Key Solution Architecture Focus Areas During a Project

As an architect, you can expect at some point in your career to be involved in a critical, front‑line, turbulent project or program. In such cases you must rely on the technical, political and social skills you have acquired over years of work in the information and communications technology field.

Today's blog (written on a train to Coventry, London) reminds us that a general solution architect must consider certain “foundations” when handling complex projects. These system‑oriented considerations are always at the forefront of project involvement and need to be addressed during the analysis, design and construction phases of system building/delivery, while keeping the end result in sight.

As with most things in life, the listed items obviously depend on the domain you operate in; for example, if you are working on a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) solution, your primary focus will be real‑time monitoring, data acquisition, and processes. Conversely, if you are developing a retail banking application, your focus will shift toward regulatory compliance and reporting.

The list is not exhaustive, it is only a general illustration. However, when we examine most ICT projects we usually find a common pattern: raw data is collected, transformed into information, and then digital processes consume it and generate reports, enabling the enterprise to perform value‑adding activities or actions.

The flow is illustrated in the diagram below, where thought bubbles represent the areas listed in the subsequent tables.

Daily Solution Architecture Focus During a Project

Digital Data

Consider

Explanation

Collect

How will the project elements collect the "raw data" – physical/logical aspects and related transport protocols, etc.?

Extract‑Transform‑Load

If the data has no structure, what "mould" will you use before storage? What shaping or transformation is required?

Store

Once collected, how will the system physically store the data – as‑is, or will it be reorganised, indexed, metadata created, etc.?

Cleanse

Do we need to clean the data or isolate it, placing it in a temporary staging area before publishing?

Protect

How will the data be protected during collection, transformation and storage to maintain integrity and prevent malicious activity?

Source

Understanding the data source—whether SCADA devices, repositories or third‑party feeds—is critical to ensure upstream feeds remain unchanged.

Ingest

Even though raw data may link to multiple objects (e.g., spatial data with geometric coordinates), validation must occur at the ingestion stage.

Information

Consider

Explanation

Manage

The "information lifecycle" requires extensive management throughout the project lifecycle and after go‑live.

Classify

Information, as an asset, needs classification so that protective labeling can be applied for its use and management.

Transform

One of the biggest value‑adding activities in ICT projects is converting data into a more valuable representation.

Govern

Data control and usage must be managed to ensure compliance with enterprise standards and policies.

Visualize

Visualization is often a by‑product of collecting large amounts of data that need to be presented or simplified for consumption.

Cost

The actual and nominal costs of producing, retaining, and distributing information.

Intelligence

The process of aggregating large data sets to provide information, which in turn yields actionable intelligence.

Process Execution and Orchestration

Consider

Explanation

Define

Functional and non‑functional definitions of a process.

Orchestrate

Orchestration of the defined process and its associated triggers.

Interaction (internal/external)

Processes can be executed outside the organization, but thereafter …

BPM – Modeling

Actual modeling of business processes.

RACI

Roles and responsibilities for a process (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed).

Execute

How is the process executed? What triggers or events start the process?

Symbols/Graphic Tools

Most organisations have complex processes with many dependencies that cannot be simply represented in text; numerous tools exist to capture process flows, swim‑lanes, etc., graphically.

Reporting

Consider

Explanation

Dynamic/Static Reports

Static reports are predefined data sources and structures; dynamic reports are generated on‑the‑fly without a fixed structure or hard‑coded variables.

Localization

When deploying globally, reporting must consider localization requirements, which is important for compliance in countries such as Brazil.

Data Source/Query Executor

These are the “bread and butter” for solution architects – what sources and queries will the reports be based on?

Reusable Report Structure

Structure

Charts

Template

Elements and Style

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