Enterprise Application Architecture Playbook

Strategic Partner for Business Agility & Innovation

ðŸŽŊ
Vision

To be a strategic partner that enables business agility, innovation, and long-term success by providing a clear, adaptable, and robust technology blueprint for the enterprise.

⭐
Guiding Principles

ðŸŽŊ Business-First
All architectural decisions must directly support and align with the company's strategic business goals.
🔧 Simplicity & Consistency
Favor simple, maintainable solutions and promote consistent patterns across the enterprise.
ðŸ›Ąïļ Security by Design
Build security and regulatory compliance into the architecture from the very beginning.
🚀 Empowerment through Governance
Provide clear guardrails that enable teams to innovate while ensuring enterprise alignment.
📊 Data as Strategic Asset
Treat data with high importance, ensuring quality, security, and accessibility for business value.
⚡ Resiliency & Scalability
Design systems to be highly available, fault-tolerant, and capable of efficient scaling.

ðŸĒ
EA Organization Structure

D
Director of EA
Defines vision & strategy, aligns with leadership
C
Chief Architect
Technical leadership & key technology decisions
E
Enterprise Architects
Long-term strategic blueprint for enterprise
S
Solution Architects
Embed with projects, translate requirements
X
Specialized Architects
Domain experts: Data, Integration, Security, Cloud

⚖ïļ
Architecture Review Board Process

1
Project Initiation
Follow reference architectures & patterns
2
Architectural Review
Formal review for high-impact projects
3
Approval
Feedback, approval, or modification requests

🏗ïļ
Key Architectural Patterns

SOA
Service-Oriented Architecture
Loosely coupled, interoperable services communicating via well-defined contracts.
When to Use:
Large, complex systems with central ESB for service discovery and orchestration across multiple business domains.
ΞS
Microservices Architecture
Small, independently deployable services with own databases and business logic.
When to Use:
Applications requiring rapid scaling, continuous delivery, and independent team development.
EDA
Event-Driven Architecture
Components communicate asynchronously through events, promoting loose coupling.
When to Use:
Real-time reactive systems, e-commerce platforms, IoT applications, financial trading systems.
☁ïļ
Cloud-Based Architectures
Leveraging cloud services (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) with serverless functions and containers.
When to Use:
Modern applications needing on-demand scaling, reduced operational overhead, and cutting-edge technologies.

⚠ïļ
Risk Management & Mitigation

SOA/Microservices Risk: Complexity & Operational Overhead
Mitigation: Strong governance, automated monitoring/logging, dedicated DevOps team
EDA Risk: Debugging & Data Consistency Challenges
Mitigation: Centralized logging/tracing, event schema validation, transactional outbox patterns
Cloud Risk: Cost Overruns, Security, Vendor Lock-in
Mitigation: Cost management tools, least privilege principle, portability design with open standards

ðŸĪ
Communication & Collaboration

ðŸ‘Ĩ
Architectural Guilds
Communities of practice for specific technologies to foster knowledge sharing
ðŸŽĪ
Regular Tech Talks
Internal presentations and workshops to share decisions and best practices
📚
Documentation
Clear, up-to-date documentation as single source of truth for all teams