Lesson 66 - Durable Interface Strategy of Enterprise Architecture
Summary
TLDRIn this episode of Software Architecture Monday, Mark Richards explores the 'Durable Interface Strategy', the final strategy in a series on enterprise architecture. He explains how this decentralized approach delegates decisions and standards to individual business units, with enterprise architects defining only the interface standards between them. Richards uses the historical analogy of maritime flags to illustrate the importance of a common communication standard. He also discusses the strategy's benefits, such as promoting the right tools for the job and better user satisfaction, as well as its challenges, including high implementation and maintenance costs.
Takeaways
- 🏛 The Durable Interface Strategy is a decentralized approach in enterprise architecture where individual business units have autonomy over their standards with the central organization defining only the interface standards.
- 🔌 This strategy allows for a high degree of autonomy, with each business unit having its own enterprise architects to define specific standards, promoting the right tools for the right job.
- 🤝 The central organization's role is to ensure that all business units interface correctly with one another, typically through gateways, APIs, and integration architectures.
- 🚀 The Durable Interface Strategy is suitable for highly diversified companies that require synergy between departments without strict central control.
- 📚 The strategy's historical analogy is maritime communication during the late 1700s, where ships used flags as a standard interface for communication regardless of their mission.
- 🚫 The complexity of the Durable Interface Strategy is high, making it the most challenging enterprise architecture strategy to implement, especially when changes to the interface standards are required.
- ⚠️ The strategy involves significant trade-offs, including the difficulty and cost of maintaining interfaces, which can be error-prone and lack economies of scale.
- 💡 It promotes user and IT satisfaction by allowing business units to control their own destiny, but at the cost of potentially higher overall costs.
- 📈 The strategy is beneficial for companies that value departmental autonomy and can manage the complexities of decentralized standard setting.
- 📝 The upcoming lesson will involve case studies to apply the enterprise architecture strategies discussed, providing practical insights into their use.
- 🌐 Additional resources and training opportunities are available on Mark Richards' website, Developer to Architect, for those interested in further learning about software architecture.
Q & A
What is the main focus of the 'Software Architecture Monday' series by Mark Richards?
-The series focuses on teaching various strategies and concepts related to enterprise architecture, with each lesson diving into a specific topic or strategy.
What is the durable interface strategy in enterprise architecture?
-The durable interface strategy is a decentralized approach where decisions and standards are delegated to individual business units, with the enterprise only defining how these units interface with one another.
How does the durable interface strategy differ from other enterprise architecture strategies?
-Unlike other strategies, the durable interface strategy emphasizes complete autonomy for business units in defining their standards, with a central focus only on how these units interact with each other.
What role do enterprise architects play in the durable interface strategy?
-Enterprise architects in the durable interface strategy define the standard for how business units interface with one another, but they do not dictate the internal standards of each business unit.
Why is the durable interface strategy considered complex to implement?
-The complexity arises from the difficulty in maintaining and updating the interface standards across all business units, which can lead to errors and high costs if not managed properly.
What are the advantages of the durable interface strategy?
-The strategy promotes the use of the right tools for the right job, allowing business units to make decisions that best fit their needs, which can lead to better user and IT satisfaction.
What are the potential downsides of the durable interface strategy?
-The downsides include the high cost of maintaining interfaces, the lack of economies of scale, and the difficulty in controlling costs due to the decentralized nature of the strategy.
How can the durable interface strategy be visualized using a historical analogy?
-The strategy can be compared to maritime communication during the late 1700s, where ships used flags as a standard interface to communicate regardless of their mission, illustrating the importance of a common standard for interaction.
What is the significance of integration architecture in the durable interface strategy?
-Integration architecture is crucial as it ensures that all business units, despite their autonomy, can communicate and interface effectively through gateways, APIs, and other integration tools.
How do the enterprise architects ensure that the interface standards are adhered to by all business units?
-Enterprise architects establish and maintain the interface standards, and it is the responsibility of each business unit to adhere to these standards when interfacing with other units.
What can we expect from the upcoming lesson 67 in the 'Software Architecture Monday' series?
-Lesson 67 will involve a case study exercise that allows the audience to interactively decide which enterprise architecture strategies would fit specific scenarios, providing a practical application of the strategies discussed.
Outlines
🏛️ Durable Interface Strategy in Enterprise Architecture
In this segment, Mark Richards introduces the 'durable interface strategy' as the final strategy in the series on enterprise architecture. This strategy is characterized by a decentralized approach where individual business units have full autonomy over their standards, with the central enterprise architecture team only defining how these units interface with each other. The analogy of maritime flags in the late 1700s is used to illustrate how a common standard (like flags) enables communication and coordination among different units. Despite promoting autonomy and potentially better user and IT satisfaction, the strategy is noted for its complexity and the challenges in maintaining and distributing a common interface standard across the enterprise.
🚢 Challenges and Trade-offs of the Durable Interface Strategy
This paragraph delves into the difficulties and trade-offs associated with implementing the durable interface strategy. It emphasizes the challenge of changing a common interface standard, as illustrated by the hypothetical scenario of changing naval flags, which could lead to miscommunication and conflict. The strategy is acknowledged for promoting the right tools for the right job, allowing business units to choose their own standards, potentially leading to better user and IT satisfaction. However, it also comes with high costs and complexity due to the lack of economies of scale and the difficulty in maintaining and error-proofing interfaces. The segment concludes with a teaser for the next lesson, which will involve case studies to help apply these strategies in real-world scenarios.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Software Architecture
💡Enterprise Architecture
💡Durable Interface Strategy
💡Central Organization
💡Business Units
💡Integration Architecture
💡Gateways and APIs
💡Admiralty
💡Synergy
💡Cost and Complexity
💡Case Studies
Highlights
Introduction to the 'durable interface strategy' as the final strategy of enterprise architecture discussed in the lesson.
Explanation of enterprise architecture strategies and their role in defining the structure and standards application across an organization.
Description of the four basic enterprise architecture strategies: prescriptive, classic district, classic alternative, distributed, and durable interface.
The durable interface strategy is a decentralized approach where business units have autonomy over their standards with enterprise defining only the interface standards.
Central organization of enterprise architects maintains a limited role in the durable interface strategy, focusing on defining interface standards.
Business units in the durable interface strategy have complete freedom to define their own standards, including security, topology, network, and hardware choices.
Integration architecture focus is emphasized in the durable interface strategy, requiring business units to communicate through standardized gateways and APIs.
The strategy is well-suited for highly autonomous and diversified companies that require synergy between departments.
Historical analogy of maritime communication through flags to illustrate the concept of a common interface standard in the durable interface strategy.
Complexity and difficulty in implementing and maintaining the durable interface strategy due to the decentralized nature of standards.
The durable interface strategy promotes the use of the right tools for the job by allowing business units to choose their own technologies and methodologies.
Challenges in maintaining interfaces and controlling costs in the durable interface strategy due to the lack of economies of scale.
Upcoming lesson 67 will involve use cases and case studies to interactively decide which enterprise architecture strategies fit real-world scenarios.
Information on where to find more lessons, private training, and upcoming events related to software architecture and enterprise strategies.
Conclusion of lesson 66 with an invitation to the next lesson for a wrap-up of enterprise architecture strategies using a case study approach.
Transcripts
hello and welcome to software
architecture Monday my name is Mark
Richards I'm a hands-on software
architect and also the founder of
developer to architect comm in today's
lesson number 66 we'll take a look at
the last strategy of enterprise
architecture something called the
durable interface strategy as we saw in
lesson 62 the strategies describe the
overall enterprise architecture team
structure whether it's centralized or
distributed and also how standards
whether they be technology architecture
methodology or process based are applied
and governed across the enterprise and
we saw that there were four basic
strategies of enterprise architecture
the prescriptive classic district
classic alternative the distributed and
the durable interface and prior lessons
we've seen details about each of those
in this lesson we're actually going to
take a look at the durable interface
strategy the durable of interface
strategy is one of those decentralized
strategies where decisions and standards
are delegated to individual business
units completely with the enterprise
standards only defining how those
business units interface with one
another and so for example to illustrate
this we still have a central
organization of enterprise architects
but they don't do a lot you see each
business unit has total autonomy on all
of the standards they want to define
within their teams and those could be
anything through security through
topology through network through
hardware they can make choices about
going to cloud-based infrastructure
zoran Prem every decision is delegated
to these individual business units
however the enterprise architects and
the central organization of the
companies still define one standard and
that standard is how each of the
business units into relate or interface
with one another now let's take a look
at the durable interface strategy as an
example because here there are no
enterprise standards just how each
business unit is is
interfaces or communicates with each
other so now each individual department
business unit whichever kind of segment
their division now can have its own set
of standards any one of those and like I
indicated in the distributed strategy
generally each business unit will have
its own Enterprise architects who
actually define those specific standards
within that particular business unit you
know this is all about integration
architecture focus you see we've got all
these departments or divisions or
business units within the company and
also kind of still a home office this is
really works well for kind of those
highly autonomous business units those
companies that are highly diversified
but do need synergy between the
departments see each department
necessarily needs to communicate with
one another
and these are usually done through
gateways and api's and such that's the
standard across which all departments
must adhere to as a matter of fact that
standard also implies that we may have
integration hubs or message buses or es
bees and a prayer service buses that the
home office uses to gather information
as well for maybe financial reporting or
other kinds of reporting and metrics
across the entire company you know a
good way to kind of really illustrate
this durable interface strategy is to go
back in history to the late 1700s let's
say 1790 where we had maritime Wars and
let's say two ships on the left-hand
side all of a sudden are sailing along
and they see this really large ship
that's on the right-hand side
the question is Friend or Foe is that an
enemy ship so maybe we should prepare
for battle or run away or is it a friend
in which case we can just continue to
say along in our direction or maybe meet
up with them to exchange news how in the
world can these two ships which are
these two groups of ships which are
doing entirely different things
communicate with one another well back
in the day and that communication was
done through flags and you see the flags
formed the standard for how all ships
regardless of what they were doing what
their mission was could communicate with
one another it's a great analogy because
that Admiralty was that enterprise
architecture team that built those flags
those standards now the interesting
thing here to describe the complexity of
the durable interface strategy and by
the way when I say complexity this is
the hardest enterprise architecture
strategy to implement
can you imagine ships all around the
world and you see that upper right hand
white flag with the red dot upper right
hand side well the Admiralty decides
that they don't like that flag and they
want to change it to a green flag with a
blue dot can you imagine how hard that
would be to change because now all of a
sudden the wrong response is done and
all of a sudden we start firing on our
own ships and so distributing that kind
of common interface standard is
extremely difficult it's also difficult
maintaining those as well as matter of
fact let's look at the trade-offs of the
durable interface strategy because this
really does promote the right tools for
the right job as a matter of fact if a
standard across our organization such as
the distributed says no we will use
on-prem certain business units may be
able to take advantage of cloud but it's
not a standard that has been defined by
the enterprise here each business unit
can do whatever it wants to do not only
from the software but also the hardware
methodology and also process
it's got entire this the entire business
unit control and therefore this does
promote that synergy between the
departments and so we get much better
user and IT satisfaction but notice here
the durable interface strategy does
provide that synergy between departments
business units or divisions however we
get better user all satisfaction but
maintaining those interfaces is
extremely difficult and error-prone as a
matter of fact it has very high overall
cost perhaps the highest cost out of any
strategy and that exists because now
there's no economies of scale and the
other thing that's really hard to
control cost within this durable
interface enterprise architecture
strategy so we've seen all four kinds of
strategies as a matter of fact going
back to lesson 62 which kind of started
this little series right here of
enterprise architecture strategies you
can go and kind of get the background of
each of these and then lesson 63 64 and
65 showing all the other ones now what
we are going to do everybody is this
we're gonna have one more lesson number
67 in enterprise architecture strategies
which is going to be use cases I'm going
to show you and introduce two different
case studies and have you as an audience
and be able to interactively decide
which enterprise architecture strategies
would be a fit and that would kind of
wrap this whole thing up in a bow to
really not only understand these but
also to apply them into real world
case studies you can get information
about all the other lessons I do and
software architecture Monday on my
website developer to architect comm
slash lessons I do have private training
that I offer and that is in areas of
software architecture micro services and
also analyzing architecture and I do
speak at a lot of conferences I do have
online training as well as public
training if you go to the upcoming
events portion of my website you can
find where all those events are and so
this has been lesson 66 the durable
interface strategy of enterprise
architecture again my name is Mark
Richards thank you so much for listening
and stay tuned in the next lesson for
the wrap-up of all of these strategies
of enterprise architecture with kind of
a case study exercise approach thank you
so much for listening
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