Architect 2 Architect

Hi Fellow Architects - Here are some common questions Architects often have to deal with when trying to build/ define a Platform. Of course, I would like to hear from the experienced among you to seed this discussion. What is the purpose of the Platform? Is it for others to build business capabilities or else is this for serving up some business capability that is your competitive advantage. The former may be called Infrastructure as a Service and the later Information as a Service. This informs your decision on how much of the interface to expose. The first, Infrastructure as a Service, requires you tighten the integration and management interface and the integration pathways via strict SLAs and service contracts that drive both the infrastructure usage patterns, infrastructure management and billing. The later, Information as a Service, drives you to define the service contract that is unique to your business needs with very tight service definition and service usage crit

Hi Fellow Architects, Master Data has almost become a boring topic these days but I still find that many orgnaizations have not yet either harnessed the power of their master data or else have not really turned the corner on the "Master Data Project" which is now becoming an unwieldy expensive never ending project.  I was wondering if any of you have had success stories in this space and have been able to come up with some simple best practices on tocpics related to master data such as the following - a) how do you determine what is valuable information to be mastered and what not to? b) how do you determine if the master data continues to be of relavance to the enterprise? c) how the profile of master data has changed in the world of social networking etc.? Your feedback is always welcome!! -- Best Regards. surekha -