OGEA-102 Enterprise Architecture Practitioner

What's inside

OGEA-102 doesn't ask what the ADM is. It describes an organisation in a tight spot and asks what a practising architect should do next.

This independent study guide for the TOGAF® Enterprise Architecture Practitioner certification (exam OGEA-102, TOGAF Enterprise Architecture Part 2) distils the judgement the Practitioner syllabus expects into working rules, comparison tables and the traps that catch experienced people. It follows The Open Group's published Level 2 syllabus and reflects the TOGAF Standard, 10th Edition.

Organised by topic

Fourteen chapters, each readable on its own and together covering every Practitioner learning unit:

• Context and governance: guiding effective change, the Architecture Capability, Architecture Governance and compliance reviews, alignment with Agile delivery, managing current, target, transition and candidate states, and the digital enterprise.
• Stakeholders and trade-offs: the Stakeholder Management technique, stakeholder maps and the Communications Plan, architecture views, and the Architecture Alternatives and Trade-offs technique.
• Security and risk: Enterprise Security Architecture, security as a cross-cutting concern, and risk assessment from the Preliminary Phase to Phase H.
• The ADM in practice: Phase A, the Business Architecture toolkit and business scenarios, Phases C and D, the Implementation and Migration Strategy, work packages and Transition Architectures, migration planning, Architecture Contracts, Phase H and Requirements Management.
• Supporting the work: the Architecture Repository and Standards Library, architecture levels, Architecture Building Blocks, the Content Framework and the Enterprise Metamodel.

Inside

• Applying it in scenarios sections in every chapter: the best-fit course of action for a situation, the tempting alternative, and why it falls short.
• 130+ Common trap callouts that name the choices that look right but aren't, and explain what's right instead.
• 14 original diagrams, from handling non-compliance and the four architecture states to choosing an implementation approach and sizing a change in Phase H.
• Key takeaways at the end of every chapter for fast revision.
• A glossary of more than 110 terms, each linked to the relevant part of the TOGAF Standard, with a free online version for print readers.

Understanding, not memorising

This book contains no questions from any Open Group certification exam and does not reproduce the TOGAF Standard. It explains the reasoning the syllabus expects, so you can weigh situations you have never seen and carry the same judgement into real architecture work.

Written by Tony Rough, a cloud architect with more than twenty years in IT infrastructure who holds the Azure Solutions Architect Expert, Azure Administrator and Azure Security Engineer certifications.

Part of the Ultra Transcenders series from Distilled Press. TOGAF is a registered trademark of The Open Group. An independent publication, not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by The Open Group.

Is this book for you?

• Yes, if you're preparing for OGEA-102 and want to understand why the right answer is right, or you work on enterprise architecture and want a compact reference to the TOGAF Standard, organised by topic.
• It isn't a question bank. The book contains no exam questions. Use it alongside The Open Group's free official OGEA-102 exam page, and some practice applying the ADM to a real architecture problem.
• Leads to TOGAF Enterprise Architecture Practitioner.
• Exam outline: The Open Group's syllabus (X2202) as of April 2022. We check for outline changes every month.

Which certification, which book?

Exam coverage

Every skill area in The Open Group's OGEA-102 outline (as of April 2022), and the chapters that cover it.

See every objective and where the book covers it

Chapters

1. The Practitioner's Job: Guiding Effective Change
2. Governance, Compliance and the Architect's Role
3. Agile, Architecture States and the Digital Enterprise
4. Security and Risk Across the Enterprise
5. Stakeholder Management and Architecture Views
6. Trade-offs and the Steps Common to Every Phase
7. Phase A in Practice
8. Phase B and the Business Architecture Toolkit
9. Phases C and D in Practice
10. Phase E: Building the Implementation and Migration Strategy
11. Phase F: Migration Planning, Value and Viability
12. Phase G: Implementation Governance and Architecture Contracts
13. Phase H and Requirements Management
14. The Repository, Levels, Building Blocks and the Metamodel

Plus an appendix glossary of 100+ terms, each linked to the TOGAF Standard, with the same terms explained free online for print readers.

Sample diagrams

Free study notes

Some sections of the book, free to read online:

• The four architecture states: current, target, transition and candidate

  What each architecture state means, why candidate work cannot govern change, and a practical way to organise states and recency in the repository.

• Security as a concern that cuts across every domain

  Why security architecture is not a separate domain, why every stakeholder has security concerns, and how security services differ from a control framework.

• Stakeholder management: the four steps and the power/interest grid

  How to identify stakeholders beyond the organisation chart, classify their positions, place them on the power/interest grid and tailor what each group receives.

• Presenting architecture alternatives and weighing trade-offs

  Why more than one option is worth showing, the criteria used to judge them, and how the choice is made jointly with stakeholders at a formal review.

• Greenfield, revolutionary or evolutionary: choosing an implementation approach

  The three basic approaches to change, the implementation methodologies that follow them, and how readiness and risk evidence point to the right fit.

• Architecture Contracts: why they matter, where they occur and the three types

  What an Architecture Contract settles, the points in the cycle where contracts arise, and the three kinds of contract with the parties each one binds.

• Sizing a change: simple update, change management or a new cycle

  How the governance body decides how large a response a change deserves, the three categories of change and the stakeholder guideline for redesign.

• Classes of standard and the standards lifecycle

  The three classes of standard, the five lifecycle states from proposed to retired, and what a deprecated standard does and does not require.