Customer Reviews

Building Enterprise Information Architectures: Reengineering Information Systems

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ms. Cook takes a no-nonsense approach to building an enterprise architecture that puts business requirements first.

She starts this excellent book with a quick history, setting information architecture into a context. This is followed by addressing the hard part of architecture: overcoming political resistance and tackling the thorny problems of aligning systems to what the business needs. She pulls no punches.

The next part of the book, chapter 3, introduces the Zachman Framework, which I personally believe is one of the best foundations for an architecture that aligns IT to business.

Chapters 4 through 7 thoroughly delves into the layers of the Zachman Framework, and provides a coherent and comprehensive description of all of the "moving parts" from both an IT and a business perspective.

The theoretical underpinnings are translated into an actionable plan in chapter 8, titled, "Making It Happen". This chapter is pragmatic and gives a detailed roadmap to implementing an enterprise information architecture that will truly align information technology to business requirements.

Here are the key things I like about this book: (1) It focuses on the business, subordinating technology to a supporting role. This is refreshing. (2) It provides one of the best descriptions of the Zachman Framework I have ever read. (3) Political realities and organizational resistance are taken into account, and some excellent advice for overcoming these barriers is given. (4) Ms. Cook's approach to implementation is straightforward, and if followed, will greatly improve your chances for a successful implementation of an enterprise information architecture. Make no mistake, such an implementation is a daunting task with opportunities to fail lurking in many places. She has obviously encountered a good many implementation problems and gives some great advice on how to overcome them.

Ms. Cook has made a significant contribution to the body of knowledge of information architecture, and a strong case for the Zachman Framework in this book. She also reinforces the need for a well thought out approach to implementation, and provides clear advice on how to successfully accomplish this.

Definitely a book to read to understand what an Enterprise architecture is and how to develop one. The book provides a step-based approach to get you to the point where a company can define its EA and how to evolve it. If you are looking for technical details you are in the wrong place. But if rather you want to understand the business benefits, then I doubt you'll find something easier to read on this subject.

Melissa Cook's work is best suited for the reader possessing little exposure to the overarching concepts concerning the use of modern information systems to support enterprise environments. Viewed from this perspective the book appears to be successful. The text covers several EA topics and issues in a simple, relatively non-technical manner. It also devotes, where possible, a portion of its space to the historical background concerning a particular topic.

For the contemporary CIO or VP of information systems/technology who needs to wrestle with the demands of actually building an enterprise information architecture, the prospects for Cook's book may be different. Such readers may well want to search for texts that drill deeper into the issues and challenges to be faced when building or reengineering application architectures.

In the modern world of objects and components, Melissa remind's us that there is nothing new under the sun. The strength of this book, appart from being a very enjoyable read, is the reference to classification theory - how to associate and classify real world things within the problem domain. There are many dimensions to understanding architecture and this book exploits the Zackman Framework to present the various perspectives. An essence of realism is presented that crosses the boundary between conceptual and logical thought within the context of Enterprise Architecture - first class. These thoughts and idea's can be applied to the design of gateways and distributed systems in unique and powerful ways. If you suffer from spaggetti or stove-pipe systems and are looking for some new idea's - then this book will provide the medicine you need.

Melissa has produced an excellent, non technical book which outlines:
- the reasons for taking a business led approach to the development of Enterprise Architecture
- the potential benefits to business of investing in an Enterprise Architecture approach
- practical steps for doing it and overcoming common roadblocks

Some readers will no doubt have wanted Melissa to move on to discussing the technical layers, but I feel this would have diluted one of the key messages of her book - that Enterprise Architecture is primarily a business issue focused on the company's core data and fundamental processes. Technology comes a distant second.

If I have any criticisms, it would be on the suggested representations of the data and process models in the business layers of the architecture framework. My experience working with CEO's and business executives is that they automatically associate the look of these models as being "IT" and mentally switch off.

In order to effectively market Enterprise Architecture and obtain the executive sponsorship necessary to drive it forward, some other ways of representing this information must be found. Representations that the executive team automatically regard as being in the business domain rather than in IT's. This varies from industry to industry and between organisations, but one example that has wide acceptance is the value chain model. Portraying the ballpark view process classes as a value chain does not corrupt the message and can help achieve the buy-in that is so essential.

As Melissa rightfully stresses, a successful Architecture strategy requires the business executive taking ownership and ongoing control of these layers of the architecture framework.

My high endorsement for this publication reflects both the importance of the subject matter and the author's approach to presenting it. Cook takes the academically high-brow subject of information systems architectural planning and relates the major concepts in terms that any business user, manager or exective should appreciate. The first three chapters of this book are a must-read for EVERY business executive and manager who relies on information systems to help manage their enterprise.

I have a business background an work in business development for a large Swiss ISP. We have a lot of development going on inhouse and furhtermore, need to integrate standard software.

The book help me tremendously builing an understanding of what needs to be done to get order into our (creative) chaos. As a nice side effect I developed the glossary to communicate with the developers.

Melissa's book, although "ancient" in web-time (1996), is bang up to date, stressing the importance of good management-led architectural design. In the current (summer 2000) snowball of interest in everything surrounding XML, her book deserves to be read by anyone interested in serious XML deployment, as it covers the "upstream" issues notoriously overlooked or sidestepped in the rush to early technology deployment. She rightly laments the lack of central authorities taking a lead hand in IT design and project management but offers a way forward using the Zackman Framework and some clearly mapped out targets and milestones. Having been hooked by the strength of her arguments for "why?", I felt a little shortchanged on the "how?" but sufficiently keyed up to look further afield, largely thanks to a very comprehensive bibliography.

I'm a finance director at a privately owned manufacturing firm. By reading this book, I was able to work with our CIO in developing the most cost efficient enterprise system for our firm. Although it may be a little too general for the techies, the book is great for managers needing guidance on their system needs.

The author's writing style and ability to explain concepts is outstanding! I would love to see her author a more current edition of the book, including additions/modifications made to the Zachman model since this edition. Would also like to see more discussion/explanation about the technology views of the model. The book is excellent reading .. would recommend it for executives, managers, and technical folks alike.