Page History

What is your name and title?

Louis King, Enterprise Architect
Andrew Newman, Director-Design Services 

• How did your architecture practice get started?

Yale's CIO established the inaugural position of Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in 2013. The Office of the CTO was established one year later, in 2014. The Office was charged to lead architectural governance and technology strategy development within Information Technology Services (ITS) and where possible, across the University. Staffed with three, full-time, enterprise architects the office focused on strategy development, architecture reviews, technology roadmap development, portfolio lifecycle management, and architecture consultation. In response to budgetary pressures on ITS the size of the office was reduced in subsequent years and upon the departure of the CTO, the remaining capability was moved to the Infrastructure Design Services team. It currently operates there and works closely with a newly established Technology Architecture Standards Team that together will recommend future directions.

• What is the focus of your practice – e.g., enterprise, business, technical, solution, data architecture?

The Enterprise Architecture and Design Services capability focuses primarily on the application, data, and technology architecture of enterprise services, architectural governance of solution architecture, and digital transformation in a few areas that the team has deep expertise in the business functions of the University.

• Enterprise services architecture-application, data, and technology architecture
  • Cloud architecture and self service
  • Compute, storage, and network
  • Research computing
  • Enterprise Resource Planning, Student Information Systems, Business Intelligence, Collaboration Suite, etc.
  • Security, business continuity, and disaster recovery
• Architecture governance via an architecture review board
• Solution design consultation
• Digital transformation in select University domains 

• How big is your practice and where is it located in the organization?

Yale's EA capabilities are led through the Infrastructure Design Services team. While Yale does not explicitly call this an EA practice, the capabilities of the office align closely to EA. The office has the director, one full-time enterprise architect, and four full-time senior solution architects.

What is your practice model for working with related teams – e.g., federated architecture practice?

The Design Services Team leads a federated approach to delivering EA capabilities. It works closely with 5-10 other architects and solution designers in ITS. It also works closely with IT Partners across campus. The Technology Architecture Committee (TAC) (Yale's architecture review board) includes architects and technology leaders from key departments of the University.

• How would you describe the maturity of your architecture practice in terms of:

• See the Higher Education Enterprise Architecture Maturity Model for more about:
  • Scope definition - 2
  • Engagement - 2
  • Impact assessment - 2
  • Delivery - 2
  • Management - 3

• What are major trends you see in your practice and your enterprise?

• Continued automation of infrastructure and application deployment
• The use of Software Defined Networking in cloud and local environments
• Increased awareness and investment in data governance 

• How does your team manage its work internally and on projects?

• Each architect manages their own projects
• The Technology Architecture Committee allows for cross domain discussion and inclusion
• Time is recorded in an ITS project tracking and effort reporting system

• What are your major challenges?

• Earning full buy-in from the Senior Leadership Team in ITS
• Portfolio projects demanding exceptions to architectural best practices for expedience
• Identifying architecture opportunities

• What projects have been your major focus lately?

• Next generation network
• Azure cloud development
• Operations and security monitoring
• Business Intelligence
• Standards development
• Cultural and Natural Heritage shared infrastructure