Documenting information architecture ...
I am struggling to find a good way of documenting information architecture. At the lowest level of technical meta data there are different methods available (physical data models, entity relationship diagrams, CRUD's ...), but if you go up in abstraction level we enter the world of 'architects' where Powerpoint and Visio are still king & queen. I have not seen a common format or common tool for documenting the high level. The only common symbol is the one for databases (looks like a flat drum), but for the rest it is arrows and boxes that can mean anything.So my question is if we can agree on symbols for some of the key elements?
- types of data stores (e.g. a corporate store should be different than a project / application store)
- interfaces (point to point) or middleware (hub and spoke)
- applications & utilities - with differences for data retrieval and data capture applications
The second thing is that I have not seen a definite list of what to document in terms of higher level data architecture. I can think of the following:
- the high level overview of the main data stores and the key data transported via interfaces (this can be done e.g. as a context diagram per business area or key business process) - this overview should reflect the different lifecycle phases of the information.
- the main components of the application / integration / data stack (in a different view) per system (or set of systems)
Labels: architecture, meta data
posted by Evert Ruijs @ 10:56 AM
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