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This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book

Sun Certified Enterprise Architecture for J2EE Technology Study GuideSun Certified Enterprise Architecture for J2EE Technology Study Guide

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This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book

Sun Certified Enterprise Architecture for J2EE Technology Study GuideSun Certified Enterprise Architecture for J2EE Technology Study Guide

Learn More Buy

1.2 Role of the Architect

"The ideal architect should be a person of letters, a mathematician, familiar with historical studies, a diligent student of philosophy, acquainted with music, not ignorant of medicine, learned in the responses of jurisconsults, familiar with astronomy and astronomical calculations."—Vitruvius, circa 25 BC

Vitruvius was not referring to a software architect, but the basic idea is that the architect should have the following characteristics. An architect should be a person who is well-rounded, mature, experienced, educated, learns quickly, a leader, communicates well and can make the difficult decision when necessary. For architects to be well-rounded, they must have a working knowledge of the business or problem domain. They can gain this knowledge through experience or education. In addition, architects must have a broad knowledge of technology. An architect might have first-hand experience with a particular technology, but they must have at least a general understanding of competing technologies to make informed decisions about which technology can work best. A good architect evaluates all possible solutions to a problem regardless of the technology being used.

What does the architect do? What is the difference between an architect compared with a senior developer? These are some of the common questions asked. The designer is concerned with what happens when a user presses a button and the architect is concerned with what happens when ten thousand users press a button. An architect mitigates the technical risks associated with a system. A technical risk is something that is unknown, unproven, or untested. Risks are usually associated with the service-level requirements and can occasionally be associated with a business requirement. Regardless of the type of risk, it is easier to address the risks early in the project while creating an architecture, then to wait until construction when you have a large developer base that could potentially be waiting while risks are solved.

An architect must lead the development team to ensure the designers and developers build the system according to the architecture. As the leader, difficult decisions must be made about trade-offs in the system and the architect is the person who must make those decisions. To lead, the architect must be a good written and oral communicator. It is up to the architect to communicate the system to the designers and developers who will build it. This is typically done with visual models and group discussions. If the architect cannot communicate effectively, then the designers and developers will probably not build the system correctly.

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