ll introduce the role of the architect, or better said, to lay the foundation for some other blogs by outlining the architecture role.
Here is an outline of architecture. Please feel free to remind me if I am missing any, as I am writing this on the bus on my way to work.
Architects
• Solutions Architect (Business Solutions Architect)
• Data Architect (Integration Architect, Data Warehouse Architect)
• Information Architect (Reporting Architect, Metadata Architect)
• Infrastructure Architect (Technology Architect, Systems Architect)
• Applications Architect (Software Architect)
• Strategic Architect (Enterprise Data Architect, Chief Architect, Business Architect)
Next post “What is an architecture?”
Near future posts will contain the role, value or services provided by each architect. Stay tuned and hopefully we can have some great discussions!
Happy Building!
~ Scott Felten