IT Architecture Toolkit – Preface

First edition; 256 pages
ISBN 0131473794
(by: Jane Carbone)

Preface

There were two factors that motivated me to write this book. One was that, while those of us who were data geeks were always passionate about business information, our opinions were not always popular. Today, meaningful, accurate information is the lifeblood of most organizations. In fact, in many cases, information is not just critical to the business-it is the business. Therefore, the need to plan how data is collected, flows through the organization, and is transformed into information the business can access, is vital. That need is increasingly recognized, not only by CIOs, but also by CEOs and even by the non-IT world at large. I was pleasantly surprised to read the following in an unlikely source:

Halfway through the last century, information became a thing. It became a commodity, a force-a quantity to be measured and analyzed. It’s what our world runs on. Information is the gold and the fuel. (James Glieck, “Bit Player,” The New York Times Magazine, December 30, 2001)

The second factor that motivated me to write this book was that, just as a converted smoker becomes overly eager about the smoking habits of those around him, I have had my own religious experience. Having been honed (some would say charred) on the altar of architecture, I am eager to share both my suffering and my successes. Having learned many lessons the hard way, I am anxious to help you benefit from those lessons.

This book, therefore, is a very practical guide to enterprise architecture. Many fine minds have addressed architecture theory from the podium and the bookshelf. The purpose of this book is to help architects, IT planners, and analysts find ways to implement those theories, and to spare you as much pain as possible in the process.

			IT Automation The Quest for “Lights Out”: Data center automation in distributed environments.
			CIO Wisdom Best Practices from Silicon Valley’s Leading IT Experts
			IT Services Costs, Metrics, Benchmarking, and Marketing: Delighting IT customers: your real-world, start-to-finish guide
			CIO Wisdom II More Best Practices from Leading IT Experts
			IT Architecture Toolkit Less theoretical, more practical approach to developing and implementing enterprise architecture.
			IT People Doing More with Less. Best practices for managing the people within the IT organization.
			Data Warehousing Architecture and Implementation: A start-to-finish process for deploying successful data warehouses
			Building Professional Services The Sirens’ Song: A comprehensive guide to creating a professional services organization
			IT Problem Management The complete “best practices” guide to IT problem resolution.
			IT Organization Building a World-Class Infrastructure.
			IT Web Services A Roadmap for the Enterprise: Architectures, platforms, roles, business models, and deployment realities.
			Software Development Building Reliable Systems.
			IT Production Services Building Competitive Advantage: Describes one of the most important functions of an IT infrastructure
			Managing IT as an Investment Partnering for Success: Maximizing the value of technology—and the success of your IT organization.
			High Availability Design, Techniques and Processes: The complete how-to guide for maximizing availability of enterprise systems
			IT Systems Management Design, Implement, and Manage World-Class Infrastructures.
			Technology Strategies Managing technology, value, and change in the new economy.
			Web-Based Infrastructures A 4-D Framework: Maximize the value of your next Web-centered initiative.