Responsibility and role of the system architect (RPM)

Responsibility and role of the system architect (RPM)

"Occupation Name"

Systems Architect (System Architecture)

"Career Orientation"

System architecture, is to determine the needs of the technology to achieve the framework, planning, the use of complete sets of tools, in the planning process to complete the task.

A System architect (also known as an Enterprise Architect or system architect) is a final validation and evaluation system requirement, provides development specifications, builds the core architecture of the system implementation, and clarifies technical details and clears the key difficulties of the technician. He/she focuses on the "technical realization" of the system. Therefore, he/she should be the master of a particular development platform, language, tool, the most appropriate solution for common scenarios, and a sufficient understanding of the respective development team to assess the cost of their team's ability to meet specific functional requirements.

The System Architect is responsible for designing the overall architecture of the system, from the requirements to the design of every detail to take into account, to grasp the entire project, so that the design of the project as efficient, easy to develop, maintenance convenient, upgrade simple, and so on.

"Job Responsibilities"

The role of the system architect is to design a company's infrastructure and provide guidelines on how to establish and maintain the system. Specifically, the role of the system Architect is mainly reflected in the following aspects,

1 responsible for the company's system architecture design, research and development work;
2 undertake the bridge function from the business to the technology transformation;
3 Assist the project manager to develop the project plan and control the project progress;
4 responsible for assisting and directing SA to carry out design work;
5 responsible for organizing technical research and tackling the work;
6 responsible for organizing and managing the technical training work within the company;
7 responsible for organizing and leading the company's internal staff research and project-related new technologies.
8 Manage technical Support team and provide technical support to project and product development implementation team.
9 understand the business requirements of the system and develop the overall framework of the system (including, technical framework and business framework)
10 Train the technology and business of the system framework and instruct the developer. and solve various problems in the system development and operation.
11 to the system reuse, extension, security, performance, scalability, concise and so do the system-level grasp.

The job of a system architect is to sift through the best technical solutions for different situations rather than to sink into specific implementation details. In addition, the system architect is not cultivated, a good system architect may not be a good programmer, but can not understand the difference between the technology, technology trends, the use of the technology's current cost and subsequent costs, the technology and the specific application of the degree of coupling, self-deployment of resources, research and development may encounter risks, How to avoid risk. These are the main things architects need to consider.

In addition, it must be noted that the architecture is divided into two types, the first is the design of the infrastructure planning, such as: OS, hardware, network, various application servers and so on.

The second is the software development and design of the architect, they are responsible for planning the operating mode of the program, hierarchy, call relationship, planning specific implementation of the type of technology, and even with the entire team to do software development project management.

"The role of the system architect"

How does a system architect implement the functions of its "architecture" enterprise? Especially when designing an enterprise IT strategy, how does it reflect the architect's value?

This is illustrated by examples,

Toby Redshaw, vice president of Motorola, says that architects are "the backbone of IT strategy" and that this role has a real impact on the company. When Toby Reshaw entered Motorola in 2001 as Vice president of strategy and architecture, he was like a buyer who valued a shaky apartment. Rather than merely making superficial changes, he has devised a plan to rebuild the entire Motorola infrastructure that will overhaul the company's infrastructure. Like an architect designing a house, Redshaw the blueprint for a technical architecture, a technical building so that what he calls "spaghetti-like applications, machines, and pipelines" becomes orderly. He says that with the right architecture strategy in the right people, motorcycles can produce a lot of applications faster than before, and can reduce the cost of maintaining overlapping systems. Redshaw said, "If you don't even have a building structure, what's the use even if your Mason technology is brilliant?" Architects are the backbone of the IT strategy. "System architects like Redshaw have a very strong influence within the enterprise. For a long time, although they have been holding important positions in the information technology sector, they have often been entrusted with providing a comprehensive profile analysis and proposing a number of recommendations on how to comply with these standards, which have very limited impact on daily operations. Today, as companies look to rebuild their IT systems to make them more cost-effective and flexible, architects are increasingly seen as a critical factor.

The goal of a well-defined architecture is to reduce the cost of running complex computing systems. A company can use a specific database configuration, such as a Microsoft database, to standardize the system without requiring each department of the company to install the database server they need.

Andy Miller, vice president of technical architecture at Express, said: "If you don't have a strong architecture strategy, everyone fragmentation and end up with six servers and software platforms, your system becomes a hodgepodge, and that will make your expenses soar." "Independent architects have many benefits, such as the overall grasp of the system, quality assurance, technical advances, architectural flexibility, efficiency, but also effectively reduce costs." Imagine, 1 month salary 1w Architect + 10 Month Salary 5k engineer, certainly than 11 month salary 6k of senior engineer effect better. In general, the higher the level of the architect, the more experienced, the number of people competing to hire, they are also closely related to the company's overall IT strategy professionals.

"The competence of the system architect"

As a design architect of software development, it is necessary to have some programming skills, as well as a high degree of learning new architecture design and programming skills. In addition, I think as a software architect, must also understand a certain hardware, network, server basic knowledge. Otherwise, you do not know what materials can be used, how do you go according to the actual situation to plan your software architecture? Ignoring the ability of program design to keep up with the new, is never able to become a successful system architect.

In general, a system architect should have the ability to:

1. Have more than 8 years working experience in software industry;
2, with more than 4 years of C/S/b system structure software product development and architecture and design experience;
3, with more than 3 years of code writing experience;
4, with a wealth of large and medium-sized development projects overall planning, program design and technical team management experience;
5, the relevant technical standards have a deep understanding of the software engineering standards have a good grasp;
6, to. Net/java technology and the entire solution has a deep understanding and proficiency in the application, and proficient in WEBSERVICE/J2EE architecture and design patterns, and based on the design of product framework;
7, with object-oriented analysis, design, development capabilities (OOA, OOD, OOP), proficient in UML and rose, skilled use of rational ROSE, PowerDesigner and other tools for design and development;
8, proficient in large-scale database such as Oracle, SQL Server and other development;
9, the computer system, network and security, application system architecture, etc. have a comprehensive understanding, familiar with the project management theory, and have a practical foundation;
10, in the application system development platform and project management has a deep foundation, has large and medium-sized application system development and implementation of successful cases;
11, good team spirit and cooperation, strong internal and external communication skills.

"The difference between a system architect and another role"

Relationship between system architect and product manager The Product Manager usually refers to the "person" who is responsible for the product design. A good ideal product manager, should also have high business quality and strong technical background. The product manager has a deep field of experience, which means it is very familiar with the business areas that the software system is to be applied to. For example, product managers who develop real estate sales software should be familiar with the standard sales processes of real estate companies, even more clearly than most sales staff. If you develop a generic product, he or she has deep insight into the needs of the market and potential customers.

So what is the difference between a system architect and a product manager?

We should not confuse the two, this is a lot of discussion and practice often made mistakes. It seems to me that if we compare development software to filmmaking, the product manager is to the system architect, just as the writer is to the director. Although the product manager must have a certain technical background, but still should belong to "business person (businesspeople)", and the system architect is certainly a technical expert. The standpoint, the angle and the starting point of the problem are completely different.

Relationship between system architect and project Manager software project manager refers to the project control/management, concerned about the progress of the project itself, quality, distribution, transfer, coordination, management of good people, wealth, materials and other resources of the person in charge. For software project managers, it includes project planning, progress tracking/monitoring, quality assurance, Configuration/release/release/change management, and personnel performance evaluation. The quality of a good project manager requires not only the use of several software or the understanding of a number of abstract methodological principles, but also the valuable experience gained from a large number of project practices, as well as the ability to communicate, coordinate, motivate, and even to have some charisma or leadership temperament (CHARISMA).

This shows that there are significant differences in responsibilities between project managers and system architects. Confusing these two roles often leads to inefficient, disorderly development. In particular, from the personality factors, simple technical staff tend to ignore the "people" factor, and this is a major aspect of management activities. In addition, like the Air Force cover in the War (Aircover), full-time project managers are able to cope with a large number of occasional events and chores in the development process, and for a slightly larger project, these chores can themselves occupy almost all of a full-length author's hours. In a project, it is the system architect, not the project manager, that drives the project forward. The responsibility of the project manager is to coordinate with the system architect to provide support in all areas. The main responsibility is to communicate and manage resources (including people) with internal and external departments. The system architect proposes the overall structure of the system and gives the development guidance. What is the role of the project manager in a project? If he is a manager and designer, he must be better than others and be able to have something for others to wear. If he is only a project manager, the system architect has a dedicated staff, you can not master or understand the knowledge of all aspects of it, if the better understanding. In addition, if no one in a project is fully responsible for the technical architecture and development guidance, everyone is responsible for a fast architecture, analysis, design, code, and implementation, and will eventually lose management.

System Architect and system analyst relationship and difference System Analyst (Systemanalyst) is the person who analyzes, designs and leads the implementation of system development. Generally speaking, the level of the system analyst will affect the quality of the system development, or even success or failure. However, in a sound system development team, there is also the need for business experts, technical experts and other supporting staff. Therefore, the system analyst is only one of the roles. But many IT companies in China, generally only system analysts and no technical experts. System analysts are the analysis and design of specific systems. So his mission and goals are clear. He's just going to perform the task and complete the final design of the system.

The system architect should be separated from the system analyst, but the architect must have all the capabilities of the system analyst, and should have a lot of capabilities that the designer does not have. The system Architect is the work of instructing and prosecuting the system analyst, asking the system analyst according to what Standard, what tool, what mode, what technology to design the system. At the same time, the system architect should put forward the solution to the problem that the system analyst put forward, and solve the difficulty in time. And check and review the work of the system analyst.

"How to evaluate the performance of your system architect"

A good system architect is the key to ensuring a strong vitality of the software system. The professional architect can help the company to fully study the existing architecture and design patterns, evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the system design and the possible risks, through a series of thematic guidance and specific cases to help the company master the advanced, mature design patterns, simplify complex business logic and requirements, determine the system is most suitable for corporate solutions. If necessary, you can also provide customized guidance to developers on specific areas or topics. Through the above introduction, we have a more profound understanding of the system architect, we understand the status of the system architect, role, job responsibilities and conditions, but also distinguish with other roles, then how to assess the performance of the system architect, how to identify a qualified and excellent system architect is not difficult.

Specifically, we can evaluate the performance of the system architect in the following ways:

1, whether the system architect is an expert in a technical field;
2, the System Architect can guide the design work of the analyst, find out and point out the problems of design and propose solutions, review their work;
3, the system architect can instruct the software engineer to carry out the development work, discover and point out the problem of the coding and propose the solution, review their work;
4, the System architect can assist the project manager to develop the project plan and control the project progress;
5, the system architect can timely and effectively solve the problems of design, development personnel, solve the technical difficulties;
6, the system architect can formulate and standardize the system design and development of documents, tools, models, can make other people easy to understand;
7, the system architect can often organize and lead the company internal staff research, learning and project-related new technologies;
8, the system architect can organize and manage the internal technical training work, technical research and key work;
9, the system architect can organize and manage the internal technical training work, technical research and key work;
10, the system architect has a good team spirit and collaboration, strong internal and external communication skills;
11, whether the system architect can manage the technical support team and provide technical assurance to the project, product development and implementation team;
12, the system architect design system structure is reasonable, whether the technology is advanced, can meet customer requirements;
13, the system architecture is scalable, security, can withstand stress testing, network traffic in the number of super-users how;
14, how to deal with the boundary of control system, how to solve the bottleneck problem;
15, the system design, the mid-term, the latter to solve the problem, whether there are stages, milestone identification;
16, whether to analyze, identify and avoid risk as far as possible, reduce the risk of the problem caused by the cost of the ability;
17, can give the company to reduce development costs, improve efficiency;

Responsibility and role of the system architect (RPM)