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Ecosystem architect

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An ecosystem architect, in information technology, is a practitioner of solution architecture. Typically assigned by enterprise architects to own a view of the architecture. The ecosystem architect develops architecture artifacts that describe the design and operation of a specific scope (ex. business unit, operations organization, software vendor scope) of the IT landscape. The rest of the enterprise architects and platform architects use those artifacts when determining how they will design for a specific solution. The platform or solution architect's process typically involves selecting the most appropriate technology for the problem. They utilize the input from the ecosystem architects to understand the full scope of requirements and installed software before making choices.

Overview of the role

An individual performing the role of an ecosystem architect focuses on developing current and future state roadmaps that help illustrate the scope of architecture in their area of responsibility. In that process, the ecosystem architect usually relies on solution architectures, reference architectures, and guidance from enterprise architecture. In their efforts, ecosystem architects provide a plan that illustrates the use of various solution architectures by the organization or the landscape of solutions provided by a particular vendor (including interfaces to neighboring systems). They also provide guidance on how to cover gaps in the current enterprise - in this capacity they often take on a solution architecture role.

The solution architect is often the development team leader. As such, they are often expected to provide motivation and guidance to the entire development team during the systems development life cycle. The solution architect must ensure buy-in from the development team, so that the team is motivated to match the detailed design of the solution to the higher-level architecture.

Ecosystem architects focused on organizations play an important role in ensuring that the demand for solutions aligns with the roadmaps established by the enterprise architecture, and that it adheres to the enterprise architecture principles. Ecosystem architects are largely a consumer of enterprise architecture collateral, but sometimes they also become a contributor.

Ecosystem architects that are focused on a scope of applications provided by a particular vendor help to provide a picture that shows the cohesiveness of the vendors' application ecosystem. This work provides a counterbalance to those looking are specific solution areas. In this work, the ecosystem architect plays an enterprise role.

Ecosystem architects vs. enterprise architects

Ecosystem architects in large organizations often act as the bridge between architecture and applications architecture.

An enterprise architect's deliverables are usually company wide. An ecosystem architect can have a smaller scope, but are usually only needed if the scope crosses multiple solution architectures. The main distinction between the two lies in their different goals. The enterprise architect is primarily employed to design, plan, and govern strategic and cross-organisational rationalization or optimization of an enterprise's services, processes, or components. The ecosystem architect primarily helps enterprise, platform, and solution architects better understand the design, planning, implementation, and governance of a smaller section of the architecture and how it will be used.

An ecosystem architect may have a reporting line to an enterprise architect, but the influence the enterprise architect team has on ecosystem architects depends on an organisation's policies and management structure.

Where the ecosystem architect starts and stops depends on the organization model. For example, an enterprise may employ an ecosystem architect to help develop an digitization roadmap for a specific business unit. An enterprise could also staff an ecosystem architect to deliver a series of reference architectures and integration diagrams to describe the use of a cloud provider.