once in a while you have to draw a picture of your (planned) IT architecture/infrastructure on a whiteboard. Sometimes there are only IT people in the room, sometimes not. But anyhow, usually you just want to depict your IT systems or architecture more or less as a sketch and not in full detail.
What I want to ask now is, which stencils, diagram artifacts, etc. do you use when you want to describe your architectural thoughts, e.g. a systems which incorporates excel import, xml export, an esb in the middle, 3 different databases in different locations, a web and a stand alone gui? I guess few people will come up with a detailed UML class diagram, which in this case won't serve well. Sequence or activity diagrams are good for the information flow depiction, but not for the greater picture of the system.
So maybe we can collect some thoughts on that, similar to this thread.
Best regards,
Andi
PS: I thought this might be good place to discuss this, but if it's too off-topic please let me know and I'll close it or move to a more adequate place.
The short answer is - whatever works. The most relevant point is that you have to communicate in a way / language that the audience understands.
I've a couple of examples here that just happen to be very tidy - if it's a free flowing discussion they won't be - nor do they have to be. FYI I work as a solution architect - so boxes serve me well; I'm mostly talking about systems context - where things fit in an existing landscape.
To address some of your specifics:
I agree with your comment regarding UML: UML is very formal - when you're discussing stuff in front of a whiteboard it's usually anything but.
Other things: