Architecture in the Small Presentation

  • Posted by Richard Banks
  • Oct 23, 2009

Last night I was privileged to be the first speaker at the newly formed Sydney Architecture User Group put together by Paul Glavich (@glav) and Omar Besiso (@omarbesiso) and sponsored by Datacom.

There was a strong turnout and plenty of people in the audience willing to ask questions.  I’ve uploaded my slide deck from last night to Slideshare in case you weren’t able to make it there in person or you just wanted to go back over it for yourself.

Architecture In The Small

 

Reader Comments

Written by:
Clinton
Posted On:
Oct 23, 2009 9:31:00 AM  

Hi Richard

Great talk last night, thoroughly enjoyed it and looking forward to the next one. Thanks for the slides.

Cheers,

Written by:
Roger Lawrence
Posted On:
Oct 24, 2009 9:48:00 AM  

Hey Richard - great presentation, and sorry I missed the meeting.

I would challenge you on one thing, and that's the type of architect. Application Architects need to code, perhaps.

Saying all architects need to code is like saying that all construction architects need to lay bricks, mix cement, be electricians, install plumbing.

Not all IT architects need to code, in the same way they don't all need to lay cabling, configure and connect SANS, design VLAN's and DNS hierarchies. Yes, they do need to understand all of the impacts of the technology (and the business) and be able to communicate to the tech leads of those disciplines, in their language. They also need to lead by empowering their technical teams, and trusting them to write secure, maintainable, efficient code - or design secure, simple, maintainable networks - or implement efficient, maintainable, identity directories - or configure affordable, scalable, and maintainable storage systems, etc.

Like I said, great presentation, but Application Architecture specific. I believe, evidenced in a number of industries, that architect is a different role from engineer, and not necessarily a superlative or subsequent role (although very often in IT this is the career path proposed).

Architecture skills, dealing with ambiguity, communication, the top-down/bottom-up dilemma you describe so well, are different to engineer (developer) skills. They need to be, and the one doesn't precede or preclude, the other.

Good work though - I'd love to see more of the group. Check out the Australasian Enterprise Architecture Group on LinkedIn.

Written by:
Anonymous
Posted On:
Oct 29, 2009 1:25:00 PM  

The moron has left the building.

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As you might have guessed, this is a tech blog. I normally write about development and things that can help us do it better, specifically in the .NET space, and occasionally i'll throw in a post about whatever happens to be in my head at the time. Enjoy your visit!
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