Dr. Dobb's | Certification Programs Arrive For IT Architects

Certification Programs Arrive For IT Architects

It may not be enough to call yourself a technology architect. To get that $100,000-plus salary, you may soon have to prove you deserve it.

July 24, 2006
URL:http://drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/certification-programs-arrive-for-it-arc/191100534

If you call yourself a technology architect, you may soon have to show proof. New professional certification programs from Microsoft and the Open Group consortium aim to set standards for distinguishing the skills and experience levels of professional technology architects.

This move toward professional certification of architects is welcome at Hewlett-Packard, says Tony Redmond, CTO of HP Services. In fact, HP, a member of the vendor-neutral consortium Open Group, plans to encourage the 1,000 architects in its services organizations to get certified over the next few years.

Nine HP employees already have earned their Microsoft Certified Architect status; Microsoft in the last month brought its certification program out of the pilot phase. HP also is working with Open Group to bring that organization's certification program to its architects.

"We're saying to our people: Show us, prove to us, show personal development," Redmond says. He expects the architect certification status will provide HP with a competitive advantage in IT services in the coming years. "We ask our other professionals to get appropriate certification, and up to now this wasn't an option for architects," he says.

$100,000 Payoff

The skills and experience required of the estimated 100,000 U.S. professionals who call themselves IT, enterprise, infrastructure, solutions, operations, and other types of architects hasn't been clear. The new certifications define the skills, experience, and other attributes needed to qualify for these positions, and they require testing or review by a board.

The first certifications available from Open Group are IT and enterprise architects. It has certified 1,200 tech pros since unveiling the IT architect certification last year. "Open Group is attempting to put the structure in place, its toe in the water," Redmond says.

And considering the high salaries, those hiring IT architects should know what they're paying for. The median annual salary for an IT staffer with the architect title is $100,000, according to InformationWeek Research's National IT Salary Survey of 10,425 IT professionals this past spring. While that's the same median salary they earned last year, and not much more than the $95,000 median for 2004, architects outrank all other staff-level titles for salary. The more-specific systems architect title earns a median salary of $91,000, same as last year, while sales support engineers rank No. 3 at $90,000, and project leaders are next at $86,000. Adding in bonuses and other nonsalary compensation, IT architects make $107,000 nationwide, up $103,000 from last year.

The main difference so far between the certifications offered by Microsoft and Open Group is philosophy, not so much the actual technologies. In fact, Microsoft's certification isn't fixated on Microsoft products.

Open Group's certification is available to architects who have a more academic role such as establishing best practices and methodologies at a company, things a chief enterprise architect might be responsible for. By contrast, Microsoft's program is aimed more at the hands-on, practicing architect.

And while the availability of two certifications might confuse professionals about which one to pursue, they could prove complementary. "There's no weakness in having two approaches--between the two, you'll get it right," says David Foote, president of IT management consulting firm Foote Partners. "You need people up in the clouds as well as in the trenches. You need gurus to do both."

In general, architects are often the people who end up defining new sets of skills, Foote says. "At the enterprise level, architects just don't have technical skills; they also need communication and teamwork skills," he says. "They're abstract designers, like a conductor in a orchestra inspiring a violinist how to play the notes."

Dig Deeper

Certification programs will add specificity and depth to what IT architects already know, says Ben Weiner, a systems architect at TIAA-CREF, an organization that provides financial retirement services to people in the academic, research, medical, and cultural fields. The new programs are similar to the IT Infrastructure Library, a framework for the management and delivery of IT services developed by the British government, Weiner says. "The No. 1 benefit of these types of frameworks is the common language it creates for IT professionals," he says.

Top Dollar It's not easy or inexpensive to get certified. Candidates for the Microsoft Certified Architect program pay $10,000 and can face a review board that might spend two or more hours asking questions to evaluate the individual's understanding of technology.

Weiner doesn't have immediate plans to enroll in a program but says he would expect his employer to cover the costs if he did. HP will pick up the tab for its architects to be certified. "It's the cost of doing business," Redmond says.

Certification programs for tech architects are where project management credentials were 10 years ago. And since project management credentials have become valuable, they've helped those pros demand higher salaries. Architect certifications likely will carry the same weight in the job market in five or 10 years.

Yet certification may not directly translate to cold, hard cash. Just 5% of respondents to InformationWeek's survey say they received cash bonuses for getting any type of certification. It ranks a distant fourth after personal performance, company profit sharing, and completion of a project milestone.

Still, a tech architect certification will benefit those who get it by providing a benchmark for all those companies handing out six-figure salaries for the job title.