Authors: Mario Godinez, Eberhard Hechler, Klaus Koenig, Steve Lockwood, Martin Oberhofer, Michael Schroeck
Publisher: IBM Press (http://ibmpressbooks.com)
Published: April 2010
ISBN 13: 978-0-13-703571-7
ISBN 10: 0-13-703571-3
Format: Soft cover, 480 pages
Prices: Book: $53.99; Book + eBook Bundle: $70.79
New Type of Architecture for the Intelligent Enterprise
One of the givens of the IT profession is that new developments are constantly occurring that have the potential to radically improve both the flow of, and processing of, information through our corporations and enterprises. So whenever a new book comes along that describes one of these new developments in depth, it would be short-sighted to ignore the potential that is on offer. One such book is titled "The Art of Enterprise Information Architecture: A Systems-Based Approach for Unlocking Business Insight." The book has been compiled and written by half a dozen authors, five of whom have extensive experience and proficiency in information architecture, while the sixth author specializes in business intelligence, performance management, and analytics.
The term, "Enterprise Architecture", is defined in the book as providing "a framework for the business to add new applications, infrastructure, and systems for managing the lifecycle and the value of current and future environments. Enterprise Architecture provides the alignment across business strategy, IT strategy, and IT implementation. It tightly integrates the business and IT strategies to create an ongoing way to use IT to sustain and grow the business."
The basis of the book is a new approach to enterprise-wide information architecture, because as the book's authors so correctly point out, "the current chaotic, unplanned environments do not provide enough business value and are not sustainable over the longer term. The proclivity for system build outs over the years has created too much complexity and is now at a point where enterprise oversight and governance must be applied." The book's authors recommend "embracing an enterprise approach" so that "information-enabled companies optimize three interdependent business dimensions." Those dimensions, along with descriptions of how they can best be exploited, are as follows:
1. "Intelligent profitable growth", so that companies can bring onboard new customers; develop better relationships with existing customers and clients; search out new markets; and introduce both new products and services into the marketplace at the most appropriate times.
2. "Cost take-out and efficiency", so that both an enterprise's resources and capital are used to maximum advantage in order to increase productivity, make the enterprise as efficient as possible, and cement effective cost management procedures into place. By doing so, an enterprise should be in a much stronger position to meet its business strategies and objectives.
3. "Proactive risk management", so that enterprises are fully prepared to deal with any risks that potentially threaten to stop an enterprise from functioning at its maximum capacity.
Understandably, while the book's authors would like as many people as possible to read their book in its entirety (14 chapters in total), they are also acutely aware of the time constraints and work pressures that IT professionals face in their daily lives. To that end, they have included a reading plan in the opening pages of their book that offers a selection of pathways through the book's contents. That reading plan, as outlined below, also provides any potential reader of the book with a brief but useful summary of all the different topics that are covered. So:
Chapters 1 to 6 introduce and discuss the key design concepts of the EIA (Enterprise Information Architecture) Reference Architecture, and that discussion also involves the topics of conceptual views, logical views, and physical views. The book's authors recommend these chapters of the book to those readers wanting "a clear understanding of EIA and how to design and implement the relevant components in the enterprise." More specifically, they suggest reading chapters 5 and 6 closely in order to fully "understand the Component Model and the Operational Model of the EIA."
Next, chapter 7 is recommended by the book's authors to those readers wanting insights into "how Enterprise Information Services will change with Cloud Computing." If however, like many people, you are currently confused as to what Cloud Computing actually entails, dont be too concerned. The book's authors themselves point out that "Cloud Computing is considered a new paradigm in the way IT is delivered to serve business needs. At the time this book was written, Cloud Computing was considered a hot theme; the term Cloud Computing meant different things to different people, and contemporary discussions summarized a broad range of capabilities under the umbrella of Cloud Computing. Among companies leading the way are a mix of expected and unexpected players such as Amazon, AppNexus, IBM, and Google. The cloud offerings these companies provide vary."
A flexible reading approach is possible with chapters 8 through 14 of the book. In fact, the book's authors themselves suggest that those particular chapters "can be investigated in any order the reader desires to learn about industry solutions such as Intelligent Utility Networks, or focus on more details of Enterprise Information Services such as Enterprise Information Integration, Enterprise Metadata Management, Master Data Management, Mashups, Dynamic Warehousing, and Business Analytics and Optimization."
A feature of the book that deserves a special mention is that each of the 14 chapters ends with a list of useful references comprised of the details of books or white papers or the addresses of Web sites (and sometimes all of these) that point to appropriate sources whenever readers require supporting information, examples, or indeed, other perspectives of the subject matter being presented in a particular chapter. Newcomers to the field of Enterprise Information Architecture will also benefit from the inclusion of a glossary at the end of the book where short, sharp definitions of commonly used acronyms, terms, and phrases are listed.
When planning and writing their book, the authors explain that their collective aim was to provide "a discussion of EIA from a business, technical, and architectural perspective." They are also quick to emphasize that their "discussion of EIA is not tied to specific vendors' software and thus is not a feature-oriented discussion. However, based on the solid architecture guidance provided, an IT architect can make appropriate software selections for a specific, concrete solution design."
The book's companion Web site, located at www.ibmpressbooks.com/artofeia, is where you can read the two forewords from the book (it is rather unusual to find a book with more than one foreword), the book's preface, the first chapter titled "The Imperative for a New Approach to Information Architecture", plus the book's index. Disappointingly, some of the contents from the book, namely its three appendixes, that were supposed to be published on the Web site, were missing. Hopefully this oversight will be fixed as soon as possible by the book's publisher. I recommend that reading the preface online is a quick way of determining whether or not this particular book will meet your needs, because you will find there a brief summary of each of the book's 14 chapters. Note too, that on the book's companion Web site, you will find a link to Safari Books Online, the publisher of an electronic version of the book.
The primary audience for "The Art of Enterprise Information Architecture: A Systems-Based Approach for Unlocking Business Insight" is, as you would expect from its title, experienced information management architects. Secondly though, it will also appeal to those higher level business executives, who have some experience or background in technical matters and who are now looking to leverage their organization's information architecture for commercial gain. Finally, a potential third type of reader is the IT professional, currently unfamiliar with this aspect of technology, but who is considering a career move into the business use of enterprise information architecture.
In conclusion, the content of "The Art of Enterprise Information Architecture: A Systems-Based Approach for Unlocking Business Insight" is ideal reading, as stated in the first of the book's forewords, for those IT professionals wanting not only "an architectural perspective on enterprise information", but who, most importantly, want to learn "how to unleash the power of enterprise information and how to truly thrive on data."