The IT architect role is the enterprise system architect role responsible for architecting the IT architecture in support of the IT manager role.
The IT manager role uses the IT architecture in support of IT capability management of the IT capability system.
The IT architect role as a team member has inter-dependencies with other team members and what the others do. With the knowledge of how everyone fits in and the setting of expectations between everyone, the team will be a team and will be able to best utilize the talent of the individuals.
As shown in Figure 65 – IT Architect Concept Diagram, the IT architect role has architecture responsibilities for
- applications
- procured services
- infrastructure
- information utilization
- telecommunications
- IT management
and is interconnected with and interdependent on the
- enterprise architect role
- business architect role
- process architect role
- information architect role
- system architect role
- service architect role
Figure 65 – IT Architect Concept Diagram
EA Practitioners in the IT Architect Role
In practice, the IT architect role is often divided by the specialty areas into the sub-roles of the application architect role, platform architect role, infrastructure architect role, utilization architect role, telecommunications architect role, and management architect role. In practice, the infrastructure architect role is often divided into the middleware architect role, platform architect role, storage architect role, network architect role, and security architect role.
When the IT architect role is divided into sub-roles, the IT architect role enables and assures these architectural roles are integrated in their efforts so their architectures integrate and with other architectures outside the IT architecture.
Similarly, the infrastructure architect role enables and assures the architect roles within infrastructure are integrated in their efforts so their architectures integrate and with other architectures of the IT architecture.
It should be noted in practice, the IT architect role is often fully or partially combined with the enterprise architect role or other architectural roles to provide an organizationally needed job (a “specialty”) to address special needs and other organizational needs and limitations of the organization.