Sehmi-Conscious Thoughts : Architecture

Architecture Journal #17 - Article on Distributed Embedded Systems

asehmi — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:21:01 GMT

I've been working on Distributed Embedded Systems and related communications technology recently so for the "Distributed Computing", Issue #17, of the Microsoft Architecture Journal I wrote a paper on the subject. My Aim was to open up - 'expose' - this very exciting field to the "traditional" distributed systems community. As the industry moves from standalone, smart devices to connected devices and then towards systems of service-oriented connected devices, we will begin to see much more overlap with "traditional" distributed systems design and architecture practices. Not everything we (traditional distributed systems developers and architects) know translates easily to the world of distributed embedded systems, so it's vitally important to understand the different challenges and issues faced, technical imperatives, development strategies, and technology road maps. Hopefully, in my paper, I've done some justice towards answering those questions.

Apart from my own paper there's a fab collections of others. I haven't started reading them as yet, but personally know and respect many of the authors. I know attendees of PDC2008 will be receiving a copy of the Journal, so we've been calling this the "PDC Issue"! The new editorial team are beginning to make their positive marks and you'll notice a new clean, bold look to the Journal as it starts to establish a shared identity with Microsoft other "architecture evangelism" assets. I approve wholeheartedly, but it still hasn't got the minimalism I think we prefer in Europe Western/Northern. But at the end of day it's about content value and that you certainly have in abundance.

http://www.msarchitecturejournal.com/pdf/Journal17.pdf

On another note, my colleague, Yuriy Zaytsev, alerted me to a Japan MITI survey which concluded:

(4) Over 40% of the quality problems with embedded products after shipment are caused by software errors.
The leading cause of the quality problems with embedded products after shipment was software errors (46.3%), followed by hardware design faults (21.8%) and production faults (12.7%). A trend over the past four years is that the percentage of faults during product conceptualization and specification continues to fall year after year. Software errors have remained the major cause of quality problems for the past four years.
(6) Advanced* embedded software engineers are needed.
Although overall shortages are easing, demand is still high for embedded software engineers with advanced skills; the shortage rate of entry-level engineers was 26.3%, while that of advanced (experienced) engineers was 48.4%. Over the three years from 2006, the shortage rate of entry-level engineers fell from 44.2% to 26.3%, showing the largest decline among all the categories. The shortage rate of advanced engineers stood out last year at 64.9%, but the rate declined this year, making the disparity between different skill levels restored to an extent equivalent to that of two years ago.

*Advanced: Capable of implementing technologies, methodologies and businesses while exercising leadership or capable of implementing these while leading internal and external teams by means of standardization and the development of new technologies.
Intermediate: Capable of discovering and solving challenges in business operations while exercising leadership.
Entry-level: Capable of discovering and solving challenges in business operations under the leadership of higher-level engineers.
(7) Software engineering methods have been introduced for improving quality and developing human resources.
The respondents’ most common reason for having adopted solutions developed and provided by the Software Engineering Center was “quality improvement” (cited by more than 75%), followed by “human resource development” (more than 60%). This suggests that many respondents recognize SEC’s solutions as effective for solving major challenges in developing embedded software. About 70% of those who have adopted SEC’s solutions give high marks to them, rating them as being “beyond expectations” or “just as expected.”

The questions that arise for me, especially in the context of realizing Distributed Embedded Systems solutions (i.e. Complex Embedded Systems), are:

Which, if any, of the software development processes, design and architecture methods we use in traditional software development, can be leveraged in Embedded Systems development to mitigate these quality problems and skills shortages?
What is Microsoft doing to address these issues in terms of next generation tool chains for this industry?

Over the next few months we'll certainly be exploring these questions in more detail and report back our learning.

Anyway, here’s wishing you a great read of Journal 17!

Aspiring Architect Series - 2008

asehmi — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:45:18 GMT

My mate Mohammad Akif in Microsoft Canada is doing a sterling job helping folks aspiring to become Software Architects by providing a gentle introduction to common methodologies and software architectures. Visit his Blog to see the full list of upcoming Webcasts in the Aspiring Architect Series - 2008! These will run, one every day, from June 16 - 26, 2008.

For those of you new to this field, definitely plug into The Microsoft Architects Journal as well. We have a ton of very useful material you will benefit from regularly.

If you want more visit the MSDN Architecture Center.

Web Services Competency Workshop In-A-Box

asehmi — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 22:29:00 GMT

Originally Created: 2005-06-12

Beat Schwegler, Architect on my team, informs us the latest version of his Web Service Competency Workshop can be download from here. There's ~20MB of slides and demos and in my opinion is the best set of coherent content on this subject that I have seen. Go get it!

Beat says:

The content consists of two parts: The first one discusses architecture and concepts where the second one is dedicated to implementation and technology:

Update on SOA and Web Services
The grey area between service and object-oriented design
Web Services and attachments
Web Services versioning and extensibility concepts
Best practices for Web Services interoperability
Understanding asmx 1.x
asmx 1.x performance aspects
What’s new in asmx 2.0
Web Service enhancements 2.0 (WSE 2.0)

In our next fiscal year (i.e. at Microsoft) we'll be reloading this workshop with new content covering Indigo and have another workshop which will look at Service design using DSLs and the GAT. Cool!

Composite UI Application Block

asehmi — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 22:24:00 GMT

Originally Created: 2005-05-14

I'm not a UI design guru but I can surely recognize a good thing when I see it! Whether you're an architect or developer the CAB from MS patterns & practices will certainly interest you. To quote from Eugenio Pace's blog entry on this subject:

The architect, would use CAB to build the reusable infrastructure and define the common [UI] services to be used by all applications
The solution developer would develop SmartParts [composable UI parts] that could be used anywhere
The solution assembler would create an instance of an app composing SmartParts and maybe some "glue" code

Combine this stuff with the Guidance Automation Toolkit and the various Smart Client initiatives (like Offline App Block and Updater App Block, see EntLib) and I think you can see lots of really flexible UI development possibilities starting to emerge. Furthermore, with Indigo's support for peer-to-peer channels and duplex communications, the notion of treating "users as services" doesn't appear to be so far-fetched after all! Think about it... if UI can be easily custom-composed (using CAB of course) based on a particular message exchange semantic and the task in context, then applications can be built that will really merge users into the message-based and service-oriented world. Ron Jacobs, Clemens Vasters and I had a little discussion about this recently (April 21, 2005).

SOA Me Your Pod Baby!

asehmi — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 22:17:00 GMT

Originally Created: 2005-04-25

Last Thursday was fun! Ron Jacobs (Product Marketing Manager in the PAG Team) was over in UK giving a presentation on EntLib as part of the ongoing UK Architect Forum series of events. Clemens Vasters was also in UK doing some webcasts for my team.

Ron had this cool idea to get us together for a good banter about service orientation and hard issues in message processing. I couldn't believe it when he more-or-less proceeds to set up a mini recording studio! It was complete with amplifiers, headphones, remote microphones, and obligatory big tough carry case. Apparently he's become a PodCast junkie and lugs this gear around with him all over the world. On his PodCast site, Ron has a veritable cornucopia of interesting recorded chats with folks he encounnters on his travels... and this time, Clemens and I got PodCasted!

Go get our your Pod and happy listening!

SOA for Industrial Strength Applications: A Workshop

asehmi — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 21:22:00 GMT

Originally Created: 2004-09-14

Wow, I've been AWOL for far too long! Two reasons: a) It was a long and busy summer period for me which I spent worrying about how to make the next year of work as fun as the last one has been, and b) I turned off my blog referral notifications which sort of made me forget I had one!

Anyway, let me start with something light and promote a great workshop based on content newtelligence A.G. and my Architecture team developed together for Microsoft.

This content is the same stuff that begat FABRIQ, and as you all know the team that produced FABRIQ has some magic! So, bottom line, I am confident that this version of the workshop which newtelligence offers will be nothing short of excellent, and given that the creators and teachers are masters of .NET and SOA in general, it should not be missed. Any enterprise software development team considering building first class, no, should I say, world class .NET systems, should get these guys in-house. Individuals who want to compete in the tough commercial world of distributed systems development and consulting will really benefit from attending this workshop gaining very special new skills absolutely necessary for the future.

Here's a synopsis:

Building industrial strength applications based on Service Oriented Architecture principles and Microsoft® .NET requires a lot of knowledge. There are numerous technical and design oriented considerations spanning the whole application “stack” – from resource abstraction strategies and transaction control, business service and component design, presentation control logic, robust event logging, integrated security management, to performance and scalability considerations. The workshop delivers insight into the “services philosophy” and the theoretical foundations of service-compatible transaction techniques, scalability and federation patterns, autonomy and more! newtelligence’s SOA workshop is built to benefit application developers and architects.

Where/When: Duesseldorf, October 13-15, 2004

Signed off on JOURNAL3

asehmi — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 20:10:00 GMT

Originally Created: 2004-07-27

It has been a busy few weeks at work wrapping up FY04 and planning for FY05. If we pull off the plan then loads of good things will happen. I've also been working hard to get JOURNAL out. We had a few hiccups along the way but I signed off JOURNAL3 yesterday... it's an excellent issue even if I say so myself.

To any authors reading this... many congratulations and thank you! I'll be sending you email separately.