Archetype

MIX Hangover and the Beauty of Choice

2007-05-04T22:37:00Z

MIX Hangover... Wow. By show of hands, who was at MIX? Virtually or physically it doesn't matter. Regardless, I am sure most of you (who haven't been in a cave) were there vicariously as the buzz around Silverlight has beckoned your interest. The announcement about .NET integration in Silverlight (v1.1) was surprising... I knew it was inevitable but I was surprised to hear about it so soon. The name of the conference (MIX) couldn't be better because looking at the audience there it was apparent that...(read more)

MIX it up!

2007-03-16T09:15:00Z

So, if you haven't heard of MIX, check this out: http://www.visitmix.com It's not an acronym, it's a conference and a very unique one at that (for Microsoft, it is unique). Microsoft is making a big play into the world of interactive design a space completely dominated by the likes of Adobe/Macromedia. Why? Well, customers demand it. Not necessarily Microsoft customers per se but everyone's customers. We are living in an Experience Economy and the value chain continuum expects the delivery of a rich...(read more)

How Rich Is YOUR Web App?

2007-01-31T19:25:00Z

I have had to hold my tongue for a while on this one... The first glimpse was given at SeeWindowsVista and it left a lot of people thirsty for more. Check this out: British Library: Turning the Pages and to learn more about the project go here . Now, be aware, this application makes heavy use of graphics processing and has some stringent requirements (e.g. Windows Vista, Aero-capable graphics). I find this significant in many ways. First of all, this is an XBAP - XAML Browser Application - which...(read more)

Get Office 2007 and Groove FREE!

2007-01-14T07:28:00Z

Ready for a 'New Day'? How about this... Ready for a free copy of Office 2007 Professional and Groove 2007? I thought so. Now that I have turned my blog into an advertisement (without the benefit of Affiliate revenue) I will tell you how... It's really simple: Register for a Windows Vista and Office 2007 launch event in your area!* (Read the fine print below) Use the following link to find an event near you: http://www.microsoft.com/business/launch2007/signup/default.mspx I will be presenting the...(read more)

Strategic IT

2006-12-28T11:14:00Z

Alright… By show of hands, how many of you work in IT organizations that are considered strategic assets of their respective businesses? Wait, I said strategic . Okay, let me re-phrase that… How many of you are considered a cost and constantly struggle to prove your worth? How many of you feel like IT custodians? Yep. That's more like it. So what is strategic ? Consider the competitive marketplace. What makes a strategic asset within a competitive business? Are the power lines running into your office...(read more)

WPF/E Is Coming...

2006-12-07T11:38:00Z

For those who haven't noticed, check out: http://channel9.msdn.com/playground/wpfe/ . Now, WPF/E stands for Windows Presentation Foundation "Everywhere"... However in light of what is coming, I think it is more appropriate to consider it as the Windows Web Presentation Foundation because the impact could be enormous. Windows Presentation Foundation is a powerful technology to delivery rich user experiences (ux) to users of rich client applications on Windows XP (SP2) and Vista. Many critics of WPF...(read more)

SaaS Acceleration: Go Virtual!

2006-08-03T08:45:00Z

Software as a Service (aka Software + Services, or SaaS for short) is pretty much the hype du jour as of late. Not without reason. From an architecture perspective, SaaS provides some interesting considerations one of which is multi-tenancy. The most common analogy for multi-tenancy is an apartment complex: multiple autonomous apartments, each isolated with structural barriers, containing distinct décor and possessions of the tenant, and of course each being serviced by common infrastructure services...(read more)

A Web Architect ?!?!

2006-07-28T01:00:00Z

We all know that architecture in an IT setting has many definitions and explanations which inevitably means that those calling themselves architects come in just as many flavors as their role descriptions. Given the rise of web-native software in the Web 2.0 space, could we see the emergence of a specific Web Architect role? If so, how would this differ from other technie-architect roles such as the popular 'Software Architect' or its synonym 'Application Architect'? I mean, isn't web-native software...(read more)

Hyper-Competition and Differentiation

2006-07-25T01:14:00Z

It is an inevitable side-effect of globalization: hyper-competition. Markets are no longer limited to geographically-focused distribution channels; the internet and the rise of e-commerce has enabled companies, big or small to produce products and services that compete at a truly global marketplace. Now that I've stated the obvious, I'll get to the point of this blog post. For a company to stay competitive it must innovative: delivering novel and advanced products and services for which there is...(read more)

Redefining What 'Service' Means to the Web

2006-07-22T00:27:00Z

Usually when someone hears the words 'web' and 'service' used together, they tend to think of 'web services' as in 'XML Web Services' or a 'Java Web Service'. The web services paradigm gave rise to one of the latest architecture styles referred to as service-oriented architecture or SOA. The emergence of web services undoubtedly had a profound effect on the industry and continues to be the prime choice for many integration scenarios. However, I am hearing a lot of different meaning when it comes...(read more)

Adobe Releases Next-Gen RIA Platform

2006-06-30T04:56:00Z

Beta News article and Dr. Dobbs article talk about Adobe's recent release of the Flex 2 development platform and the client-side Flash Player 9 for rendering of Rich Internet Applications. I have always been impressed with Flex back when it was called 'Royale' and when the IDE was referred to as 'Brady'. The concept was very appropriate for Macromedia with its Flash flagship; it appears as Adobe attempts to further assert itself into more than just tools for graphic designers, Flex will continue...(read more)

Portability Anyone?

2006-06-28T23:06:00Z

When describing the various systemic qualities of a system to-be developed, one of the least-mentioned is that of portability. I am referring to portability as the need to port one application on one platform to a different platform. So, the question usually goes: will I need to port the application running on Windows to AIX or vice-versa? That's a good question because the answer will determine how you implement and support the solution. Of course, it sounds great to have that capability in the...(read more)

Controversy and Paradigm Shifts

2006-06-16T19:00:00Z

Well I finally gave my TechEd presentation 'Bits to Bolts: Bridging the Gap between the Solutions and Infrastructure Architecture' and I got exactly what I wanted out of it: controversy. There were some things that I would do differently of course to have made the content a little bit more effective in terms of delivery but given the craziness of the months preceding TechEd, I couldn't afford to. It was the first Architecture track session after lunch which is always a tough one to get to and I was...(read more)

Interesting Analogs

2006-05-11T21:21:00Z

While meeting with a customer I realized that there is a nice analogy going on that is on topic for my presentation at TechEd...

There are a lot of divisions between IT disciplines. There is a division between Solutions and Infrastructure architecture disciplines as well as a division between the UI Designer and the Developer. There is a lot of talk as of late within Microsoft and the industry at large of the importance of UX or User Experience. To designers, UX is their meat and potatoes while the developer typically treats UX as an afterthought. The same can be said about Infrastructure/Operations being an afterthought. Why is UX all of the sudden being treated specifically by vendors such as Microsoft and even considered as an architecture topic? Trends in the industry such as Service Orientation from a technical perspective focus on the exposure of business functionality and processes through a series of de-coupled "services". These services are autonomous and machine-to-machine oriented for interoperability (hopefully) and integration; the machine-to-machine aspect being the realm of the developer and architect who typically marginalize the user interface aspects insomuch that they aren't really considered. With the advent of what is being referred to as EDGE architecture, the importance of exposing the service portfolio through end-user targeted applications is front-and-center, thus necessitating the need for UX consideration as part of the holistic solution architecture. For the gap between Infrastructure and Solutions architecture disciplines, the same trends have created the necessity of things such as the Dynamic Systems Initiative. In this day and age, it is unacceptable for applications and systems to be islands (Don Box reference); I also contend that it is no longer acceptable for the disciplines in architecture and design to operate in vacuums.

To further the analogy, consider the specific efforts of Microsoft (and other vendors) to bridge the divides... XAML (the eXtensible Application Markup Language) is being positioned as a means by which designers and developers can seamlessly share and hand-off the fruits of their labor in a high fidelity manner. Tools such as the Expression Graphic and Interactive Designers and Visual Studio 2005/"Orcas" will be used by each respective discipline and the fabric between them is XAML. For the Infrastructure and Solutions divide? The System Definition Model (SDM), a key element of Microsoft's DSI realization strategy. In the world outside of Microsoft, the Data Center Markup Language (DCML) is intended for the same purpose. The toolset will most likely be Visual Studio and the designers introduced in the Team Architect version of the product; however it wouldn't be difficult for SDM to be readable by a slew of third party tools as well and the same could be said of XAML.

In a nutshell, in terms of bridging the divide between technical disciplines:

XAML is to Designers and Developers what SDM is to Operations and Developers/Architects

Now why couldn't I have just said that? Because I am an architect and we love to talk.

Bits to Bolts

2006-05-06T23:10:00Z

I am giving a presentation at TechEd 2006 in Boston on something fairly obvious in our industry: the pain and suffering resulting from developed applications not being designed for operations. The title of my presentation is Bits to Bolts: Bridging the Gap Between the Solutions and Infrastructure Architecture (yeah I know the title is a little gimmicky but after all, it is TechEd).

Lately, this topic is getting a lot of notice at Microsoft as e-mail threads abound. After much sound and fury of the verbose commentators, the general consensus is that 'operations need to be involved from the beginning'. Now there's an idea! Would having a system engineer sit in scoping/analysis meetings, requirements gathering meetings, and software design discussions solve the problem? What would need happen in the participation of these meetings that would make the difference? While I do agree that Operations should have greater involvement throughout the lifecycle, that statement alone doesn't solve anything nor does it explain why countless attempts for operations to be involved from the beginning has resulted in less than operational systems.

Again, the primary theme of this blog is context. There is a much larger context that needs to be considered in this critical problem that extends far beyond resolving to involve operations from the beginning. I don't want to expound all of the planned discussion for the TechEd session here but like most problems in architecture (and IT in general), the solutions are typically non-technical. An example is the recurring ideology surrounding an Enterprise Data Model. Having a master data model for all data in the enterprise has been the fabled panacea of many ideologue architects and developers for as long as I can remember. So why hasn't it happened? Is creating a super, superset of enterprise data technically impossible? I am not suggesting that it is technically easy but the technical difficulty pales in comparison to the non-technical, softer side of the problem; so, in my opinion, is the issue between the Solution Delivery and Service Management sides of IT. With that said, what needs to be addressed is the holy triumvirate of People, Process, and Tools (in that order of relevance) and that is what I plan on doing at TechEd and through a series of articles and whitepapers (if I could just get them finished).

If anyone is interested in talking more about this, or has thoughts on the matter - let me know!