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What is the difference between an architect and a drafter?

What is the difference between a Software Architect and a Solutions Architect?

  • I have seen many companies posting job openings for the role of a Solutions Architect. Is this position any different than a Software Architect? What skills should be developed if one wants to grow in this role over time.

  • Answer:

    This two species are usually found in large corporations which are highly process driven by nature... :) In layman's terms, A Solution Architect proposes The Functional Screen that achieves some Business Constraint, A Software Architect proposes The Set of Programs ( Components ) aka Skeleton and It's intercommunication to deliver that Screen right. Both of them make sure that the screen is implemented correctly by some "brogrammer" who has a limited vision about it ! http://brogrammer.urbanup.com/5601745 Solutions Architect (S)He doesn't do the technology ( software ) design, mostly works on one level up on functional design. This person is also known as product manager or business analyst in other geographies. Solution Architect would usually have better domain expertise and good grasp on usage and limitations of technology. (S)He takes a holistic approach to understand the customer problems and tries to bring the best possible feature set. aka Solutions.. (S)He is also responsible for  prioritizing the solutions that needed to be implemented. He writes "user stories" which narrates the actual workflow the customer is going to expect out of the final deliverable ( Software ). (S)He has to be friends with technology team as well, to drill down real objective in their mind which customer would be delighted to address. Usually Solutions Architects are required in very specialized industries where others ( technology professionals ) truly need the guidance on industry specific functionality. Software Architect Here comes the smart animal, This poor guy has to learn all the functionality the Solution Architect has proposed and develop a Real Software Architecture out of it.. ( Double Work but Challenging & Satisfying ) This person have to thin through about the possible approaches to develop the actual Application addressing the Features. One actually prepares an architectural design which ( software ) developers are going to refer. (S)He is responsible for driving the long term strategy for development of a system. (S)He evaluates various tools and techniques and creates a common ground on which developers work and perform daily routines. Architectural Design, Software technology Stack Selection, Component Build vs Buy Decisions and similar technology and implementation oriented decisions are finalized by Software Architect.

Rakesh Waghela at Quora Visit the source

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In my experience the term "solution architect" is not well-defined. In some cases it refers to architecting IT systems around packaged software ("solutions"). For example, someone who designs a MS Exchange architecture for a large corporation might be called a solution architect. More commonly, though, it's a customer-facing role at a software company, helping clients put together a deployment of the company's product to solve a business problem. As such, there is a lot of business analysis involved. They will: - work through use cases with the customer - determine any customization work required - spec out the hardware and software the customer will need to purchase - create a "system architecture" for deployment of the product and its integration into existing systems - identify any resources and effort required by both the customer and the software vendor - plan and guide the process of delivery deployment, and acceptance. So it is quite a different role than a software architect. It combines business analysis, systems architecture, and project management. Given the fuzziness of "architecture" roles, your mileage may vary.

Vanessa Williams

I think it depends on the company. Since titles in IT are very loosely defined. But the term 'solutions' here is often to refer a client-facing activities. Microsoft has roles like Technical Solutions, Sales Solutions, etc. All of them are client-facing roles. So this is my best guess. Let's take Microsoft business as an example. Solutions Architect often means an architect who deals with clients, for example a company X wants to develop e-Commerce on top of Microsoft stacks (Windows Server, SQL Server, .NET), he/she will help the company X by proposing the solution, software architecture, as well as measuring the estimated costs based on the client's user stories.  He/she is an expert in Microsoft technologies and experienced in a particular industry, for example banking or manufacturing. This role exists in most subsidiaries. Software Architect often means the guys from Product Group. He/she is the architect who makes the high-level technical decision Microsoft products development. He/she is the one who design the architecture for Windows, Office, Bing, whatever. This role usually only exists in offices who develop the products, for example in Redmond or Silicon Valley. I think you can always take a look at the job description to be sure.

Wirawan Winarto

Thanks for A2A!Firstly, the "Solution Architecture" is a part of the "Software Architecture" itself! Software architecture can be divided into following main areas: Solution Architecture, Application Architecture, Database Architecture, Security Architecture and Performance Architecture Please refer my another for more details, regarding this.Having said this, in this context, I'll interpret your question as, "What's the difference between the Solution Architecture and the 'Remaining' areas of the architecture?", highlighting more on "Solution Architecture" vs "Application and DB Architecture".Solution Architecture:Focuses more upon How the technology can be used to solve a given Business problem? Which individual frameworks, platforms, tech-stack can be used to create a holistic solution? How the application will look like? What all will be the Modules? How will they interact with each other? How will this arrangement scale in the future? How will it be maintainable and extensible? What's the risk in third-party frameworks/platforms? What if one (or more) of them goes out of market and/or stops supporting? When shall we know that we could "Successfully" solve the Biz-Problem??? In turn, giving a "Solution" to the Business Problem!Everything else:Focuses more upon "Implementing" the 'Solution' provided by the Solution Architecture! It starts designing individual modules defined by the Solution Architecture. If the Solution Architecture is 'What', this part is 'How' of it! Object-Model, Database-Model and all other lower-level of designs will be the part of this activity. I hope, it helps!Cheers!http://manoj.bhaiwal.com

Manoj Bhaiwal

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