Defining an enterprise

- [Instructor] Information technology is pretty much everywhere in the business world. I mean, come on, you'd be hard pressed to find pretty much any business that doesn't use some type of IT. So you have to understand that when IT decisions are made, well, it affects everything throughout the organization. And, if you make a decision without consideration for the impact for other elements throughout the enterprise, no, you might have some serious problems. So let's talk a little bit about kind of putting a definition on what an enterprise is. Well, kind of in general, the enterprise, I'm kind of doing air quotes, the enterprise, it's a fluid term, which encompasses all technologies and all tech related policies that relate to the services that you provide to your customers, partners, clients, you name it. Your enterprise requires planning to control its growth into useful areas, guidance to maintain its security and integrity during operation, and leadership to face a whole slew of personal preferences that users are going to bring as their expectations. Now, as we go through different lessons in this course, hopefully bringing it all together will enable you to build an enterprise that is stable, but agile. Now, this will allow both continuity of operations and the integration of new technologies. Now, when it comes to finding solutions for your enterprise, the first thing that you need to know is that there is no such thing as the perfect solution. It's not like I can just sit here, and spew out a solution and say, you know, boom, take that back to your business and it'll work. No. What you need to look at is all the various technologies. And as long as that technology meets the requirements, performs efficiently, supports your business processes and is cost-effective, well, then it's probably an acceptable solution. And might even be a good one. Just remember, there is no literal best technology, only the best technology for your enterprise. Now, this is probably the most important thing. And that is you need to understand that technology supports business, not the other way around. Technology should support the business processes, and align with your strategic goals of your organization. Your technology choices should not limit your organization's functionality or future goals. Now, when it comes to providing leadership. First and foremost, to be an effective enterprise architect, you must provide leadership for the decision making process. Okay. This is important to understand that you are a leader. An enterprise architect must possess both business alignment and broad technological skills in order to filter through the various user requirements and separate out what is a preference or a want from an actual requirement or a need, okay, while being able to kind of see through the various technobabble, or the technology jargon that may be a tech savvy client, or IT staff member might use. As an IT architect, you must identify future technology trends, up and coming opportunities, and evolving security requirements to ensure that the current state enterprise is properly prepared to meet emerging solutions and technologies. You must have the strength of vision necessary to stand firm and persuade concerned individuals and key stakeholders that some choices have got to be made from a larger perspective. Okay. You're going to get pushback because certain changes, individuals are going to look only at themselves. You're looking at the enterprise. So you need to be able to have done your homework and know that you can stand firm. And the technical lead who fails to keep his or her skills current rapidly becomes a non-technical lead due to the rapid evolution of both technologies in use, and the manner in which they're consumed by the clients and your knowledge workers. So it's very important to keep your skills current. All right. So, this is just kind of the foundation of establishing your enterprise.