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IT ARCHITECTURE - Coggle Diagram
IT ARCHITECTURE
Corporate IT Architecture: The Big Picture
IT architecture is a blueprint of the IT assets in a firm’s IT portfolio that describes
what they do, how they interact, and how they fit together.
It describes the firm-wide organizing logic of the three classes of IT assets:
IT infrastructure Architecture
IT infrastructure is your firm’s digital plumbing—its firm-wide foundation of shared IT assets and IT services used by all line functions. It includes the networks through which data travels and apps are linked and the hardware on which apps run and store data
(e.g., computers, tablets, servers, and storage devices).
IT infrastructure architecture is their firm-wide arrangement.
IT infrastructure remains stable relative to apps, is mostly a generic commodity, and is rarely a competitive differentiator.
This foundation consumes over 50% of corporate IT budgets.
It must be reliable but economical – the key choice is Level of centralization.
Non-IT contributions:
Is frugality or tailoring more important for their units?
Define “good enough” operational performance?
Data Architecture
Integrated firmwide data is the foundation for automation and analytics
Widespread problem: Proliferation of duplicated, inconsistent data
Two causes:
1.Fragmented across apps (app architecture is for individual apps)
All apps collectively determine how a firm’s data assets are organized and where they are located
Data warehouses assemble copies of data to integrate siloed data
Geographic dispersion - Two solutions
To pick appropriate data architectures, non-IT managers must decide:
What data should be centralized firmwide for executing your core business processes or for analytics?
What data must be shared across your markets?
Two Solutions to Geographic Dispersion of Data
Replication
The first approach is called replication where you make copies of an app’s entire data and keep a copy at each location so users’ apps make a quick local trip to access it. To ensure that the copies remain synced, you connect them using the Internet.
Partitioning
Partitioning approach is partitioning where you can slice the app’s database into smaller pieces, where each piece only keeps data for that locale.
Apps Architecture
An app’s architecture is simply how you choose to divide these three pieces between a centralized “server” and user devices.
App architecture = choosing where to locate the three pieces. It is like arranging pieces on a chessboard.
It has irreversible operational and strategic consequences.
Three Arrangements -> App Architectures
Cloud Architecture
In Cloud Architecture all heavy lifting is done on the server-side via the “cloud” (e.g., Siri)
Peer-to-peer Architecture
Peer-to-peer Architecture has no central server -> every client performs all app functions
Every client simultaneously acts as a little server for all other clients.
The architecture strength is in numbers; every new client increases the hive’s collective capacity thus giving it infinite scalability.
This is the reason for 100-fold cost difference of an additional user between Facebook (cloud) vs. Skype (peer-to-peer).
However, zero control over user devices relegates it to niche applications in eclectic uses. This is the reason why Netflix needing scalability avoids it.
Peer-to-peer Architecture is recommended only for scale-hungry apps that demand no control.
Client-server Architecture
Client-Server Architecture centralizes only data; the clients do all the app’s heavy lifting.
It is the most common in corporate portfolios; predates cloud
Offers more potential for competitive differentiation
Costlier if custom-built ($15-$40 per line + 700% maintenance)
Burdensome upgrades
Two newer cloud-inspired variants enable building cheaper, faster custom apps
Service-oriented architectures: Some server-side functionality purchased as a service, integrated into custom apps
Micro-services: Many discrete generic services cobbled into an app’s logic