Technology Architecture
Platforms, runtimes and infrastructure standards across the estate.
5 to work through
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beginner
An internal team and a packaged-software vendor both pick the same message serialisation format this quarter. Two years later the internal team replaces it in a single sprint. The vendor still supports it and expects to for another decade - an ERP vendor in SAP's position has customers whose 12-year-old integrations must keep working across a major release. Nothing about the technology differs. What makes the same choice a different decision for each of them?
3 min answer -
intermediate Multiple choice
A language runtime used by 180 of 240 services leaves vendor support in 14 months. Services are owned by 40 teams with their own roadmaps, and the upgrade is mostly mechanical but breaks in about 15% of cases. Which approach gets the estate upgraded?
3 min answer -
intermediate
An organisation's technology choices from five years ago now constrain its options. How should technology lifecycle be managed rather than discovered?
2 min answer -
intermediate
How would you decide which technologies in an estate need attention first?
2 min answer -
advanced
An enterprise's technology architecture standards assume commodity compute. A new workload requires specialised hardware, specific interconnect and a different operational model. How should standards handle this?
2 min answer
2 terms in this topic
Technology Architecture
The platforms, infrastructure and runtimes the estate depends on — where the recurring architectural problem is obsolescence rather than choice.
practiceTechnology Stack Standardisation
Converging on a supported set of platforms, languages and tools to reduce operational surface, while allowing justified exceptions.
Neighbouring topics
Enterprise Architecture
General material on architecture at portfolio and estate scale.
EA Domains
Business, application, data and technology architecture as viewpoints.
Application Architecture
The application estate as a designed portfolio rather than an accumulation.
Capability Maps in EA
The stable frame for hanging investment, ownership and health off.
Application Portfolio Management
Inventory, ownership, cost and health for every application.
Application Rationalisation
Retire, consolidate, replatform — and why retirement is under-applied.
Technology Standards
Guidance that teams follow because it helps, not because it is mandated.
Technology Radar
Adopt, trial, assess and hold — with movement, dates and owners.
Reference Architectures
Pre-approved templates for recurring solution shapes.
Architecture Governance
Preventive, automated controls rather than review meetings.
Architecture Review Boards
Thresholds, early engagement and a real route to accept deviation.
Enterprise Integration
Estate-wide integration strategy, standards and shared infrastructure.
TOGAF
The ADM as a checklist, tailored rather than followed literally.
EA Frameworks
Zachman, FEAF and others — vocabulary rather than method.
Architecture Roadmaps
Sequencing change across an estate with dependencies and funding.
Paved Roads
Making the supported path the easiest path, with a way to leave it.
Platform Teams
Reducing other teams' cognitive load, measured by adoption.
InnerSource
Open-source collaboration practices applied inside an organisation.
EA Metrics
Measuring whether architecture work changed anything.