Application and/or Practice of Architectural Principles

The third grouping of topics included within the Architecture 'Resources' Repository concentrates its focus on the application and/or practice of architectural principles. Represented by the four blue books located on the left-hand side of the bottom shelf, these sub-categories include:

• Industry Standards


• Implementations


• Products


• Consulting Firms

Perhaps the most important Industry Standard related to IT Architecture is IEEE 1471, a specification that addresses the activities related to the creation, analysis, and sustainment of architectures, and the recording of such architectures in terms of architectural descriptions.

Under the category labeled Implementations, my hope and dream is that real-world IT architects will open up their treasure chests of knowledge and experience and share with others their documented description of real solutions, referencing the tools and methodologies they used to be successful. Obviously, accomplishing this goal depends on the voluntary involvement and contribution by practitioners such as members of IASA (International Association of Software Architects).

The third and fourth sub-categories listed under Application and/or Practice specify Products and Consulting Firms. I will try to provide objective descriptions void of hype and marketing fluff. It's imperative, however, that people submit the names of tools and consultancies. If visitors to the Architecture 'Resources' Repository express an interest, I could possibly include an evaluation grading feature similar to the functionality offered in ITscout.