The IT Architecture

An Information Technology Architecture defines a company's IT infrastructure and includes

policies and guidelines that govern the arrangements of IT resourcescomputers, data, software,
and communications facilities.

An IT architecture provides a structure to facilitate decision making about technology investment

and use.

An IT architecture ensures that technology decisions are made strategically, not

haphazardly.

A clear idea of their business strategy and the related IT requirements?

IT and associated costs make up more than 50% of new capital expenditures in many
companies already; but while the costs of other resources are increasing, the cost of
IT is decreasing 20%-30% per year.

Just as the building owner cannot simply tell an architect to build a skyscraper
without first articulating what the function and uses of the building will be, business
executives cannot expect their IT specialists to design an IT architecture without a
clear understanding of the business needs.

An IT architecture has three distinct "layers" :

(1) the inventory of IT "building blocks,"
(2) the functional use of the information technology, and
(3) the strategic plans for the use of IT in the business

Inventory

Computer hardware
Software
Data
Communications links

These building blocks are analogous to the parts and materials (the steel beams, the concrete, the
electrical wiring, the glass) that the skyscraper builder uses to construct a building.
Computer hardware
Computers are generally classified according to their size and speed into four main categories:
microcomputers or PCs (the smallest), minicomputers, mainframes, and super-computers (the largest).

Software
Computer hardware is directed by softwaresets of instructions generally referred to as programs.

Data
Data is the record of an observed event. In a computer environment, data are numbers, text, graphics, images,
and voice stored in a form that can be processed by a computer. "Data" becomes "information" only when it is
analyzed and interpreted to provide meaning.

As a building block for an IT architecture, data may be considered a "raw material."

Communications links
Communication infrastructure enables the sharing of data and information among various users within and
outside of the organization.
Various types of data (such as numbers, words, graphics, voice, and video) may be transmitted digitally across
communication links, depending on the bandwidth of the linkage.

Network is used to refer to a system of hardware and software which permits computer-to-computer or
computer-to-peripheral device communication.
Fiber cables for wide area networks can transmit data at 2.5 billion bits per second (gbps). Fiber-based
local area networks transmit at 100 million bits per second (mbps) !

Functional Use of the Information Technology

The functional use of the IT tells how these capabilities are employed within the
organization.
This layer in the IT architecture is analogous to an architect's blueprint for a building.
It is at this conceptual level of IT function that the general manager and the IT architect come together.
The general manager has certain tasks and functions that she needs the IT to perform in order to support
the business.

Applications
Data
Communications

Strategic Plan for the IT

General managers who understood business issues were typically unfamiliar with
computers. They attended to strategy and management matters, and delegated IT architecture
decisions to the in-house "computer gurus".
These top-down and bottom-up approaches must meet in the "middle," so that the most
appropriate technology is arranged to support the business goals of the company.

Developing an Architecture
Step 1. Articulate the business strategy and implications for the IT architecture
Step 2. Baseline the company architecture
Step 3. Determine the key architecture questions
Step 4. Design a planned architecture blueprint
Step 5. Initiate the architecture plan
IT enables information to be managed as a strategic resource. IT, however, is
extremely fast-changing and complex. As a result, general managers face a dilemma: they can
not leave important IT decisions strictly to the technologists, and they can not hope to be
technically competent to make the "right" IT decisions for the firm. This dilemma is resolved
by the management construct of IT architecture. An IT architecture is a bridge between
strategy and technology.

Generations of Information Architecture

Generation
Focus
Driven By
Content

1st Generation
Systems as
Increasing functionality
Explanation of the need for
1970s and 1980s
standalone
and sophistication of
an architectural approach;

applications within
standalone applications.
Analogies with building

individual

architecture;

organizations.

Simple 2D diagrams or

frameworks providing

overviews of the architecture.

2nd Generation

Growth in system
Extension and adaptation of

Systems as

1990s
integrated sets of
complexity and
diagrams from

components
interdependence;
architectures;

within individual
Demand for software
Population of frameworks

organizations.
reuse.
with industry reference

models.

3rd Generation
Information as
Emergence of the Internet,
Explicit definition of principles
late 1990s
corporate
e-commerce, and an
and background theory
and 2000s
resource with
increase in business-toDevelopment of multi-

supporting IT tools
business applications;
dimensional architectures;

and techniques.
Growing interdependence
Customization of information

among organizations;
frameworks to the needs of

Adoption of knowledge
individual organizations;

management, systems
Generic information patterns

thinking, and a more

and maps.

holistic view of information

as a resource.

Case : A framework for information systems architecture

by

J. A.

Zachman

The technology itself did not provide for either breadth in scope or
depth in complexity in information systems.
Decentralization without structure is chaos.
Information systems architecture is related to strategy, both
information strategy and business strategy, the paper deliberately
limits itself to architecture and should not be construed as
presenting a strategic planning methodology

Architectural deliverables in constructing a building :

Bubble charts
Architects drawings
Architects plans
Contractors plans
Shop plans
The building

Now when we look at military airframe manufacturing :

Concepts
Work breakdown structure
Engineering design
Manufacturing engineering bill-of-material
Assembly and fabrication drawings

Information Systems :

Scope/ Objectives
Model of the business
Model of the Information System
Technology Model

Detailed Description
Machine Language Description
Information System

Three different types of descriptions of the same product

Material (What are the things made of?) Data Model (Entityrelationship-entity)
Function (How the things works?) Process Model (Input-processoutput)
Location (Where the flows exist?) Network Model (Node-line-node)