Architect of his own solutions

By ADAM GIFFORD

Steve Dickinson's landline and mobile are the same number, once you get past the prefix. It's a small thing, but it's the sort of elegant detail that gives a clue to what solutions architects do.

"Architect" is one of the most abused verbs in the IT lexicon, but it makes sense as a noun, especially given the complex construction of a modern distributed computer system, which can include hundreds of programs and applications sitting on multiple devices all over an organisation.

"For me a solutions architect is someone with a foot in both infrastructure and applications," says Dickinson, who was recruited this year from IBM in England by Certus Consulting.

"It is an end-to-end role. A systems architect is more concerned with the hardware, the networks, security, system availability. A solutions architect also looks at the application software stack, how the application will perform, so they will be working closely with the applications development team."

Dickinson came out of an applications development background, but found he needed a wider range of skills.

"The companies I worked for were typically fairly small, so I needed to do not just the development but the hardware specifications, then put the hardware in the back of my car, drive to the site and install it.

"When I went to IBM eight years ago, all its infrastructure architects were systems engineers from a mainframe background. They knew how to wire the back of a cabinet, but not the applications side, and IBM was trying to recruit more widely."

There is little call in New Zealand for the big infrastructure builds, he says, so the demand is for solutions architects who can put together small to medium projects.

"There are a lot of choices to be made. It is not as black and white as in the client server or mainframe days. Should the applications be on the desktop, the middleware server, the back-end server? The key is someone has to take responsibility for the design decisions and carry them through," Dickinson says.

"In construction engineering, they say the architect has to be on the job from the concept to the concrete. The concrete part means sticking round to make sure the designs are delivered, or else you won't be there to learn from your mistakes."

He says most IT architects will come from a technical background rather than the business analyst route.

While the job ads for architects seems to demand an impossibly wide range of skills, "the reality is when you do the job, it is never as advertised.

"There are always experts you can draw on in the hardware and software suppliers, so it is not specific product knowledge you need but being able to go and find the right information.

"You have also got to be customer-facing, and you have to be confident - if you don't believe in the designs you put forward, the technical people will see that and ask questions.

"It is about relationships and longevity. Systems will change, so it is usually about creating some sort of road map."

Recruiter Kim McGregor from Absolute IT, who brought Dickinson to New Zealand, says demand for solutions architects has strengthened in the past year.

Web-based technologies are demanding a different approach to the way people build systems, she says.

"The jobs are going to people who have been in the industry for 10 or 15 years, so they have seen all the technologies emerge and got into new web-based stuff," McGregor says.

The role is a permanent staff position in consulting firms or larger companies, rather than one which is contracted out.

"With the changes in IT, people realise they lost a lot of intellectual property when the contractor walks out the door."

With salaries ranging from $100,000 to $120,000, experience and broad technical skills are crucial.

"A lot of organisations will have a mix of systems, so that is a challenge in itself," McGregor says.

"These architecture roles require special people who are happy to consult and mentor. There is a lot of change and risk management, a lot of project work."

She says many candidates are still short of experience.

"They usually come from a strong development arena. My advice to them is ... they need to get some project management and team management experience, and they need to look more closely at one or two bits of technology so they become expert in a field."