Architects Rule!

Architect Forum Videos posted

lucvdv — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:10:21 GMT

Couple of weeks back we had the Architect forum for Infrastructure Architects with Eduardo Kassner. It proved to be great content again and listening to the feedback most attendees loved it.

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Connecting IT to Your Business Objectives: A conversation about the Microsoft Optimization Models

Is it possible to connect business objectives with IT initiatives? Haven’t we tried too many times just to find that it is too hard? Well, in this session we will go through a proven process to asses you current Infrastructure and Business Productivity capabilities using the Microsoft Optimization Models, and proceed to demonstrate the new Infrastructure Capabilities Integration business solution catalogue for horizontal and industry solutions, which are the latest addition to the Microsoft Optimization Framework then we will go through a practical example of how to bridge a set of example business objectives to with their corresponding IT initiatives. http://www.microsoft.com/belux/technet/nl/chopsticks/default.aspx?id=1486
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Are you designing your User Experiences?
How does Dynamic IT feel in the real world?... a proven CIO conversation

Can you say that you design the experience your user has on the IT environment they use day to day? Since 2003 Microsoft has been promoting the Dynamic IT initiative and producing software that delivers on this vision. The Dynamic IT vision promotes a virtual infrastructure, an Infrastructure that is designed for operations, a model based management tool set, and best practices such as ITIL, all of these to enhance the quality, reach and operational tempo of an IT organization, and by doing such, also enhance the end users experience. In this session we will go over several scenarios where we will compare current real world scenarios such as new en user desktop deployment, developers environment management, web service monitoring, and remote branch deployment to highlight not only the difference but with demonstrations how does it actually look and feel to have a Dynamic IT working for you and your end users. http://www.microsoft.com/belux/technet/nl/chopsticks/default.aspx?id=1487
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Microsoft Software Roadmap:
Portfolio Strategy For IT

As the role of IT continues the shift from cost cutting and efficiency to business strategy and people enablement, you need partners who are well positioned across the depth and breadth of technologies. Technologies which enable you to implement a Dynamic IT environment. Technologies that fit within your plans for a Services Oriented Architecture and fit well with the future promise of Software Plus Services. Technologies that you can trust to provide the best reliability and security. Technologies that work together to amplify the impact of the people in your organization. In this workshop you will have a chance to see and discuss Microsoft’s Software Roadmap of enterprise class technologies for delivering a People Ready Business from infrastructure to productivity applications. http://www.microsoft.com/belux/technet/nl/chopsticks/default.aspx?id=1488

ARCast.TV - Rocky Lhotka on Development Frameworks

bartvagh — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 17:24:00 GMT

A new episode is available featuring Rocky Lhotka on Development Frameworks.

It is difficult to strike a balance between the optimal architecture and over architecting a solution. Joe Shirey sits down with Rocky Lhotka , the creator of the CSLA.NET framework, to discuss how he balances what should and should not be in his framework.

Cast can be found at : http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/ARCast.TV/ARCastTV-Rocky-Lhotka-on-Development-Frameworks/

Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio (November 2009 Update)

bartvagh — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:56:48 GMT

Just in case anyone missed this. A new set of tools for Windows Azure has been made available and can be downloaded at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=6967ff37-813e-47c7-b987-889124b43abd&displaylang=en

Overview

Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio extend Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 to enable the creation, configuration, building, debugging, running and packaging of scalable web applications and services on Windows Azure.
New for the November 2009 release:

Service Model UI: A redesigned and significantly more complete interface for manipulating Role configuration information. To access, double-click on a role node in the Solution Explorer.
Additional role templates: Support for ASP.NET MVC 2 (2010 only), F# worker roles (2010 only), and WCF Service Application web roles.
VS2010 Beta2 Support: Support for Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 and VWD Express 2010 Beta 2.
Support for dynamically creating tables: The Create Tables functionality is now performed automatically; there is no longer a need to right-click and select Create Tables… on the project after your table definitions have changed.
Full support for and installation of the November Windows Azure SDK release:

The sample storage client has been replaced by a new production quality library.
New Diagnostics library enables logging using .NET APIs and enables the collection of diagnostic information from the service.
Service Runtime library updated to support inter-role communication and notification of configuration changes .
Support for input endpoints on Worker Roles.
Higher fidelity simulation of Development Storage: supports all current cloud storage features, including dynamically creating tables.
Ability to choose the size of the VM for a role instance.
Ability to persist data in local storage even after the role is recycled.
Ability to manage certificates to install to the role VMs.

Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio includes:

C# and VB Project creation support for creating a Windows Azure Cloud Service solution with multiple roles.
Tools to add and remove roles from the Cloud Service.
Tools to configure each Role.
Integrated local development via the Development Fabric and Development Storage services.
Running and Debugging a Cloud Service in the Development Fabric.
Building and packaging of Cloud Service Packages.
Browsing to the Windows Azure Developer Portal.

ARCast.TV - Vishwas Lele, CTO of Applied Information Sciences, on Cloud Architecture Patterns

bartvagh — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:10:00 GMT

Want to know more about Microsoft Windows Azure and the Azure Services platform and how it relates to Microsoft’s “Software + Services” strategy and other cloud computing services such as Amazon EC2? Check out Dr. Zhiming Xue’s interview with Vishwas Lele, CTO of Applied Information Sciences (AIS). Speaking from his understanding and experience, Vishwas articulates three typical styles of applications and services that may be built to take advantages of the Azure Services platform -- complete applications using the Azure AppFabric, composite applications that are integrated with services hosted and run in the cloud, and consumable services such as workflow for other applications and services.

Link at: http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/ARCast.TV/ARCastTV-Talking-About-Windows-Azure-and-the-Azure-Services-Platform/

Powered by Windows Azure: Air Quality at your own House

bartvagh — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:46:37 GMT

Together with the European Environment Agency and the German Space Agency, Microsoft is very proud to deliver to you hourly updated Air Quality in your own street, at your own house.

This new service announced this week, covers hourly real-time Air Quality updates for 32 European countries(EU-27, Iceland, Norway, Lichtenstein, Switzerland and Turkey).

All this is hosted in the Microsoft cloud platform Azure and is powered by Windows Azure, SQL Azure and Azure .NET Services.

More info can be found at www.eyeonearth.eu

Check for yourself and see how good the air is around you!

Three screens and a cloud let’s dream and then build!

lucvdv — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:15:00 GMT

The yearly Professional Developers conference PDC has started yesterday and these are exciting times. Quite some architects in LA too, not the enterprise type but the tech architects made it.

Day 1 key note was an appearance by Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s chief technology officer, and one of the key drivers behind Microsoft’s work in “cloud” computing.

Ray Ozzie key note was clear and simple. Three screens and a cloud in leveraging a seamless experience to you, your partners and your customers.

To quote Ray Ozzie directly: "A journey that started 4 years ago with our Software as a Service platform vision, now materializing. I believe that the world some number of years from now in terms of how we consume IT is really shifting from a machine-centric viewpoint to what we refer to as three screens and a cloud: the phone, the PC, and the TV ultimately, and how we deliver value to them.”

Three screens and a cloud is how Ray Ozzie positions the web or cloud as the hub and a world of devices. Information is typical consumed via one of three devices: The phone, the PC and the TV.

On the PC and mobile we’re making progress in connecting them to the cloud through services such as Windows Live services. Netbooks have sped up this process in many ways as a companion device to a larger PC you can get a great experience through sharing or synchronizing your devices through the cloud.

The TV side is also moving forward, more so devices that use that large screen or screens in your home to make it another way of connecting with the cloud. We all have our big screen hanging at the wall but let’s face it; the real power comes from the devices connected to it. An XBOX 360 a Media Center, a Zune, extending the experience and investments made in that silly screen hanging on your wall.

The cloud, the ultimate way to share data and context across all three screens, across all three devices; this is the great potential of Microsoft Azure and beyond. How to make sure your data is stored secure and reachable at all times by all three different experiences based upon where you are and what you are doing unleashing that power to you.

The next couple of days and weeks we will provide you with more insights in what this means for us, the architects.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Architect Forum: Connecting your business objectives with IT initiatives

lucvdv — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:28:09 GMT

As Infrastructure Architects, you obviously are passionate, knowledgeable and experienced in IT infrastructure technology and want to keep in touch with the upcoming technology trends.
Evenly important, and increasingly important in these crisis period, is that you need to clearly connect business objectives with IT initiatives, in order to make sure that business understands the value of the IT platform and hence will free up those critical budgets for your initiatives.

Our speaker: Eduardo Kassner, Enterprise Technology Architect has built up a ton of experience with these matters in real life cases and he will help you with this challenge in his well know no-nonsense way, combining structured frameworks with do-to-day reality and linking the discussions up-to-the level of the concrete Microsoft technology stack as well as how this relates to business reality in your average enterprise.

Date: 19 November 2009 Location: Golflife Sterrebeek

13:00 - 13:30 Welcome and registration

13:30 - 14:45 Connecting IT to Your Business Objectives: A conversation about the Microsoft Optimization Models

14:45 - 15:15 Break

15:15 - 16:15 Are you designing your User Experiences? How does Dynamic IT feel in the real world?

16:15 - 17:15 Microsoft Software Roadmap: Portfolio Strategy For IT

17:15 - 18:00 Drink & networking

Architect Forum Online:

lucvdv — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 01:11:13 GMT

Architectures for your Next Generation Business Applications

Last week 140 Architects took a deep dive into Architectures for your Next Generation Business Applications. We want to thank you for your presence! According to your feedback this was a valuable experience, that fulfilled your expectations. To have another look at the different sessions, please find the recordings below. For those who missed the event, you can take a look now!

The Future of User Experience and the Emotion Commotion

August de los Reyes (Microsoft) - The competitive environment for technology is changing, and its impact on user experience is deep: capabilities, features, and functions are no longer enough. Emotional engagement will distinguish successful consumer and enterprise experiences of the future. Designing in this world requires we change the way we think about people and products. This presentation provides a brief overview of a counter-intuitive emotional design approach and its application to things to come.
Watch this session

Next Generation LOB Applications

Simon Guest (Microsoft) - Many organizations have chosen the Microsoft platform as a standard for LOB (Line of Business) applications. What does this investment look like moving forward? What comes after MFC and Windows Forms? How do WPF and Silverlight 3 change things? What about exposing data and generating reports? This session will answer these questions and explore technologies such as the ADO.NET Entity Framework, .NET RIA Services, WPF, and Expression Blend, to show end-to-end examples, tips, and techniques to create a roadmap for your next generation LOB applications.
Watch this session

Setting-up a WPF line-of-business software factory

Olivier Raulot, Cristovao Figueiredo, Augusta Guernier (Getronics) - This session explains how to concretely and pragmatically set up an efficient WPF Software Factory that enables you to quickly build high-quality, rich applications that will blow away the expectations of "the business". Learn how to integrate the "Interactive Designer" role into your development process including from a tools perspective (glimpse of VS2010), take advantage of a navigation framework and a components suite, as well as maximise re-use in a WPF world via Styles and control templates packaging and the concept of toolkits. You will dive into a couple of world-class Belux customer cases that were build using this WPF Software Factory. Note that these concepts/tools equally well apply to Silverlight applications.
Watch this session

Building Business Centric Applications with Silverlight 3 and .NET RIA Services

Brad Abrahams (Microsoft) - Discover Microsoft .NET RIA Services and Silverlight 3 and how they simplify the traditional n-tier application architectures by integrating the ASP.NET and Silverlight platforms. The RIA Services provides patterns for writing application logic that runs on the mid-tier and controls access to data for queries, changes and custom operations. It also provides end-to-end support for common tasks such as data validation, authentication and roles. Learn also how Silverlight 3 improvements enable rapid development and make your development process more productive.
Watch this session

Patterns for Cloud Computing

Simon Guest (Microsoft) - Everything that you read these days seems to suggest that you should be moving to the cloud. But where do you start? Which applications and services should you be moving? How do you build the bridge between on-premises and the cloud? What client architecture patterns does it enable. And more importantly, what should you be looking out for along the way? Based on real-world scenarios, this session explores a set of pattern for applications that best take advantage of the cloud, together with working examples on the Windows Azure platform. This session provides the tools and knowledge to determine whether cloud computing is right for you, and where to start.
Watch this session

Architects come and architects go. Thanks Philippe!!!

lucvdv — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 21:03:00 GMT

It’s been quite on this blog over the summer, because there wasn’t that much news to tell, but also because the soul and heart of this blog, Philippe Destoop, has decided to take a next step in his career. He will stay with Microsoft Belgium but has just moved to our enterprise unit where he will advise large companies in their selection of application platform solutions. So I’m sure those in our geography will still bump into him from time to time.

I’d really like to thank Philippe for the valuable contribution he’s done to the architect community over the past couple years. 369 posts since May 2007 is something that counts !!! Next to that he has build a vibrant community that gathers in councils and networks in the architect forum that he’s been animating with top speakers and content. So THANK YOU Philippe !!!

The good news is that we have already identified a successor that will take over the architect outreach and take over this blog in the next couple of months. So I’d like to introduce Bart Vande Ghinste as next moderator of this blog and the Microsoft Belgium architect community. WELCOME Bart !!!

Luc Van de Velde
Director Developer & Platform group BeLux

CIO: Put Business Technology Maturity In 2010 Plan

pdestoop — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:23:38 GMT

CIOs: Put Business Technology Leadership Maturity In Your 2010 Strategic Plan

Technology is business and we can't run our companies without it.

Business Technology (BT) is the largest single technology-management transition you will face over the next 5-10 years, as BT redefines IT’s operating model in your firm. BT is pervasive technology use, increasingly managed outside of IT's direct control. How does BT show itself? Employees, customers, and partners are bringing Web 2.0 and social computing technologies into business processes; business leaders are directly contracting for online solutions and business process outsourcing; and users are configuring their own business solutions, using ERP applications from vendors like SAP or IT-provided platforms built from technologies like business process modeling (BPM). Whether the business user is aware of the technology angle or not, IT’s traditional project-based plan-build-run approach to technology management can’t keep up with BT’s user-driven technology adoption.

How far has BT come at your firm? Forrester’s ongoing research and client interactions show that most firms have passed the tipping point — technology is business and we can’t run our companies without it. And the key issue for you as a CIO is, how much your business organizations are making decisions that directly drive technology — and how you are responding. Ask yourself the following:

“Are my business leaders buying services over the Net — to run direct-marketing campaigns, sales-force automation, or logistics route optimization? Or are they using blogs, wikis, and Facebook for business functions?”

“Am I waiting for these users to fail and to come running back to IT — or am I proactively enabling BT success — and, therefore, business success?”

With BT’s emergence, CIO attention to enabling BT success is growing, with CIOs making explicit plans for BT enablement in their annual strategic plans. Some are educating their firms on BT’s impact — on the business and on how the IT organization operates. Others are assessing their BT leadership maturity and pursuing new IT structures and processes which will help their firms take full advantage of the BT opportunities (see my report: “BT Changes IT’s Operating Model”).

Forrester provides you with a tool that can help you to understand BT’s impact on your organization — to assess your BT leadership maturity and to identify next steps to improve your ability to move forward. Forrester's BT Leadership Maturity Road Map examines technology leadership practices through a lens of five elements — strategy, process, structure, performance measurement, and culture — and identifies five maturity levels, each of which is ever more harmonized and blended with the work of the enterprise and its business network.

One size doesn’t fit all for how you should address BT Leadership in your organization. As with most maturity frameworks, Forrester’s BT Road Map helps you to assess your movement from ad hoc and chaotic BT activities, through the development of defined and repeatable BT processes, to the achievement of optimized and business-integrated BT leadership. Some organizations will focus on BT governance, driving changes in budgeting, funding, and prioritization. Others will integrate their management of IT demand, bringing together the project and services portfolios, tied to metrics and cost-based value realization, and tied to program and project management. Still others will look to shift IT’s culture from technology control to business enablement, establishing a business value point of view through transparency of IT’s activities in a business context.

Source: http://advice.cio.com/forrester_research/cios_put_business_technology_leadership_maturity_in_your_2010_strategic_plan

A live, mission critical, Silverlight 3 RIA at launch

pdestoop — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:37:30 GMT

Continental Airlines Revolutionizes Their Call Center With Silverlight 3. This shows Silverlight’s maturity and that is has evolved from media engine to a full fledged application platform. Continental didn’t take the Silverlight seriously until v2. With v3 they are placing big bets. Out of browser deployment and web service connectivity tipped the scales.

Microsoft launched Expression and Silverlight 3 through an event at the Intercontinental Hotel in San Francisco on July 10th, 2009. Scott Guthrie delivered the keynote during which Continental Airlines showcased their call center based flight reservation solution built on Silverlight 3.

Continental Airlines stands out from its competition through a commitment to superior customer service and a forward-thinking approach to technology. When it came time to update its call center reservations system, Continental and its partner Infusion Development chose Microsoft® Silverlight™ to build the new reservations solution as a rich internet application.

The new system provides improved functionality and workflow for call center agents, which enables them to deliver better customer service and satisfaction. With the new solution, Continental saves money by consolidating servers and databases that currently sit in call centers around the world. By choosing Silverlight, the company also has reduced development and deployment time, simplified application management, and made it easy to integrate the new system with Continental’s existing Web services.

In Continental’s own worlds “Silverlight speeds our time to market, increases the return on our investment in existing services, and provides our agents with better functionality, which helps them better serve our customers.”

Aaron Hynes, Managing Director of E-Commerce Technology, Continental Airlines

While presenting at the keynote, Aaron mentioned that the Windows based EZR was created 10 years ago as a user experience enhancement over the then popular green screen terminals that required use of an arcane set of commands to get the business done. Windows and DCOM based EZR definitely saved the day at that time.

Per Aaron, the current EZR architecture constrains the agent from seeing all the right information in a given customer call context. For the past few years Continental has invested heavily in .NET powered web service capabilities which can be leveraged in presenting right information to satisfy all the customer service needs. Over that period of time, Continental call centers expanded to multiple international locations that included Continental owned and third party operated facilities. This kind of mix imposed a lot of deployment, networking and operational constraints that weighed heavily in deciding on the new platform.

Aaron went on to say that the Cross platform compatibility, RIA Services, out-of-browser deployment and familiar .NET and web service programming environment tipped the scale towards Silverlight when compared with other RIA technology platforms.

Survey Finds BPM Projects Lack Architecture

pdestoop — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:42:28 GMT

Organizations embarking on business process management need to bring in IT architects earlier in the process, according to a report released last week.

Only 52 percent of organizations classified as leaders have enterprise architecture teams leading their BPM efforts, a Web survey of 135 enterprises, showed. Of those described as followers, only 31 percent had enterprise architects leading the efforts.

The report is particularly noteworthy in that the survey was designed by the International Association of Software Architects (IASA) in partnership with the IT research firm Macehiter Ward-Dutton. IASA is a highly regarded non profit organization in support of software architects with 6,000 members.

While not totally surprising, the findings give further evidence of a key barrier to successful BPM intiatives, according to MWD research director Neil Ward-Dutton, who authored the report. The bottom line is BPM projects often fail or hit roadblocks because they are initiated and kicked off by business leaders rather than enterprise architects, Ward-Dutton said.

"Almost all the time, architects get brought in relatively late in the day," Ward-Dutton said in an interview. "They retrospectively figure out what kind of technology the company just bought in and have to figure out how that going to integrate with what we’ve got and so on."

Yet in cases where architects do get involved earlier in BPM projects, they tend to go well, he said. "It’s really important for architects to be involved, not only from the technology perspective but looking at some of the business architecture perspectives," he said. "That means really looking at these processes that the BPM investment is going to try to prove and how those really fit into the broader picture of what the business is trying to do with IT."

The role of architects, he added, is particularly important because they help drive standards for integration and software development. "If you think about information, business objects, and services that are going to be used as common approaches to development and so on and so on, it’s really important for architects to be involved."

While it is important for business executives and CIOs to apply architecture, it is also incumbent on architects to step up and make their case, he said.

Source: http://adtmag.com/articles/2009/07/02/survey-finds-bpm-projects-lack-architecture.aspx

Windows Azure Official Pricings

pdestoop — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 09:37:31 GMT

During the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2009 yesterday, we announced the business and partner model for the Windows Azure platform including service level agreements and support programs:

http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsazure/archive/2009/07/14/confirming-commercial-availability-and-announcing-business-model.aspx

Hybrid architecture based on SOA and ROA

pdestoop — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:21:46 GMT

ARCast.TV - Implementing a Hybrid Architecture Based on SOA and ROA in the Enterprise

In this interview, Kevin Israel, Visual Studio Team System MVP, shares with Zhiming Xue his thoughts on implementation of a hybrid architecture based on SOA and ROA in the enterprise space. Kevin explains what Resource Oriented Architecture (ROA) is and, through examples, highlights its key differences from Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). He argues that while the two architectural patterns share the same common problem domains such as versioning and application manageability, they work differently in practice. ROA services or RESTful services may be used to bring resources to the user, whereas SOA services are typically created to process business logic. Therefore, the crux of the hybrid architecture implementation is to use them together and use them for their intended purposes. Kevin believes that as cloud computing and enterprise meshup applications start to emerge, more applications based on the hybrid architecture of SOA and ROA may be seen in the enterprise

Study Paris to improve your IT architecture

pdestoop — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:13:20 GMT

The IT architecture of a typical company is an aging maze of applications, hardware, and networks that undermines rather than promotes corporate strategic goals. Senior IT managers should study another complicated set of systems—the infrastructure of a modern city—to learn how underlying principles and physical assets can unify an organization. Paris, with its wonderful variety of buildings from many centuries, seems particularly apt for this analogy.
Back in the 1850s, Napoleon III empowered the city planner Baron Haussmann to create a vast new infrastructure system, including sewers, bridges, parks, streets, and boulevards—the Paris of song and story. (His goals were not only to promote commerce and public health but also to widen the streets in hopes of preventing Parisians from erecting barricades and thus to prevent further revolutions of the kind that had brought him to power.) Since then, Paris has planned its redevelopment coherently, renovating old assets while replacing others and adding new ones. The city’s infrastructure unites them all, defining the cityscape and controlling its evolution.
Read this classic article to learn how the city-planning analogy can help companies use their IT architectures to compete more successfully.
August 2000
The Paris guide to IT architecture