In my first article for Forbes, I asked whether Enterprise Architecture (EA) was completely broken. My conclusion: executives seeking digital transformations of their organizations require a more agile approach to architecture than traditional EA has been able to offer. Instead, architects must treat the enterprise itself as a complex system, driving business agility as an emergent property of the organization as a whole.
Perhaps the best example of a company that has succeeded with this agile approach to architecture is Netflix. Netflix is well-known in technology circles for its industry-leading use of Public Cloud, but how they build software and in particular, how they drive their overall architecture are perhaps the most paradigm-shifting aspects of their accomplishments.
Executives at traditional enterprises may look at the Netflix case study and chalk it up to the success of a Web Scale company that would never apply to a bank, a government agency, a manufacturer, or any other traditional enterprise. To help dispel this myth that what worked for Netflix won’t work for you, I interviewed Adrian Cockcroft.
Today Adrian Cockcroft serves as Technology Fellow at Battery Ventures, but until recently, he was Cloud Architect at Netflix, well known as a thought leader for the Netflix way of doing things. Our conversation wasn’t simply an opportunity to reminisce about the Netflix days, though. At Battery, he’s seeking and supporting technology companies “who are enabling the transformation of enterprise IT” – in essence, who are able to take a page from the Netflix playbook and apply it to the enterprise. The secret to Netflix’s success? A transformative set of practices I call Agile Architecture.
Read the entire article at http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2014/07/23/agile-enterprise-architecture-finally-crosses-the-chasm/.
