Enterprise Architecture vs. Solution Architecture: A Unique Gist View

Enterprise solution architecture strikes a balance between enterprise and solution architecture and requires more architectural thinking. It’s the better choice in the AI era.

Enterprise architecture (EA) focuses more on IT strategies, values, directions, and associated capabilities. In contrast, solution architecture (SA) focuses more on an individual solution, with more considerations of technologies and platforms. Enterprise solution architecture (ESA) represents the essence of both EA and SA.

For a brief comparison between enterprise architecture and enterprise solution architecture, and between enterprise solution architecture and solution architecture, you can read these two articles: EA vs. ESA, and ESA vs. SA.

A Simple Visual Comparison

In this article, I will briefly compare EA, ESA, and SA via a simple visual view to help you see their differences at a glance.

Based on my extensive project experiences with all three types of architecture, the following figure shows the key differences between EA, ESA, and SA.

• Enterprise architecture – It’s goal-oriented, whether for strategic initiatives, directions, or objectives. Its key output is the capability model through value proposition analysis.
• Solution architecture – It’s about solution delivery through further solution design. Its output contains various technical, technological, or platform solutions. It’s based on the specific solution requirements and has coarse-grained IT services, IT service designs, or components depending on the division between the solution architecture and solution design.
• Enterprise solution architecture – This type of architecture concerns both capabilities and IT services through mappings of value streams (or significant solution case scenarios). Its granularity lies between EA and SA.

Each of these architectures has its own purpose and use. Business leaders care more about enterprise architecture, and IT professionals are more involved in solution architecture. Enterprise solution architecture, often a missing area, connects both ends of EA and SA.

Naming is one thing, and the actual architecture is another. An EA can be an ESA if it connects well with SA. An ESA often leans towards SA and covers most of SA.

Why ESA Matters?

In the era of AI, enterprise architecture becomes much easier, with industry trends, benchmarks, business capabilities, and resulting enterprise views readily available through AI search and analytics. Similarly, solution architecture requires much less work with the assistance of AI automation and tools for pattern recognition and the like.

While EA presents a relatively long-term or static view of the enterprise, including IT capabilities, SA targets more specific solutions that may not integrate well with the overall enterprise. In many cases, both EA and SA contain blanket or detailed views, making the architecture complex or parochial. This type of architecture is practically less useful to holistic architectural thinking.

Enterprise solution architecture strikes the balance between the two, making meaningful connections between EA and SA. It presents systematic views based on significant case scenarios and simplified model notations.

A good IT architecture is easy for humans to understand. Yet, I’ve seen very thick architectural documents in real projects. But how useful are these documents and views? You bet. They are often used for compliance review, management reports, or just for formality.

Empowered with AI, IT architecture can eliminate much of the toil humans do. Its role is to provide IT governing ideas and leverage AI to build meaningful models for the right enterprise solutions in the right way. ESA has the right abstraction level that truly aligns business and IT, which is meaningful to humans.

Summary

A picture is worth thousands of words. The aforementioned simple visual comparison between EA, ESA, and SA makes it easy to understand.

The same applies to enterprise solution thinking. Simple model views will help solution stakeholders think more easily. While AI does much of the information gathering, categorization, and alternative comparisons, solution architects or professionals must have a simple and clear model to make trade-off decisions and apply human techniques. So, human-led modeling still plays a decisive role in the AI age.

EA, ESA, or SA. Which are you most familiar with? Do you have a good EA plan and many good solutions, but still struggle with your IT architecture?

References

• Mastering Enterprise Solution Modeling/Gu, Sean. APRESS, 2024

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