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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
The ultimate guide to successful interviews for Enterprise, Business, Domain, Solution, and Technical Architect roles as well as IT Advisory Consultant and Software Designer roles
About This Book
- Learn about Enterprise Architects IT strategy and NFR – this book provides you with methodologies, best practices, and frameworks to ace your interview
- A holistic view of key architectural skills and competencies with 500+ questions that cover 12 domains
- 100+ diagrams depicting scenarios, models, and methodologies designed to help you prepare for your interview
Who This Book Is For
This book is for aspiring enterprise, business, domain, solution, and technical architects. It is also ideal for IT advisory consultants and IT designers who wish to interview for such a role. Interviewers will be able leverage this book to make sure they hire candidates with the right competencies to meet the role requirements.
What You Will Learn
- Learn about IT strategies, NFR, methodologies, best practices, and frameworks to ace your interview
- Get a holistic view of key concepts, design principles, and patterns related to evangelizing web and Java enterprise applications
- Discover interview preparation guidelines through case studies
- Use this as a reference guide for adopting best practices, standards, and design guidelines
- Get a better understanding with 60+ diagrams depicting various scenarios, models, and methodologies
- Benefit from coverage of all architecture domains including EA (Business, Data, Infrastructure, and Application), SA, integration, NFRs, security, and SOA, with extended coverage from IT strategies to the NFR domain
In Detail
An architect attends multiple interviews for jobs or projects during the course of his or her career. This book is an interview resource created for designers, consultants, technical, solution, domain, enterprise, and chief architects to help them perform well in interview discussions and launch a successful career.
The book begins by providing descriptions of architecture skills and competencies that cover the 12 key domains, including 350+ questions relating to these domains. The goal of this book is to cover all the core architectural domains. From an architect's perspective, it is impossible to revise or learn about all these key areas without a good reference guide – this book is the solution. It shares experiences, learning, insights, and proven methodologies that will benefit practitioners, SMEs, and aspirants in the long run.
This book will help you tackle the NFR domain, which is a key aspect pertaining to architecting applications.
It typically takes years to understand the core concepts, fundamentals, patterns, and principles related to architecture and designs. This book is a goldmine for the typical questions asked during an interview and will help prepare you for success!
Style and approach
This book will help you prepare for interviews for architectural profiles by providing likely questions, explanations, and expected answers. It is an insight-rich guide that will help you develop strategic, tactical, and operational thinking for your interview.
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Seitenzahl: 404
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
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Table of Contents
Cracking the IT Architect Interview
Cracking the IT Architect Interview
Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: November 2016
Production reference: 1251116
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
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ISBN 978-1-78712-169-0
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Credits
Author
Sameer Paradkar
Copy Editor
Safis Editing
Reviewer
James D Miller
Project Coordinator
Shweta H Birwatkar
Commissioning Editor
Veena Pagare
Proofreader
Safis Editing
Acquisition Editor
Lester Frias
Indexer
Aishwarya Gangawane
Content Development Editor
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Graphics
Disha Haria
Technical Editor
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Production Coordinator
Nilesh Mohite
About the Author
Sameer Paradkar is an enterprise architect with 15+ years of solid experience in the ICT industry which spans across consulting, systems integration, and product development. He is an Open Group TOGAF, Oracle Master Java EA, TMForum NGOSS, IBM SOA Solutions, IBM Cloud Solutions, IBM MobileFirst, ITIL Foundation V3 and COBIT 5 certified enterprise architect. He serves as an advisory architect on enterprise architecture programs and continues to work as a subject matter expert. He has worked on multiple architecture transformations and modernization engagements in the USA, UK, Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East Regions that presented a phased roadmap to the transformation that maximized the business value while minimizing risks and costs.
Sameer is part of IT Strategy and Transformation Practice in AtoS. Prior to AtoS, he has worked in organizations such as EY - IT Advisory, IBM GBS, Wipro Consulting Services, TechMahindra, and Infosys Technologies and specializes in IT strategies and enterprise transformation engagements.
I would like to dedicate this book to my wife, family members and friends for their encouragement, support and love.
Many people throughout my career have directly and indirectly contributed to this book. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge their contribution, influence, and inspiration. I believe I am lucky to have found opportunities to work with extremely talented and exceptions individuals who extended their wholehearted support throughout my career. My eternal thanks to them for believing in me and providing exciting opportunities. I would like to thank my team members, chief and lead architects, mentors, discussion partners, reviewers, and supporters, whose valuable comments and feedback have significantly contributed to this book. I look forward to your comments and valuable inputs on an on-going basis. I would like to recognize and thank my current and former colleagues who made my corporate journey exciting, enriching and fulfilling.
About the Reviewer
James D Miller is an IBM certified expert, creative innovator and accomplished director, senior project leader and application/system architect with more than 35 years of extensive applications and system design and development experience across multiple platforms and technologies. Experiences include introducing customers to new and sometimes disruptive technologies and platforms, integrating with IBM Watson Analytics, Cognos BI, TM1 and Web architecture design, systems analysis, GUI design and testing, database modelling and systems analysis, design, and development of OLAP, Client/Server, web and mainframe applications and systems utilizing: IBM Watson Analytics, IBM Cognos BI and TM1 (TM1 rules, TI, TM1Web and planning manager), Cognos Framework Manager, dynaSight - ArcPlan, ASP, DHTML, XML, IIS, MS Visual Basic and VBA, Visual Studio, PERL, SPLUNK, WebSuite, MS SQL Server, ORACLE, SYBASE Server, and so on.
Responsibilities have also included all aspects of Windows and SQL solution development and design including: analysis; GUI (and website) design; data modelling; table, screen/form and script development; SQL (and remote stored procedures and triggers) development/testing; test preparation and management and training of programming staff. Other experience includes development of ETL infrastructure such as data transfer automation between mainframe (DB2, Lawson, Great Plains, and so on.) systems and client/server SQL server and web-based applications and integration of enterprise applications and data sources.
Mr. Miller has acted as Internet Applications Development manager responsible for the design, development, QA and delivery of multiple wesites including online trading applications, warehouse process control and scheduling systems, administrative and control applications. Mr. Miller also was responsible for the design, development and administration of a web-based financial reporting system for a 450 million dollar organization, reporting directly to the CFO and his executive team.
Mr. Miller has also been responsible for managing and directing multiple resources in various management roles including project and team leader, lead developer and applications development director.
Jim has authored Cognos TM1 Developers Certification Guide, Mastering Splunk, Learning IBM Watson Analytics, and a number of whitepapers on best practices such as Establishing a Center of Excellence and continues to post blogs on a number of relevant topics based upon personal experiences and industry best practices.
Jim is a perpetual learner continuing to pursue experiences and certifications, currently holding the following current technical certifications:
IBM Certified Business Analyst - Cognos TM1
IBM Cognos TM1 Master 385 Certification (perfect score 100% on exam)
IBM Certified Advanced Solution Expert - Cognos TM1
IBM Cognos TM1 10.1 Administrator Certification C2020-703 (perfect score 100% on exam)
IBM OpenPages Developer Fundamentals C2020-001-ENU (98% on exam)
IBM Cognos 10 BI Administrator C2020-622 (98% on exam)
IBM Cognos 10 BI Professional C2020-180
He has the following specialties, the evaluation and introduction of innovative and disruptive technologies, Cloud migration, IBM Watson Analytics, Big Data, Data Visualizations, Cognos BI and TM1 application Design and Development, OLAP, Visual Basic, SQL Server, Forecasting and Planning; International Application Development, Business Intelligence, Project Development & Delivery and process improvement.
I would like to thank Nanette L. Miller: “...who is always on my mind and always in my heart…”
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Preface
An architect typically attends several interviews and discussions for jobs or projects during his or her entire career. There is always a dire need to look up and read multiple books and references before these interviews/discussions so that you stay on top of things. I have had instances of archiving multiple sets of core references just for these interview discussions. I have worked for MNCs and big 4 consulting organizations in the past and have done tons of projects which required me to take up discussions with customers on an ongoing basis. It’s not easy to know beforehand which areas should one focus to for the preparations. In terms of the scope, this books gives a clear and concise picture of what to expect in such interviews and how to prepare for this critical juncture in your career.
From an architect's perspective, it is not possible to revise or learn all these key areas without a good reference artifact. The goal of this title is to cover all the core architectural domains. This artifact will assist the solution, domain and enterprise architects to perform well in their interview discussions and to launch a successful career. This book also tackles the NFR domain which is the key aspect to be addressed while architecting applications.
The interviewers will also be able to leverage this book to make sure they hire a candidate with the right competencies depending on the job requirements. This book contains a broad range of topics relating to design and architecture and is written in a concise way supplemented with diagrams and tables.
This book will also assist all solution and enterprise architects to become competent in their respective areas. Usually, it takes years to understand the core concepts, fundamentals, patterns and principles related to architecture and designs but this artifact is a gold mine that typically discussed during an interview. There will always be a need to work on architecture engagements where an architect may have limited or no expertise, but this book tackles all the critical domain to provide the right guidance for architects be in solution architecture or non-functional requirements or SOA. The best way to fast track this is to read relevant domain and proactively practice these on live projects. It has worked for me, and it will work for you as well.
This will be like one of those books you will have to retain in your library so that every time there is a discussion coming up you can quickly spend time reading and revisiting the key sections or domains.
The book also includes a probability indicator for each of the question to indicate the likelihood of this being asked during your discussion. The book has close to 14 domains and around 350+ questions covering these domains. Based on my past experience I can only say that you will have more than 80 % of the topics addressed in this book to be coming up in your next interview discussion.
The book is an honest attempt to share with a practitioner, SMEs and aspirants our experiences, learning, insights and proven methodologies that will benefit them in the long run.
All the best
Q & A breakup
Coverage of the book (expertise gained):
Key concepts that will be covered in the book are:
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Architects Role and Growth Path, this chapter will describes core architecture skills and competencies, architects role in ICT and consulting industries, architects growth -paths and competency framework.
Chapter 2, IT Strategy and Advisory, this chapter covers the Q&A for IT strategy and advisory domain. Meeting customer needs and demands and creating technology adoption roadmaps is the primary goal/objective for IT strategy engagements. By going through the type of questions asked related to vision, strategy and roadmaps of a company, you’ll be able to describe the key aspects such as best practices and frameworks, Concepts, principles and guidelines
Chapter 3, Enterprise Architecture and Modernization, this chapter covers the Q&A for enterprise architecture and modernization domain. Enterprise architecture is a collection of strategic information that describes business, application, data and infrastructure to operate the business. This also includes mission and goals, business processes, roles, organizational structures, information, applications and systems. The section includes Q&A for the enterprise architecture, application architecture, business architecture, and data architecture, infrastructure and security and architecture governance.
Chapter 4, SOA and Integration, this chapter covers the Q&A for SOA and integration domain. SOA is a set of design principles for building a suite of interoperable, flexible and reusable services based architecture. This section include Q&A for SOA key capabilities, SOA ROI, SOA modernization approaches, SOA entry points, ESB, BPEL, BPM, SOA and security, SOA KPIs, OSIMM, top-down and bottom-up approach, SOA patterns.
Chapter 5, Solution Architecture and Design, this chapter covers the Q&A for solution architecture and design domain. The Q&A covers the following areas JEE framework, OOAD-UML, session management, distributed DB, replication, performance issues, Spring framework, Hibernate, Agile model, MVC and design patterns
Chapter 6, Emerging Technology, this chapter covers the Q&A for emerging technologies which includes big data, cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), analytics, social media, and enterprise mobility.
Chapter 7, Methodologies, Frameworks and NFRs, this chapter covers the Q&A for frameworks and non functional requirements domain.An architecture framework provides principles and practices for creating and using the architecture description of a system. It structures architects' thinking by dividing the architecture description into domains, layers or views, and offers models-typically metrics and diagrams for documenting each view.
This chapter also covers the solutioning of NFRs providing insights into how they will be addressed in the solutioning phase. This section covers key NFRs that are most critical for any project and for each NFR provides the various alternatives pertaining to the solution, the design principle that needs to be applied to achieve the desired outcome for e.g. high availability or scalability or reliability as covered.
Chapter 8, Interview Preparations, this chapter covers interview preparations, competencies and case studies and summary.
Competency Heat-map
Who this book is for
The primary audiences for this title are the gamut of roles starting from IT consultant to chief architect who are responsible to lead and deliver strategic, tactical and operational engagements for fortune 100 customers worldwide. This title is for SMEs with background and competencies in IT advisory, designing and architecture and would like to gain advance and next level skills. The audiences for this book include:
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Chapter 1. Architect Roles and Growth Paths
A good architect is one who leads by example, and without a good understanding of the technology stack and business domain, an architect is not equipped to deliver the pre-requisite outcomes for the enterprise. The team members typically have deep-dive expertise in the specific technology areas but will lack confidence in the architect if he is not competent with in the domain or technology.
The architect is the bridge between the technology and the business team, and hence he/she must understand all aspects of the technology stack to be able to liaise with the business team. The architect must be conversant in the business domain in order to drive the team and all the stakeholders toward a common organizational goal. An architect might not be busy all the time, but he/she leverages decades of expertise to solve and monitor the organizational IT landscape, making quick decisions during various stages of the SDLC. The project manager handles the people management aspects, freeing the architect of the hassles of operational tasks.
An excellent architect is pretty much a hands-on person and should be able to mentor members of the design and implementation teams. He/she should be knowledgeable and competent to handle any complex situation.
An architect's success in interviews does not come easily. One has to spend hours prior to each interview, wading through various books and references for preparation. The motivation for this book was to consolidate all this information into a single reference guide that will save time prior to interviews and can be a ready reference for important topics that need to be revised before the interviews.
An architect's critical competencies
Architecture competencies are the ability to effectively carry out the functions and activities necessary to produce architectures that are aligned with organization's business goals. A competent software architect is one who produces high-quality software architectures with acceptable cost. The following paragraphs explain the critical qualities for an software architect:
Figure 1: Architects Compentencies
Architects' growth paths
Software architecture discipline has matured since its inception. This architecture practice is no longer reserved for the veteran practitioners. The core concepts and principles of this discipline can now be acquired in training programs, books and college curriculum. The discipline is turning from an art into a competency accessible through training and experience. A significant number of methodologies, frameworks and processes have been developed to support various perspectives of the architectural practice. A software architect is responsible for creating the most appropriate architecture for the enterprise or system to suit the business goals, fulfill user requirements, and achieve the desired business outcome.
A software architect's career starts with a rigorous education in computer science. An architect is liable for making the hardest decisions on software architecture and design. Hence he/she must have a sound understanding of the concepts, patterns, and principles independent of any programming languages.
There are a number of flavors of architect that exist: enterprise architect, business architect, business strategy architect, solution architect, infrastructure architect, security architect, integration architect, technical architect, systems architect and software designer.
There are other variations as well, but this section describes the previously mentioned flavors in more detail. Finally, for an architect, learning must never stop. Continuous participation in the communities and learning about new technologies, methodologies, and frameworks are mandatory for value creation and to stay ahead of the demand curve.
The following paragraphs describe various roles basis the role definition, artifacts and the competencies:
Figure 2: Architects Competencies
Enterprise architect/chief architect/lead architect
Enterprise architects create the CxO's vision and strategy for organizations. This includes defining strategic roadmaps, selecting appropriate technology stacks and providing guidance to the design and builds teams:
Artifacts: IT strategies, capability maps, city plans, integration strategies, as-is/to-be analysis, architectural principles, gap analysis, life cycle analysis, and application portfolio strategy.
Description: EAs help the chief technology officer/chief information officer/chief executive officer/chief marketing officer to ensure that the IT budgets are aligned with the organization's business strategy and that it will provide a competitive advantage for the enterprise. EAs are also responsible for establishing standards and frameworks and setting up a governance structure to align all the programs with the defined standards and frameworks. In some enterprises, this role may be merged with the CxO and has the title Chief Architect.
Competencies: Deep-dive competencies in IT and business, negotiation and leadership skills, experience in program management, governance, knowledge in enterprise architecture and modeling techniques.
Business architect
Business architects work with the business to thoroughly articulate the businesses operating model. They are competent in business architecture, capability modelling and business processes modeling. They also support solution architects with analysis of existing or new solutions.
Artifacts: Business process maps, use scenarios, information modeling.
Description: They are skilled to know how the IT application support the business needs and recommends capability or process improvements along with enterprise architects. Business architects also support ongoing engagements in the organization using their authority to ensure that projects deliver value to the business. Business architects drive the critical areas related to business process improvements. The business architect is also a critical resource in every organization.
Competencies: Deep knowledge in the business, process modeling, requirement analysis, and workshop leadership skills.
Domain architects
Domain architects focus on a specific domain and have deep expertise in that area.
Artifacts: Domain diagrams, domain maps, interfaces, technical interfaces, integration strategies.
Description: Typically these architects only concentrate on specific areas, for example, security architect, information architect, integration architect, infrastructure architect, data architect, business architect, and so on.
Competencies: Broad technical competencies, deep competencies in infrastructure, data models, service orientation, and a good understanding of enterprise architecture.
Solution architect
A solution architect is responsible for implementing strategic IT architecture.
Artifacts: Application diagrams, system maps, service interfaces, technical interfaces, integration strategies.
Description: Solution architects define the architectural solution, finalize the technology stack in adherence to principles and guidelines, handle stakeholder communications, and make critical decisions specific to technology options. The solution architect mediates between technology and business team members and various other stakeholders. The solution architect is the go to Subject Matter Expert (SME) for any technology decisions, challenges and conflicts.
Competencies: Broad technical knowledge, deep competencies in infrastructure and data models, service orientation, and good understanding of enterprise architecture.
Technical architect/designer
The technical architect is a SME in a specific technology or framework.
Artifacts: Frameworks, class models, patterns, and aspects.
Description: Technical architect have expertise in the underlying platform, its components, and are able to articulate the strengths and weakness of the technology platform. The TA is liable for creating and defining the best architecture leveraging this specific technology platform, and also mentoring the implementation teams. Technology architect are competent in different tools, the latest trends, and different architectural alternatives for implementing the solution.
Competencies: Deep knowledge in programming, frameworks, standards, and technical modeling.
Qualities of an architect
This describes the skills, knowledge, qualification, experience, or capability:
An architect's competency framework
The purpose of the architecture competency framework is to help architects understand the competencies for required different architect roles within the industry. To address this challenge, the architecture competency framework provides a standard set of guidelines for the architecting skills and proficiency levels for SMEs to perform the various roles defined within the framework.
The framework defines the following roles for a team undertaking the development of enterprise architecture:
The framework also includes a number of tables matching roles with skills and proficiency levels within each skill category. A single table shows the definition of enterprise architecture skills by role.
Benefits of competency framework
The advantages of using the architecture skills framework are summarized as follows:
Figure 3: Architecture competency framework
Summary
Individual passion is the primary driving factor that determines the growth path of an architect. For instance, a security architect who is passionate about the domain of IT security and must have developed an immensely valuable body of knowledge over time should ideally not be coerced into making a shift to a solution architect and eventually a governance role. There are at least three layers of architects:
