The traditional role of an Enterprise Architect (EA) has grown from roots in the IT departments of large organizations. Over time, the nature of the role has evolved and continues to evolve along with the technical and business landscape it is charged with influencing. With this evolution comes a continuing need for learning and collaboration. This is why we need this community group.
SAP, with its roots in the ERP application space has gone through many evolutions in user experience, application features and infrastructure architecture. Over time this means going from green screens and centralized computing to client server to cloud computing and mobile experiences. This presents challenges as technology, and architectures to accommodate them, have had to evolve over time. SAP applications also have to integrate into heterogeneous landscapes with many ways of "assembling the pieces" or integrating. So many decisions need to be made across the entire organization. It seems like everyone has an opinion, how do you know what opinion to trust? EA's need help and a community to draw on for this help.
Enterprise Architecture is based on standards and principles, but that does not mean that it is totally static in nature. We have seen expectations of an EA evolve along with the Intelligent Enterprise and Digital Transformation, Technologies like cloud computing have evolved into Multi-Cloud and Hybrid-Cloud architectures. Business models have also evolved to include almost "Anything as a Service". How do you include innovation into your solutions? Feel free to share insights with the community.
The role of an EA can be both intense and diverse at the same time; it involves interactions with Customers, Partners, and Employees. It goes across company business functions and maps capabilities to technology. Enterprise Architecture may have started in Information Technology but has evolved all the way up the business food chain into corporate strategy. How has your company evolved over time and has technology been an enabler of that evolution?
As part of introducing this community group to the SAP ecosystem we need to set expectations and what the engagement looks like. This site does not replace SAP support or SAP Consulting services. It does provide a place where SAP Customers can collaborate with each other, with SAP and SAP Partners, share their experiences and together we learn. There are Rules of Engagement to help set the stage for how the community operates.
The traditional four pillars of Enterprise Architecture are represented in this site but the community needs so much more. Enterprise Architects have interactions on many levels in an organization, with Solution Architects to Senior Management. The requisite skills and training to be a good EA are often loosely .defined or are a range of qualities that create a persona almost mythical in nature. Feel free to discuss what makes a good EA in the discussion area of the community.
Hopefully this blog post intrigues you enough to return often, to find content of value, and motivates you to engage with the community. - Ultimately to help you on your own learning journey with SAP.
