Book excerpt: Enterprise architecture requires an understanding of all technologies, strategies, and data consumption throughout the enterprise. To this end, one must strive to always broaden knowledge of existing, as well as emerging trends and solutions. As a trade, this role demands an understanding beyond the specificities of technologies and vendor products. An enterprise architect must be versatile with the design and arrangement of elements in an extended network enterprise. Intended for anyone charged with coordinating enterprise architectural design in a small, medium, or large organization, Sustainable Enterprise Architecture helps you explore the various elements of your own particular network environment to develop strategies for mid- to long-term management and sustainable growth. Organized much like a book on structural architecture, this one starts with a solid foundation of frameworks and general guidelines for enterprise governance and design. The book covers common considerations for all enterprises, and then drills down to specific types of technology that may be found in your enterprise. It explores strategies for protecting enterprise resources and examines technologies and strategies that are only just beginning to take place in the modern enterprise network. Each chapter builds on the knowledge and understanding of topics presented earlier in the book to give you a thorough understanding of the challenges and opportunities in managing enterprise resources within a well-designed architectural strategy. Emphasizing only those strategies that weather change, Sustainable Enterprise Architecture shows you how to evaluate your own unique environment and find alignment with the concepts of sustainability and architecture. It gives you the tools to build solutions and policies to protect your enterprise and allow it to provide the greatest organizational value into the future.