Enterprise Systems Architecture

I recently completed a short assignment, where my focus was to deliver a High-Level Design (HLD) document using the client's template,  for an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) replacement/implementation project at the delivery stage of the project lifecycle. Before you ask - yes, this artefact was pushed 'down the road' to the delivery phase of the project and yes, this is not best practice - but that's material for another blog. Let's start by stating that a High-Level Design (HLD) document should NOT be confused with a Solution Design (SD) document, as both have purposes that provide specific lenses for their audiences, who require different views and level of detail. The HLD presents the high-level view for senior stakeholders ( business and technical ), who wish to understand the drivers for change, a view of the proposed system, its components, costs, and the resources required to achieve the desired outcome to name but a few. As one would expect the ...

  Today’s short blog, the first for 2024, derives from recent work in which I required a classic Table of Contents (TOC) for a Solution Design( SD ) Document/ Artefact. To create this TOC, I began by listing elements one would expect to see in the artefact i.e. primary section headers, which is challenging when you consider the ‘ purpose’ of the document, and  the target audience both of which impact the overall structure of the document. For most artefacts, it would be prudent to tailor the SD to meet the needs and challenges of the specific  problem. For example, a basic SD for a new in-house development may be very technical, especially when the target audience may be the Systems Community ( Developers, Testers, Service Management etc.) and resulting in an artefact with the content and focus on  Component Views(Building Module Blocks) , Deployment Views and the Runtime Operations .  So, when I considered the elements for the SD Artefact I wanted...

Sharing the full video ,2hr 45 minutes, of my recent seminar delivered to the MBA Students of the American University in Cairo (AUC).  I recommend skipping 1.30-1-55 of the video as this was the break period, as the camera was left on. There is a lot of content with some great questions - hope you find it useful. Enterprise Systems Architecture Seminar at the AUC Egypt . https:// youtu.be/ztOYZYa4FcI Any questions please contact me direct.

Let me start by apologising, as todays blog can be considered, by some , as content of little value to support macro EA views and a topic where information can be sourced easily via the web or by using AI tools (fast becoming everyday tools). However I felt I would   share this reference type  material, as error codes are always required for those building information systems. FYI recently I had to examine various  http error codes used in  a Cloud based API management system in respect of the flows of  message exchanges and conduct analysis of non-typical scenarios e.g. a missing authentication token resulting in an invalid exchange between the backend and the API Gateway. Under normal operational conditions, interactions between two or more system will result in the exchange numerous codes which notify each system of task status e.g. a 200 return code will represents that all is well and allows the process continuation of further orchestration of a workflo...