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Issue No: 32
Availability of
Enterprise Architecture Book
Printable
PDF Version
By
Clive Finkelstein
CONTENTS
April 18, 2006: This issue of TEN
announces the availability of my latest book: "Enterprise
Architecture for integration: Rapid Delivery Methods and
Technologies", which was published by Artech House< Norwood, MA
on March 31, 2006.
Many previous issues of TEN have been
based on extracts from the book. This current issue of TEN includes
a complete review of the book by Karen Lopez,
principal of InfoAdvisors. Links are also provided so you can order
the book online now, if you wish.
To unsubscribe so that you do not
receive future TEN mailings, please email
cfink@ies.aust.com
with Remove and your email address in the Subject line:
Clive Finkelstein
Publisher, The Enterprise Newsletter (TEN)
Upcoming
Events
A
series of 3-day workshops, titled: "Quick Wins Enterprise
Architecture Workshop" will be presented in Australia in April - May by
Clive Finkelstein. These are scheduled in Sydney (April 19 - 21)
and Melbourne (May 2 - 4). These workshops include a copy of the
book for each delegate.
Clive Finkelstein will also present a
5-day workshop in Kuala Lumpur from May 23 - 27, titled: Enterprise Architecture for integration: Rapid Delivery Methods and
Technologies". This workshop includes a copy of the book for each
delegate. This course is organized by IBN International.
A PDF of this course is
available for download.
Back to Contents
Clive Finkelstein’s Enterprise
Architecture for Integration: Rapid Delivery Methods and
Technologies tackles the problems of designing and implementing
architectures while trying to balance the need for speed prevalent
in all IT projects.
The author begins in Chapter 1,
“Enterprise Architecture and Enterprise Engineering”, by describing
the Zachman Framework, then Enterprise Engineering. It is in this
second segment where a concept often missed by other authors is
covered. After giving a list of well-known problems with existing
development methods, he states:
“The traditional systems
development approach – interviewing users based on existing business
processes and then identifying their future needs – does not work well
in periods of rapid change, such as today.” In fact I will make this
point stronger, “if we base our needs for the future on operational
processes that we still use today – we are implicitly assuming that
the future will be similar to the past. This is very dangerous; few
industries and enterprises can say today that their future will be
like their past. Most know that the future will be quite different.
The only certainty we have is that the processes we will need then
are quite different from the processes we use today.”
This key point is important for all
architects to understand. It’s not just detailed business rules
that change, its entire business models that change – and often this
happens even if the organization is not looking for change. Readers
who keep this thought in the front of their minds will understand
why activities such as strategy planning and the implementation of
enterprise architectures are necessary.
Back to Contents
Part 1: Enterprise Architecture
for Managers
Chapter 2, “Balanced Scorecard and
Strategy Maps”, Finkelstein discusses the importance of making
corporate strategy everyone’s job, using a wonderful case study from
Mobil North America. This real-life story is rare in books of this
type. Here he covers, in surprising detail, Mobil’s strategies and
how they implemented them.
In Chapter 3, “Using Strategy
Analysis to Define the Future”, leads the reader through what a
traditional Mission Statement, Objectives, KPIs, and Goals
definition and verification process. As a plus, he gives examples
of poorly worded strategy components.
The fourth chapter, “Governance
Analysis Using Enterprise Architecture”, wraps up this first part,
Enterprise Architecture for Managers (Chapters 2-4). In this
section, the author describes the contents of a Governance
Architecture Framework (GAF) and how it can support compliance with
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act. He also includes a step-by-step plan
for completing a GAF in 25 days over a 3 month period.
Back to Contents
Part 2: Enterprise Architecture
Methods
Chapter 5, “Methods for Building
Enterprise Architecture,” leads Part 2, Enterprise Architecture
Methods. This chapter covers a great deal of information about real
world enterprise architecture efforts. Finkelstein discusses the
approach used in building the Federal Enterprise Architecture
Framework (FEAF). The FEAF was driven from the Clinger-Cohen Act of
1996, which requires all federal departments and agencies to
implement an enterprise architecture. The author makes a point
here about starting with processes (how) instead of business models:
“If enterprise architecture
projects address processes first, an organization’s ability to think
clearly about opportunities for tomorrow based on its strategic
plans may be limited. It may limit its ability to make the changes
that are necessary to move to that tomorrow.”
This chapter also covers Department
of Defense Architecture Frameworks, with case studies of approaches
from the US DoD, Canadian DND, and Australian ADO, including those
relating to the C4ISR and DoDAF.
Also covered is The Open Group
Architecture Framework (TOGAF), which is available for commercial
use. Included here is a case study from the Workers Compensation
Board of Ohio, including a comparison project costs for two
projects, one using an architected approach and one using a
traditional code and go approach.
Chapter 6, “Using Business-Driven
Data Mapping for Integrated Data,” covers an approach to building
data maps (data models). This chapter includes several exercises
and solutions, which are provided on the accompanying CD.
In chapter 7, “Strategic Modeling for Rapid Delivery of Enterprise Architecture”,
we are led through the approaches for facilitating strategic
modeling via the data maps discussed in chapter 6. It also includes
approaches for developing Entity Dependency Analysis deliverables
and several case studies for strategic modeling.
The functional side of an enterprise
architecture is covered in Chapter 8, “Strategic Alignment, Activity
and Workflow Modeling, and Business Rules.” This chapter covers
IDEF0 activity modeling, Activity Based Costing (ABC), Workflow
modeling, and Business Rules for Workflow modeling. The business
rules section is an overview of Business Rule Solutions’ Proteus
methodology.
Chapter 9, “Using Business
Normalization for Future Business Needs” intrigued me. Finkelstein
presents a concept of business normalization. While business
normalization has five normal forms, it is not the same as
traditional normalization:
- "1BNF to 3BNF produce the
same results as 1NF to 3NF: except that the rules for business
normalization focus on “how” to apply each rule, rather than on
the academic correctness of the rule definition as with
traditional normalization.
- 4BNF is similar to 4NF, as
each approach defines the existence of supertype and subtype
entities. There is more business emphasis on representing
detailed business knowledge with 4BNF than with 4NF.
- 5BNF is quite different to
5NF. 5NF is sometimes called “Project-Join” normal form. In
contrast, 5BNF represents expert business knowledge as expert
rules in tables as data. In this form, knowledge can be changed
rapidly to reflect the dynamic nature of expert business rules
and knowledge in today’s changing business environment."
The introduction of business
normalization includes with a good example using an employee
registration form to show how one can explain normalization without
ever having to reference mathematics or databases.
Chapter 10, Menu Design, Screen
Design, Performance Analysis and Process Modeling, covers a lot of
ground, as can be seen by its title. This chapter includes an
overview of deriving screens from data models estimating data access
times, and building Data Access Processes.
Back to Contents
Part 3: Enterprise Integration
Technologies
Part 3 of the book, “Enterprise
Integration Technologies” begins with chapter 11, “Enterprise
Application Integration Concepts”. Included here is an overview of
XML and XML-related notations and tools, and then commercial tools,
messaging standards and repository standards.
Chapter 12, Enterprise Portal
Technologies for Integration”, includes a real-life case study on
portals implemented at Ford Motor Company, General Motors
Corporation, and Herman Miller. Also included are descriptions of
commercial enterprise portal products.
In chapter 13, “Web Services for
Real-time Integration”, Finkelstein discusses intranets, internets,
XML web services standards such as SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI, as well as
the history and future of web services.
SOAs are covered in chapter 14,
“Service Oriented Architectures for Integration”. This chapter
includes overviews of BPEL, WSCI, BPML, BPSS, and BPMN – quite the
collection of acronyms. Event Driven Architecture (EDA) is also
covered in this section.
The final chapter, 15, “Managing and
Delivering Enterprise Architecture”, Finkelstein wraps up the entire
work with a look at the future of modeling tools, standards, skills,
and other resources used in producing enterprise architecture.
Also included with this book is a
fold out of the Zachman Framework. This is provided so that the
reader can reference the Framework while reading. This is very
useful as the Framework is a guiding component of the entire text.
Templates for many of the
questionnaires, deliverables, student exercises and solutions are
provided on an accompanying CD, as are trial copies of modeling and
code generation tools.
Back to Contents
Overall I felt the work was a
valuable addition to my enterprise architecture library. However, I
did find that the jump from strategy to design was too quick. In my
opinion, there should have been more guidance provided to an
architect changing from enterprise planning activities to design
activities.
I was worried that the sections on
tools and standards, while very valuable to today’s reader, would
lead some, even a year from now, to assume that the entire work is
outdated. There will be plenty of content in this work that is
relevant for years to come. However, Finkelstein has dealt this
the issue of currency by making each methodology and technology
chapter stand-alone, so individual chapters can also be updated for
subsequent editions, which he plans on publishing regularly.
Detailed product descriptions can be found on the CD.
What I found most valuable in this
text is the numerous citations of real enterprise architecture
project methods and deliverables. This use of non-trivial, real
life examples brings a significant understanding of feasibility and
credibility to the work as a whole. This is a real strength of this
book.
I appreciated Finkelstein’s emphasis
on the derivation of models as much as possible. When I hear that
architects intend on manually creating and cross-referencing all
their enterprise architecture components, I know that they will
almost certainly be headed along a path of increasingly large
amounts of raw data, obsolete meta data, followed by decreasing
confidence in their efforts.
Also done well is the normalization
chapter. Finkelstein does a good job explaining normalization
without delving into technical or mathematical trivia that can be an
obstacle to tying design to business needs. He manages to hold this
business-focus all the way through 5NF or 5BNF as he calls
it. Of course, it is still very important for a modeler to
understand the math behind normalization, but not every presentation
of normal form need include these details.
I also enjoyed reading the final
chapter on the future of enterprise architectures. It’s always
exciting to read through these types of sections now and ten years
from now.
Copyright 2006,
InfoAdvisors, Inc.
www.infoadvisors.com
Back to Contents
I believe the recommended audience
for this book should be project managers, data architects, process
modelers, enterprise architects, and developers. While this work
does cover some technical details about emerging technologies, the
discussions are appropriate at an overview level. What I found most
valuable were Finkelstein’s underlying foundations and thoughts
behind use of tools, derivation, and automation. Given the size and
complexity of enterprise architecture and integration projects,
those are the same underlying principles that we have to use to be
successful.
Back to Contents
CD-ROM Included
The book includes a CD with a number
of modeling tools (Visible Analyst, Visible Advantage and Visible
Polaris) and a code generator (Visible Developer). These are
no-time-limit, limited capacity student editions of each product,
but with the ability to activate each product for one full-capacity
project over a 90 day period. This full-capacity product capability
represents several thousand dollars worth of value of itself.
Back to Contents
Purchase the
Book
You can purchase the book from the
publisher's Online Store by clicking the links below: from the front
cover mage of the book; from the book title; or from the Purchase
Book link below.
At the publisher's Online Store, use
"Enterprise Architecture" to search for the book Title, or "Clive
Finkelstein" to search for the Author. When you add the book to
your shopping cart, click on your country in the world map that is
displayed, to calculate the cost of shipping the book to you.
Back to Contents
Reviewer: Karen
Lopez
Karen Lopez, ISP, is a
principal consultant with InfoAdvisors, Inc. She specializes in
helping organizations develop practical and successful information
management methods. Karen also moderates several online communities
focused on enterprise and information architectures at
www.infoadvisors.com. |
