3 Therefore, recall
that integration of services with distributed business domains that are grouped in tier formations
must be sensitive to these future technical priorities, and avoid commitments to impractical
implementations.
The three major distribution structures that should be considered when integrating services
with the business are explained in the sections that follow.
204 Ch. 10 Business Architecture Structural Perspectives
DISTRIBUTED FEDERATED BUSINESS TIER STRUCTURE. A federated tier structure is a distributed
business environment in which a central authority retains power to govern an overall business
direction and relinquishes some of its control to subordinate business tiers. The balance of power
shared by the governing authority and its constituents enables a collective treatment of organizational
concerns at different levels. The participating constituents are typically autonomous
business tiers (each of which may be comprised of a single or multiple domains) that are entitled
to pursue their own business agenda as well as to independently devise business integration
strategies that should accommodate the service-oriented paradigm.
This concept is somehow akin to the federal government system, by which no full power
is granted to a single authority. Charles Handy in his paper ???Balancing Corporate Power: A New
Federalist Paper,??? published in 1992, wrote4:
But the concept of federalism is particularly appropriate since it offers a well-recognized way to
deal with paradoxes of power and control: the need to make things big by keeping them small;
to encourage autonomy but within bounds; to combine variety and shared purpose, individuality
and partnership, local and global, tribal region and nation state, or nation state and regional
bloc.
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