Should you use a target state architecture or an architecture radar for your organization? In this post I’ll explain what each one is. I’ll then highlight the differences between them. Finally, I’ll provide my opinion on which one is better and why I think so.
Many organizations, once they get to a certain size, see the need to decide on a particular technology stack. And rightfully so, because a proliferation of various competing technologies leads leads to an organizational drain. IT people need to become conversant and in most cases proficient at JBoss, WebSphere, and WebLogic if all three of these application servers are used. It means the organization ends up going “wide and shallow” across these three instead of “narrow and deep” on just one. In other words, they don’t develop a deep level of expertise on one application server, making problems harder to solve.
Note that this applies to programming languages, databases, application frameworks, and the key libraries an organization uses. It can also apply to server operating systems, routers and other network infrastructure, firewalls, etc.
