In the previous chapter, you learned about solution architecture and how various stakeholders impact solution strategies. Now, let's understand the solution architect's role. The software solution can develop without a solution architect, depending on the project's size, but for a large project, it is a requirement to have a dedicated solution architect. The success and failure of the plan depends on the solution architect.

There is always a need for someone who can make architectural decisions for the team and drive team collaboration with stakeholders. Sometimes, it is required to have multiple solution architects in the team, depending on the size of the project.

The different types of solution architects are depicted in the following diagram, showing how they have different self-differentiating responsibilities in the organization:

As shown in the preceding diagram, an organization can have multiple types of solution architects. Solution architect can be categorized as generalists or specialists. Generalist solution architects have the breadth that comes from multiple technical domains. Specialist solution architects have very in-depth knowledge in their area of expertise, such as big data, security, and networking. A generalist solution architect needs to collaborate with a specialist solution architect, to align with project's requirements and complexity.

The role of a solution architect varies from organization to organization and you may encounter a variety of job titles related to solution architect, the most common being generalist solution architect roles. Their focuses are as follows:

• Enterprise solution architect:
  • Organization strategy
  • Business architecture
• Solution architect:
  • Solution design
  • Solution integration
• Technical architect:
  • Software design
  • Software development
• Cloud architect:
  • Cloud strategy
  • Cloud migration
• Architect evangelist:
  • Platform adoption
  • Technical content

There may be other titles (such as application architect and software architect); however, this depends on the organization's structure.

Specialist solution architect roles are as follows:

• Infrastructure architect:
  • IT infrastructure design
  • Software standardization and patching
• Network architect:
  • Network design
  • IT network strategy and latency
• Data architect:
  • Data engineering and analysis
  • Data science and data intelligence

• Security architect:
  • Cyber security
  • IT compliance
• DevOps architect:
  • IT automation
  • Continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD)

There may be other types of specialist solution architect, such as migration architect and storage architect. This, again, depends on the organization's structure. As per the project and organizational complexity, a solution architect can take on multiple roles or different solution architects can have overlapping responsibilities. You will learn more about each architect role in subsequent sections.