Information Architect

What are they?

Data architects must be able to differentiate between valuable, useable information and useless data.

They are custodians of the Enterprise data and they are required within an organisation to allow for structured and pragmatic approach towards database development.

 
They are not Database Administrators!

Responsibilities

• Architecture that allows for maximisation of the revenue by providing actionable, integrated data. This to improves productivity through strict management of data.
• Define and document the architecture for the data through gathering of requirements from end users and through reverse engineering.
• Resolve conflicts between organisations and departments by introducing and managing Interface Contracts.
• Educate and coach teams and end-users on the value of data integrity and its associated attributes.

Roles

• Mediator between organisations and departments.
• Advocate end-user requirements.
• Facilitator and custodian of data requirements and business rules.
• Interface between end-users and development departments or vendors.
• Interpreter of data and business needs to data administrators/modelers and/or database administrators.
• Data futurist (i.e, visionary of data future data uses)
• Catalyst for converting data into knowledge management.

-- Data Architects should work as custodians of the data, and guard for data duplication to allow for maximum business benefits, process support and contribution.(Henk) --