What is architecture? Not of cities or buildings, but the organisational version: enterprise architecture, solution architecture, application architecture, software architecture, business architecture, infrastructure architecture? My neck hairs generally rise a little when we architects turn to this particularly vexing and…
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Architecture principles considered harmful
Architecture principles are a very popular tool in the enterprise architect's tool box. The underlying concept of 'comply or explain', however, makes them particularly toxic. [This article originally appeared on InfoWorld in 2015. It has been reproduced here to have…
Data center myopia creates cloud illusions
Moving IT support for your business to the cloud means 'our' IT being hosted in a fragmented landscape of data centers. That only looks like a silver bullet if you are short sighted. [This article originally appeared on InfoWorld in…
ArchiMate Quiz Solution: A Common Cause
June 22, I posted another ArchiMate quiz question: ArchiMate Quiz: A Common Cause. It's been a while, but here is the discussion of the 'solution'. The quiz started with the following two ArchiMate snippets (in Mastering ArchiMate colours, where ‘deep’ is…
ArchiMate Quiz: a common cause
It's been a while (busy, busy) but I though this one would be a good candidate for another ArchiMate quiz. This time not "What is wrong with this picture', but more, "This is grammatically correct, but why? And what does…
How Facebook uses more strict privacy rules to invade your privacy even more (and kill WhatsApp in the process)
New Terms of Service I received communication from WhatsApp. I need to agree with the updated Terms of Service and Privacy Statement. I use WhatsApp to communicate with the colleagues in my department (e.g. we use it in our fire…
Something is (still) rotten in the kingdom of artificial intelligence
Nobody can deny that artificial intelligence (or machine learning, deep learning, or cognitive computing) is booming these days. And — as before, as this is in fact the second (or third, depending on how you count) round for AI —…
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Panta Rhei — How more ‘agile’ can make you less agile
Agile and DevOps are on the rise. Hardly anyone these days defends up-front design approaches or project-based over product-based change. It seems to many that 'agile' is seen as a free pass for unlimited change. This is an illusion. Working…
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The clash of big data and the cloud
Recently, I visited a few conferences and I noticed a somewhat hidden theme. While a lot of attention was being paid to moving to a (hybrid) cloud-based architecture and what you need for that (such as cloud management platforms), a…
The worst enterprise architecture anti-pattern of them all
In the world of real enterprises, enterprise architecture is a weak discipline. It doesn't play a role of any real substance in most medium-large enterprises, which are exactly the enterprises that can profit most from its goals: the management of…
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R&A IT Strategy & Architecture 