Enterprise architecture meets quantum physics

Yet another reminder of the importance of the role of the enterprise architect, to keep projects from diving too deep into the technical weeds, or from becoming unwieldy or unworkable.

Brian Hopkins, writing at the CIO site, makes an interesting point: that the shape of architecture is most likely to be influenced by those observing it. And, inevitably, a service oriented architecture will take a different shape, depending on whether it is being observed by a business team, technical team, or data team.  Just as in quantum mechanics, Hopkins points out, "the very act of observing the world influences it - the same may be said for Enterprise Architecture."

That's why the job of the enterprise architect is so important -- he or she needs to see the problem and solution from all angles, be they technical, business, or data-centric. As Hopkins put it:

"A business and data perspective on the same problem may yield different, but complementary solution approaches. This is the heart of Enterprise Architecture - the ability to look at things both holistically, and from various views to come up with an architecture that is complete. Not fixated on a single solution to a perceived technology problem, EA should solve business problems with business solutions where technology plays a role."

There you have it -- the EA becomes the ultimate quantum mechanic. Now, if he or she could unravel the cosmic mystery of entangled pairs of applications...

Image: Lithium-7 atom.  (Not Linthicum -- that's another force of nature shaping our perceptions of integration.) Black dots are electrons, red dots are protons and blue dots are neutrons. From Halfdan, via Wikimedia Commons.