Your most important architecture decisions might be the ones you didn’t know you made.
Conscious decision making is a major step towards better architecture.
Real-life IT Transformation
Real life writes the best stories. This blog documents my observations from riding the architect elevator up and down Enterprise IT.
I tend to write about IT Strategy, Architecture, and Cloud Computing. Choose from one of the categories below.
Architecture
Is your platform a Fruit Basket or Fruit Salad?
Good platforms are like fruit salads. But some people will want to pick out just their favorite fruit.
Don’t get locked up into avoiding lock-in!
Many architects consider lock-in their archenemy. But it’s rarely that simple.
Careful Naming can boost agility.
Giving features rigid names can set a frame of mind that hinders incremental value delivery.
Showing the pirate ship leads to better decision making
Architecture diagrams tend to show all the individual parts rather than illustrating the system’s key purpose. Inverting this not only produces more expressive diagrams, it also improves decision making.
Failure doesn’t respect abstraction.
The key mechanism to tackle ever increasing complexity is abstraction, such as frameworks or interfaces. Some things, however, can’t be abstracted away.
Here’s why enterprise IT is so complex
Enterprise IT is routinely plagued by excessive complexity. It’s almost like it’s subject to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which concludes that the entropy in a system can never decrease.
The Machine Governator shows no mercy
For governance to remain effective in a high-velocity environment, it needs to be automated. Surprisingly, it also produces more reliable results.
Architecture: Selling Options
How do you explain the value of architecture to business stakeholders? Deferring to the Nobel-prize winning economists Black and Scholes can work surprisingly well.
Cloud
Don’t build an enterprise non-cloud!
When making cloud enterprise ready, be careful not to throw the cloud baby out with the enterprise bathwater.
Slicing the hybrid cloud elephant
Enterprises can’t avoid hybrid cloud. Here are eight ways to get there.
Multi-hybrid Cloud: An Elevator Architect’s View
An Elevator Architect looks beyond the buzzwords to distill architecture decisions and options. Let’s try this on multi-hybrid cloud.
Why run software you didn’t build?
A lot of modern cloud technology leverages containers. However, a non-trivial portion of enterprise applications don’t run easily in containers. The answer to this conundrum lies in taking a step back and asking a more fundamental questi...
Strategy
Listening to CTOs: CTO Round Table
What’s better than talking to CTOs? Listening to CTOs! That’s what our CTO Round Table is for.
Speaking CTO
CTOs and chief architects are busy people. But if you bring value, they will have time for you.
Don’t make your customers play Takeshi’s Castle
When buying a software or hardware product for your enterprise, the future product roadmap is as much a consideration as the current product state. However, this is where some vendors play games with their customers.
Don’t Outsource Thinking
Enterprise IT generally follows a “buy over build” strategy because in most cases it yields lower risk and better economics than doing it yourself. But there are a few things that you should keep to yourself.
Transformation
Are IT’s biggest decisions its worst?
More steering committees don’t necessarily lead to better decisions.
Should you trust your trusted advisor?
Three plus one questions you should ask before you place trust in someone offering you advice.
Don’t hire a digital hitman
A classic movie recipe has a seemingly law-abiding person hire someone from the underworld to do unpleasant work for them. And it all goes predictably and awfully wrong. Don’t let the same happen in your IT transformation!
You’ll need a clutch to shift gears
When shifting gears, both a car and an organization need a clutch. But careful, it can be a grinder!
Reversing the disablement cycle
Everyone does the right thing, yet nothing much gets done. How to break self-reinforcing bad habits.