Radiant Advisors' John O'Brien on John O'Brien on Why Resilient Data Architectures Matter

With heightened pressure to compete on analytics, the purpose and role of data architecture is coming into clearer focus to meet business operating necessities. Recently, John O’Brien, CEO and principal advisor of Radiant Advisors, talked with BDQ about the principles of a resilient enterprise data architecture and the enabling methodologies and technologies.

Is there now a common understanding of what a data architecture is?

There continues to be confusion between good solution architectures and enterprise data architectures. A resilient enterprise data architecture will enable agile teams to develop data and analytics faster.

Do I think the concept of enterprise architecture is widely understood? I don’t think it ever has been because people confuse IT data management require­ments with business customer require­ments. Understanding enterprise archi­tectures disciplines such as TOGAF and the Zachman Framework help enterprise architecture teams lay a foundation at a lot of companies. But you usually only find those in large, mature companies— which is not the bulk of companies that are out there today. Very rarely have I seen a well-organized team within companies. However, keep in mind is that there is a likelihood that I don’t see clients with a full-blown discipline because they don’t need our help.