SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Architect's Guidebook

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Understanding the Enterprise Landscape

By Brian Wilson

Described simply, business information ecology entails viewing the informational space of your organization as an ecosystem of a number of important dimensions that affect the complete information environment. It is focused on how people create, share, interpret, and use information. More importantly, it sees technology as only one component of a successful business information environment.

The major dimensions of your business information ecology include the following:

• Business landscape — The business landscape includes the business drivers, goals, and context in which the business operates, as well as the internal, micro, and macro environment in which the organization operates. Other factors include the sector, business formation and organizational structure, and the model and structure that the IT department uses to support and service business technology requirements.
• Technology landscape — The technology landscape involves understanding the SharePoint 2010 ecosystem, your organization's current enterprise architecture and strategy, your existing and planned infrastructure, and your existing portal and collaboration solutions.
• Legal landscape — The legal landscape includes understanding and complying with the regulatory and legal requirements under which your organization operates.
• Information landscape — This includes content storage locations and volume; common content formats in use; content structure and metadata; ...