Majority of architecture organizations implemented EA practice in last decade but all they were focussed on was Technology Architecture. Technology architecture is the most important level of architecture where the IT based solution is deployed, without which there business outcome claimed by previous/other domains can go unverified. Although it is most important but if done without correct alignment from other domains, Business-Data-Application-Integration & Security, this can be overwhelming and untraceable. This level of architecture is most frequently changes its landscape, the changes are fairly commoditized very frequently, and looked at as cost. If done right, this can be really the place business achieves the value.
Let’s not forget, there are several companies have take this basic level of implementation and made that their Enterprise. Several organizations provide services for other organizations to be their Technology layer, do these Service Providers/Data Center Operations providers care about Architecture? Rise of XaaS has created a cloud of services and almost everything is offered as a service. Fundamentally, one of my colleagues mentioned “There is no cloud, it is just some else’s computer”. IF such cloud provider companies can manage the Technology landscape efficiently, they why can’t every one else do that same?
Use of reference architectures is core of solving this problem. Reference Architecture is nothing but a proven template to solve known problems. There is Reference Architecture for everything. Architects need to familiarize and evaluate relevancy of Reference Architectures used by comparable companies. Even create new ones for known problems. Use these Reference Architectures for defining Reference Implementations. Reference Implementation is repeatable instance of a Reference Architecture implementation that can be compared and measured for repeatable and consistently. Ability have those setup, the architect can expect consistent results from their implementations. It is very important to follow standards and patterns for each of physical and logical levels of architecture. A great example of that, XaaS, Anything as a Service is a great example for repeatable implementations. Such reference architecture would include taxonomy, vocabulary and feature list that can be aggregated together for relevancy. Reference Architectures can be defined at different or several levels of abstraction, lower level can just methods or procedures, and they would be reusable or repeatable for solving in the context of their problem.
Right now, unless you are implementing a new reference architecture, you are on the verge of an innovation. Most everyday problems in your implementations are already solved by someone before, all you need is to look them up.