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Discussion on: What is difference among enterprise architect, solution architect, software architect, system architect and cloud architect?

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achjay profile image
AchJay

The difference lies in where these roles are positioned in a project, an ecosystem or a supply chain. In other words who they work with and for.

A few words of explanation: at different times I have held roles as Solution Architect or Service Architect and work with people in many other architectural roles. All these roles bring significant challenges but can be supremely rewarding. It's well worth aspiring to one or more of them during your career.

The clue is generally in the name. So a Solution Architects typically work within large enterprises and are responsible for ensuring that all the applications used in-house, by customers or suppliers play nicely together. This many include software developed in-house by independent software vendors or running in the cloud. This may initially appear to be all about API specification and design. However, this role usually extends to include making sure that DevOps processes and the choices made about tools or technology accross the enterprise's fleet of applications remains compatible. This typically involves a lot of time invested in understanding the roadmaps of many suppliers.

Solution Architects are responsible for a single application or technology product including both hardware and software. Cloud Architects are usually responsible for one or more of the compute, network, storage components of Cloud Services. A Software Architect may be responsible for the overall design of an application, particularly when there are many subcomponents that need to work together.

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imben1109 profile image
Ben • Edited

Your reply is awesome.

How about enterprise architect and system architect?

You mentioned DevOps. How would you define DevOps.