Constructing Blueprints for Enterprise IT Architectures [Hardcover]

Bernard H. Boar (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471296201 | ISBN-13: 978-0471296201 | Publication Date: October 26, 1998 | Edition: 1

"This book is the answer to hundreds of CIOs who have asked me how IT can be used to disrupt their market and change the rules of competition. If you live in a hypercompetitive world, CIOs will find this book an invaluable resource." -Richard A. D'Aveni, author of Hypercompetition "I wish Bernie Boar had written this book 20 years ago. And I wish every IT manager and architect had read it and placed his hand on it and sworn by it 20 years ago. Then we wouldn't be in the pickle we find ourselves in today!" -John A. Zachman Constructing Blueprints for Enterprise IT Architectures Recently deployed within a unit at AT&T, Enterprise IT Architecture Blueprinting (EAB) lets you blueprint your system designs with a degree of precision long taken for granted by engineers and architects. In fact, it's the first standardized methodology of its kind. In this book, expert Bernard Boar introduces you to the principles behind EAB and all of its features by walking through the entire design process for developing conceptual, functional, logical, and physical blueprints complete with useful icons, diagrams, and page templates. This valuable guide also defines:
* Why blueprinting is an imperative strategy to cope with hypercompetitive business environments in the information age
* An accessible vocabulary, rational rules, and clear-cut graphics standards
* How to create a set of functional specifications and how they interrelate with diagrams
* How to integrate multiple drawings
* How to package the finished blueprint
* How to design infrastructure and application architectures for extreme maneuverability and maximum flexibility
* How to implement blueprinting within your environment and overcome potential obstacles
The companion Web site located at www.wiley.com/compbooks/boar gives you:
* Sample checklists and blueprint templates that you can customize and reuse

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"This book is the answer to hundreds of CIOs who have asked me how IT can be used to disrupt their market and change the rules of competition. If you live in a hypercompetitive world, CIOs will find this book an invaluable resource." -Richard A. D'Aveni, author of Hypercompetition "I wish Bernie Boar had written this book 20 years ago. And I wish every IT manager and architect had read it and placed his hand on it and sworn by it 20 years ago. Then we wouldn't be in the pickle we find ourselves in today!" -John A. Zachman Constructing Blueprints for Enterprise IT Architectures Recently deployed within a unit at AT&T, Enterprise IT Architecture Blueprinting (EAB) lets you blueprint your system designs with a degree of precision long taken for granted by engineers and architects. In fact, it's the first standardized methodology of its kind. In this book, expert Bernard Boar introduces you to the principles behind EAB and all of its features by walking through the entire design process for developing conceptual, functional, logical, and physical blueprints complete with useful icons, diagrams, and page templates. This valuable guide also defines:
* Why blueprinting is an imperative strategy to cope with hypercompetitive business environments in the information age
* An accessible vocabulary, rational rules, and clear-cut graphics standards
* How to create a set of functional specifications and how they interrelate with diagrams
* How to integrate multiple drawings
* How to package the finished blueprint
* How to design infrastructure and application architectures for extreme maneuverability and maximum flexibility
* How to implement blueprinting within your environment and overcome potential obstacles
The companion Web site located at www.wiley.com/compbooks/boar gives you:
* Sample checklists and blueprint templates that you can customize and reuse

About the Author

BERNARD H. BOAR is Director of Strategic Solutions for RCG Information Technology in Iselin, New Jersey. He is an internationally recognized expert on IT strategy, and the author of several successful books on the subject, including Practical Steps for Aligning Information Technology with Business Strategies and The Art of Information Technology Strategy, both of which are available from Wiley.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (October 26, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471296201
• ISBN-13: 978-0471296201
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,314,099 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good attempt that falls short, February 25, 2001

By 

Linda Zarate "IT Ops Consultant" (Azusa, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Constructing Blueprints for Enterprise IT Architectures (Hardcover)

The author made a valiant effort to explain how to impelement an enterprise information architecture, but falls short.

I'll start with what I like about ths book: using a blueprint approach is appealing because I place a high value on design patterns, with which this approach is consistent. The fact that the author bases his approach on the Zachman framework is another strong point. And it is apparent that Mr. Boar knows his subject.

That said, this book has a lot of shortcomings: it is inconsistent in detail - some places there is too much detail, and other places the lack of sufficient detail requires either a leap of faith or shows that the author just hasn't carefully thought the details through. The writing style is muddled. Unlike other reviewers I have not read any of the author's other books, so I cannot comment on whether or not this is atypical. To me reading this book was a chore. There is more emphasis on the author's approach than there is on actually implementing an architecture. This, in my opinion, detracts from the book.

For a well-written description of the Zachman Framework and how to implement it I recommend Melissa Cook's Building Enterprise Information Architecture. For copious detail that is given is a consistent and accurate manner I recommend Spewak and Hill's Enterprise Architecture Planning. Either of these books will provide a more complete. clearly-written approach to implementing an enterprise IT architecture.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A disappointing book from a favorite author, January 30, 2001

By 

Mike Tarrani "www.tarrani.com" (Deltona, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Constructing Blueprints for Enterprise IT Architectures (Hardcover)

I loathe giving a bad review of a book by an author whose prior works are [in my opinion] classics that have greatly influenced my thinking and professional growth. However,this book is a disappointment.

The "blueprints" given in this book are not as coherent nor are they described with the same sparkling prose for which Mr. Boar is known. I found his descriptions muddled, and his presentations redundant because the same diagrams are used over and over, which I personally found to be irritating.

Also, there are no fresh ideas in the approach - the blueprints are clearly based on the Zachman Framework. Since I am a strong proponent of this framework and approach to IT architecture I agree with the ideas and concepts behind the book. There are better, more articulate descriptions of the Zachman Framework in Enterprise Architucture Planning by Spewak and Hill, and Data Stores, Data Warehousing, and the Zachman Framework by Inmon, Zachman and Geiger.

My disappointment with this book may be because of one or more of the following reasons: Mr. Boar was pressured by the publisher to produce another book and this is the result, or [possibly] because he has wandered into areas where he is somewhat out of his element. The world of IT strategy, in which he is an acknowledged expert and fresh thinker, is not the same world as architecture. His wonderful analogies using the works of Sun Tzu and Niccolo Machiavelli to reinforce his approach to strategy in his prior books do not play well in the architecture domain, which is the focus of this book.

My recommendation is to sidestep this book if you are interested in IT architecture and consider, instead, one or both of the ones I recommended above. On the other hand, if you have an interest in IT strategy or aligning IT to business, any of Mr. Boar's books on strategic planning or IT alignment are insightful and important reading.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Plagiarism, May 26, 2006

By 

Bruce V. Ballengee - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Constructing Blueprints for Enterprise IT Architectures (Hardcover)

I write only about work done by my firm for AT&T that Mr. Boar has published without our permission or attribution. I personally handed him a copy of some of the pages in this book after he represented himself as an AT&T employee and asked "May I have a copy?" He never disclosed his alternate employment as an author or asked permission to publish our work. He may have done so without full disclosure to AT&T, his employer at the time.