EA is the logical framework that links and aligns business strategy and organizational structures, processes, information, and technologies.

What I find fascinating is that EA as a business function whose intent and benefits seem so obvious to me (based on many years of experience and empirical evidence) is apparently so difficult to define!  In that same LinkedIn discussion hundreds of alternative definitions were offered with an amazing range. In many cases you wouldn’t even think that people were defining the same thing.

One thing is obvious. The practice of Enterprise Architecture is maturing, along with the recognition that its scope and its contribution to the business goes far beyond technology. Its success as an integrated business function requires a well-defined governance framework.

Based on my experience working with numerous clients to help create their EA practices, I’ve found that a sustainable framework for EA Governance is characterized by certain key criteria and deliverables.  On my blog Strategic IT Architecture, I’ve posted part one of a two-part series about Governance. In part one, I cover foundational aspects of EA governance, Capability Assessment, Architecture Principles, and Architecture Vision.  In part two, I’ll cover key deliverables that guide realization of a robust EA Governance.

If the topic is of interest, take a look and let me know what you think.

Many of us in the IT industry have been excited about SOA as a positive, disruptive innovation for quite a few years now. It didn’t take long for those who were early adopters (and who suffered the wounds and bear the scars!) to extend the service oriented concept to enable a Service Oriented Enterprise (SOE).  “Services” in the SOE were primarily internal – HR, purchasing, facilities management — and the benefit of thinking of the enterprise as a SOE was that it facilitated more effective business-to-IT alignment.

Now, McKinsey & Company has published their Ten Tech-enabled Business Trends to Watch:

Trend 1: Distributed cocreation moves into the mainstream
Trend 2: Making the network the organization
Trend 3: Collaboration at scale
Trend 4: The growing ‘Internet of Things’
Trend 5: Experimentation and big data
Trend 6: Wiring for a sustainable world
Trend 7: Imagining anything as a service
Trend 8: The age of the multisided business model
Trend 9: Innovating from the bottom of the pyramid
Trend 10: Producing public good on the grid

One of those trends— # 7: Imagining anything-as-a-service—caught my attention because it illustrates just how “disruptive” the concept of discrete services (SOA) has become and how the SOE has enabled new business models and opportunities for growth.

In this article in the McKinsey Quarterly, the authors point out that the SOE strategy is being extended to an ever-widening range of business services – where the consumer of the service pays only for what they need or use, and where new revenue opportunities are realized by re-purposing existing services and assets.

Most of us are familiar with SaaS (Software as a Service) offerings like Google Apps, SalesForce, and dozens of others. But a rapidly increasing trend is the availability of non-IT “services” including buying transportation by the hour (ZipCar), instead of buying a car. More and more companies are creating and marketing new services based on business capabilities they originally developed for their own purposes. They’re generating new sources of revenue from components of their internal corporate value chains – McKinsey dubbed this strategy “unbundled production”.

This disruptive view of assets and of physical and intellectual capital creates new opportunities for arrays of high-value service offerings – new opportunities for many businesses to evolve to a new level of Service Oriented Enterprise and to adopt a Service Oriented Business Model (SOBM).

I’m going to talk more about this business trend on the Strategic IT Architecture site and about how we as IT professionals can provide a tremendous value-added service to our companies. We’re well positioned to enable our enterprise to leverage a SOBM whenever it offers opportunity, by applying the practices we’ve honed while implementing SOA.

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s all of the above.

 SOA is an architecture paradigm and a set of principles to guide service-based applications, platforms, and even enterprises (SOE).  Cloud Computing is a computing platform paradigm that consolidates physical services into virtual shared services (infrastructure).  They don’t conflict or compete.  And they don’t enable each other.

SOA and Clouds Complement Each Other

They can, however, complement each other to create a whole that’s greater than the parts.

The confusion continues, however, and has grown to be a major topic of debate.  There are on-going discussions about the relationship between Cloud and SOA – claims that one requires the other; suppositions that SOA is dead because Cloud is the new service platform; analysis of the criteria that would determine if a business should adopt cloud or SOA.

For me, it became a serious issue recently when I was tasked by a client to address the question. I was asked to clarify the two paradigms’ value propositions, create a vision for how they can be leveraged together to create a service platform, and develop a roadmap to get there.

As an outgrowth of that initiative, I’ve started a series of posts on StrategicITArchitecture.com. My thesis is that Cloud and SOA can be combined to create the Ultimate Enterprise Service Platform. The series will frame the issues and present a set of recommendations and framework for developing a roadmap.

Check it out, if you’re interested, and please comment if you disagree, agree, or have suggestions.  You can also take a look at a scaled-down version of a Cloud/SOA presentation that I prepared for a client.

It looks to me like we are very close to the peak of the Hype Cycle – lots of, often irrational, press; “silver bullet” claims; rush to adoption without attention to basic best practice (which will result in early failures that deepen the Trough of Disillusionment!).

Note: I’m referring here to enterprise cloud computing – private, community, and hybrid — not the simple SaaS offerings, like productivity tools. Generally, those are pretty low-risk with minimal impact/risk.

One of my concerns is the lack of clarity in definition, and overloading the use of the term, Cloud Computing. I do believe that we’ve established the foundation for clarity in understanding what Cloud Computing means and the options for leveraging the opportunities it offers (for more information, see http://www.StrategicITArchitecture.com). But it looks to me as if the momentum (frenzy?) has built to the point that many prospective adopters are not paying attention to basics and are rushing to judgment.

Clouds (in their various flavors) represent a powerful and positive evolution in our delivery and consumption of IT resources and services. Ensuring success in choice of strategy, reduction of risk, and the earliest possible ROI can benefit from tracking the Hype Cycle and factoring it into the decision making process. Prudent adoption strategies will ensure that we reach the Plateau of Productivity.

One of my favorite, recent articles in the McKinsey Quarterly is by Professor Richard Rumelt, UCLA, titled “Strategy in a structural break.” Rumelt makes a compelling case that we’re in the midst of a “structural break”, now, and suggests how we might craft strategies for seizing the inevitable opportunities that emerge from the chaos. For more about the implications to those of us who are IT leaders and professionals, see my blog at www.StrategicITArchitecture.com.

At a minimum, it may be possible to develop strategies that allow you to leverage — and maybe re-purpose — under-utilized assets already in place to create a more powerful, effective and agile IT ecosystem; minimum investment for maximum advantage. Cloud Computing – private, public, and hybrid Clouds — offers some interesting and exciting alternatives!