TY - BOOK
T1 - Architecture Alignment in a Large Government Organization
T2 - A Case Study
AU - Wieringa, R.J.
AU - van Eck, P.A.T.
AU - Blanken, H.M.
PY - 2004/4
Y1 - 2004/4
N2 - In this paper we view IT architecture as the structures present in the entire information technology support used by an organization. Research into IT architecture either is of a strategic nature, yielding no operational guidelines for the practicing IT-architect, or it is part of software engineering, yielding no guidelines that related software architecture to the business environment. In this paper we report on a detailed case study of an operational IT architecture process, in which we investigated the relationship between IT architecture and business context. We analyze this process in terms of a conceptual framework for IT architecture presented earlier. The major findings are that in this case study there is a close relationship between IT architecture and the structure of the IT department, which makes IT architecture design also a problem of organizational design; that application architecture is designed by aligning applications to the business process structure; and that IT infrastructure architecture is designed by aligning it to technological trends rather than to business goals and problems. This paper reports about a single case study done in a series of case studies. We discuss the generalizability of the findings from this case study, and discuss topics for further research.
AB - In this paper we view IT architecture as the structures present in the entire information technology support used by an organization. Research into IT architecture either is of a strategic nature, yielding no operational guidelines for the practicing IT-architect, or it is part of software engineering, yielding no guidelines that related software architecture to the business environment. In this paper we report on a detailed case study of an operational IT architecture process, in which we investigated the relationship between IT architecture and business context. We analyze this process in terms of a conceptual framework for IT architecture presented earlier. The major findings are that in this case study there is a close relationship between IT architecture and the structure of the IT department, which makes IT architecture design also a problem of organizational design; that application architecture is designed by aligning applications to the business process structure; and that IT infrastructure architecture is designed by aligning it to technological trends rather than to business goals and problems. This paper reports about a single case study done in a series of case studies. We discuss the generalizability of the findings from this case study, and discuss topics for further research.
KW - SCS-Services
M3 - Report
T3 - CTIT Technical Report
BT - Architecture Alignment in a Large Government Organization
PB - Centre for Telematics and Information Technology (CTIT)
CY - Enschede, The Netherlands
ER -