In order to keep up with the digital transformation and align their business strategy with new technology solutions.
While enterprise architects define strategic directions, solution architects bridge the gap between business requirements and the implementation of technology solutions.
Technical architect vs. solution architect vs. enterprise architect
While the enterprise architect focuses on the enterprise-level design of the IT landscape, solution architects are in charge of finding and introducing solutions to specific business problems. They also manage all activities that lead to the successful implementation of a new application.
Technical architects concentrate on one particular technology and provide the technological know-how that is needed to deliver the product.
What does a solution architect do?
The solution architect’s task is to evaluate all business requirements and come up with solutions in the form of products or services. Once they are given a problem, solution architects are not only in charge of finding answers but also of actively leading the technical vision to success.
solution architecture specialists closely look at how the different elements of business, information, and technology can be applied to solve a specific problem.
This process is very detail-oriented and serves as a connecting piece between enterprise architecture and technical architecture.
What does an enterprise architect do?
While solution architects engineer solutions for specific business problems, enterprise architects verify that the IT strategy is aligned with the organization’s mission. It is their job to analyze business properties as well as the external environment and define all business needs.
Among all IT architects, enterprise architects have the most overarching view of the organization and knowledge of its capabilities and potential.
They play a key role when it comes to identifying business needs in context with external factors like competitors and internal factors like a company’s IT landscape.
They are in charge of analyzing current trends in technology architecture and educating technology departments about new frameworks and best practices.
Through the use of clear architectural models and the help of domain architects, they define business goals and design an information technology roadmap. This roadmap is supposed to create a bridge between context and concept.
With the enterprise architect’s expertise, a company’s leadership can determine how artificial intelligence, IoT, or blockchain could be used to create a competitive advantage.
In this context, the enterprise architect needs to make sure that the right enterprise infrastructure is created while the new applications meet all business standards and are in line with the company’s integrity, all while solving their own challenges.
Even though enterprise architects sometimes deal with technical questions like an app’s life cycle and technological environments, they mostly delegate specific tasks to the solution or technical architect.
What does a technical architect do?
Compared to solution and enterprise architects, technical architects take the most hands-on approach during the execution of IT projects. Most technical architecture specialists focus on one single implementation and specialize in a particular domain where they also define best practices.
The technical architect’s main task is to realize particular technical implementation processes. As this requires a high level of in-depth expertise, technical architects usually specialize in one single technology. Thus, they are named according to their area of knowledge, for example, Java or Python architecture. Just like data, application, or information architects, technical architects fall under the umbrella of domain architects.
Altogether, these roles put technological solutions into practice ensuring that the application designs support the technological strategy defined by the enterprise architect. However, technical architects are not only in charge of the implementation of new technologies. They also provide recommendations and inform stakeholders about potential threats.
Technical architects can be in charge of leading large teams of developers and technical professionals. They act as technical project managers who define the structure of a specific system and oversee the related IT assignments. Out of all IT architects, they are the closest to an organization’s end-user. Thus, they have to ensure that the technology is not only delivered in a timely manner but fully functional for the end-user.
Conclusion:
Enterprise architects together with business architects drive standardization and guide a company’s business decisions by introducing effective IT strategies. Once they have identified areas of improvement, the solution architect then takes a specific problem and proposes a solution. Thus, they create a link between the technological vision and its actual implementation.
In the last step, technical architects translate the solution into an integrated system. They provide in-depth technical insight into matters like hardware and software specifics. They also lead development teams and make sure that the deployment of new applications happens smoothly.
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