Introduction to the IT Architect roles

We start by defining the IT Architect role, briefly discussing the roots of the word "Architect".

This lecture focuses on defining IT Architect's responsibilities at the high level.

The major types of IT Architects currently existing in the IT industry:

•  Enterprise Architects

•  Business Architects

•  Application Architects

•  Information/Data Architects

•  Technology Architects

•  Hardware Architects

•  Network Architects

•  Solution Architects

•  Systems Architects

•  Security Architects

•  ... and a few other ones

This lecture will discuss the Enterprise Architect role, what is the definition of an Enterprise Architect and how he/she should coordinate the business and IT sides of architecture.

This lecture will discuss what are the major responsibilities of an Enterprise Architect and how does and Enterprise Architect collaborate with other types of Architects including Domain Architects as well as specialized Architects such as Security Architect.

This is an example of a typical diagram produced by an Enterprise Architect

This lecture describes the Business Architect role, including what are the major deliverables, what are the inputs and what other stakeholders he/she collaborates with.

This lecture discusses the responsibilities of a Business Architect.

This lecture describes the role of Information Architect and how the Information Architecture practice started.

This lecture describes what are the main responsibilities of an Information Architect and how he/she collaborates with the other Architects.

This lecture describes the Application Architect role, including how he/she should describe the application and facilitate the understanding of the detailed application-level design of the services and components to enable coding.

This lecture describes what are the main responsibilities of an Application Architect and how he/she collaborates with other Architects or stakeholders such as: project team members, management, etc.

This lecture describes what are the main responsibilities of a Technology Architect as well as explaining the main deliverables produced by him/her.

This lecture describes what are the main responsibilities of a Technology Architect and how he/she collaborates with other Architects to create a technology solution in line with the enterprise architecture, functional and non-functional requirements.

This lecture describes what are the main responsibilities of an Infrastructure/Hardware Architect what are the main types of infrastructure architecture as well as how he/she collaborates with other Architects.

This lecture describes the Network architect role including what kind of information is included in the network architecture diagrams and what other Architects does the Network Architect collaborates with.

This lecture focuses on the description of the Solution Architect role including how this role compares and collaborates with the Enterprise Architect and the other Domain Architects (Business, Application, Data, Infrastructure).

This lecture describes the Solution Architect responsibilities including how to create the solution in line with the enterprise architecture, create portfolio roadmaps and provide guidance to the Application, Data or Infrastructure Architects.

This lecture focuses on the definition and general description of the Systems Architect role, the main components of systems architecture, as well as what are the major views created for the stakeholders.

This lecture describes the main responsibilities for a Systems Architect and how he/she collaborates with Domain, Security or Enterprise Architects.

This lecture provides the definition of the Security Architect role as well as short description of the major deliverables/documentation produced by the Security Architect.

This lecture describes Security Architect's main responsibilities in order to ensure his/her job provides the most benefits to the company.

This section provides a short description of some of the other IT Architect roles that exists in the industry such as:

• Cloud Architect

• Digital Architect

• Messaging Architect

• DevOps Architect

Although some other variations of IT Architect roles exist in the industry the information provided in the course should cover all the main types.

This section explains in details the benefits of becoming an IT Architect including:

• Job satisfaction

• Financial aspect

• Job security

• Opportunities

• Visibility, etc.

This section provides the next steps on the path of becoming an IT Architect such as:

• Understand technical and performance competencies required by the role

• Understand architecture methodologies and frameworks.

• Understand what career path to follow based on the type of IT Architect you want to become

• Understand what are the deliverables/documentation produced by an IT Architect

• Understand what is the IT architecture specific knowledge require to be successful in the IT Architect role.

“Become IT Architect” program has multiple courses that will help you on the path of becoming an IT Architect:

1. "Introduction to IT Architect roles” course will provide the students a complete understanding about what are the various IT architect roles and how they relate to other IT roles, what are the benefits of being an IT architect and what are the next steps on your journey to become an IT Architect. The journey of becoming an IT Architect starts with this course as this is the first course from "Become IT Architect" program.

2. “Architecture design, modelling and technical skills for an IT Architects” course will provide the students a complete understanding of what are the general technical, architecture design and modelling skills and competencies required to become a successful IT Architect. This role involves continually learning new skills and competencies throughout one’s career arc but in order to provide guidance to the IT practitioners who would like to move into an IT Architect role we need to explore in detail the technical skills and competencies.

3. "Soft skills for IT architects and IT practitioners” course will provide the students a complete understanding of what are the soft (also called performance) skills and competencies required to become a successful IT architect or IT practitioner (any IT role such as Developer, Systems Analyst, Infrastructure specialist, Project Manager, Business Systems Analyst, Dev or Tech Lead, etc.). These roles involve continually learning new skills and competencies throughout one’s career. Technical skills are important for each of these roles but in order to achieve the full potential and be successful at the IT architect or IT practitioner job, you need to explore in detail and master the soft skills that would make the difference between struggling in your day to day job and being able to successfully lead project teams, communicate the architecture solution, design, project plan, test plan, use analysis and problem solving to solve design or architectural problems, facilitate discussions to achieve consensus, manage changes and “sell” your work to the stakeholders.

4. “IT Architecture specific knowledge” course provides the students a complete understanding of what is the architecture specific knowledge including the IT architecture frameworks and methodologies specific to different types of architecture and architecture modeling languages that are necessary to allow you to build and document architectural designs at the application, infrastructure, business, or entire enterprise level. Such knowledge comprises various architecture patterns, frameworks, and methodologies, as well as modeling languages that enable you to visually describe the models you create, and the tools that implement those languages.

5. “Documents produced by an IT Architect" course will provide the students a complete understanding of various deliverables/documents produced by the various IT Architect roles, the input documents used for these deliverables, key activities, architectural thinking and how architects should extract information and use it to create the architecture documentation and guide the implementation. The course discusses in detail the following architecture documents:

· Architecture Document/Blueprint

· Architecture Decision Document

· Request for proposal/ Request for information

· Architecture Proof of Concept

· Implementation strategy/migration

· Roadmaps (such as: Business Technology Roadmap)

6. Career path courses:

i. “Career path - How to become a Business Architect “course will provide the students the guidance to become Business Architects. The assumption is that the IT practitioners have an Business/Systems Analyst background and already possess the knowledge from the courses indicated as prerequisites. We will talk briefly about the various ways to pursue an architecture career and then focus on the architectural specific knowledge.

ii. “Career path - How to become an Enterprise Architect” course will provide the students the guidance to become Enterprise Architects. The assumption is that the IT practitioners already possess the knowledge from the courses indicated as prerequisites. We will talk briefly about the various ways to pursue an architecture career and then focus on the architectural specific knowledge.

iii. “Career path - How to become an Application Architect” course will provide the students the guidance to become Application Architects. The assumption is that the IT practitioners have a software developer background and already possess the knowledge from the courses indicated as prerequisites. We will talk briefly about the various ways to pursue an architecture career and then focus on the architectural specific knowledge.

iv. “Career path - How to become a Data Architect” course will provide the students the guidance to become Data Architects. The assumption is that the IT practitioners have a database administrator background and already possess the knowledge from the courses indicated as prerequisites. We will talk briefly about the various ways to pursue an architecture career and then focus on the architectural specific knowledge.

v. “Career path - How to become an Infrastructure Architect“ course will provide the students the guidance to become Infrastructure Architects. The assumption is that the IT practitioners have an infrastructure specialist/system administrator background and already possess the knowledge from the courses indicated as prerequisites. We will talk briefly about the various ways to pursue an architecture career and then focus on the architectural specific knowledge.

7. “How to get a job as an IT Architect" course will provide the students all the guidance required for them to make a career change to any of the IT Architect roles (please refer to the prerequisites below). The assumption is that the student has a clear understanding of what are the different IT Architect roles, responsibilities, skills and competencies required, architecture specific knowledge and typical deliverables.
This course gives you all the information you need to complete the final step and finally get the job and recognition you so much desire, exploring different paths that you can follow depending on the specifics of the role and your current situation.

8. " How to establish or improve the IT architecture practice" course will provide the students all the information they need about the benefits of having an IT architecture practice, how to successfully establish an architecture practice, what kind of architecture roles the company might need and how to hire the best IT architects for the market. The course will discuss each of the types of IT architecture explaining why you need them and how you can start or improve your specific architecture practice. In case you do have such a practice this course will go into details about what to look for each of the architecture roles, how to interview the candidates and what kind of questions would most definitely differentiate between the candidates that have the knowledge and experience required for the job.