Levels of Architecture

Architecture can be done on several “levels” of abstractions. The level influences the importance of necessary skills. As there are many categorizations possible my favorite segmentation includes these 3 levels:

• Application Level: The lowest level of architecture. Focus on one single application. Very detailed, low level design. Communication is usually within one development team.
• Solution Level: The mid-level of architecture. Focus on one or more applications which fulfill a business need (business solution). Some high, but mainly low-level design. Communication is between multiple development teams.
• Enterprise Level: The highest level of architecture. Focus on multiple solutions. High level, abstract design, which needs to be detailed out by solution or application architects. Communication is across the organization.