Technology can be found in every aspect of our life from the phone we use, internet connectivity for accessing news, keeping in contact with friends, and the cars we drive. Businesses rely on technology to accelerate their ability to deliver quality products and servcies. Today, most homes have networking capabilities to share resources across computers. Shared storage capability exists for sharing pictures, movies across the home network or across the internet with friends and family. At some level, each rely on an architecture. The better the architecture the better the overall results.
As the size of an organization grows, the importance of having an architecture and standards grow. A well defined architecture depends on four main dsiciplines. Business process architecture, data architecture, solution architecture and technical architecture. Busines, data and solution architecture paint a logical view of the business. Techinical architecture is the discipline that recommends technical solutions, opportunities for integration in order to implement a particular solution.
Defining an architecture sets the stage for developing IT standards and governance.