Beat Schwegler's 2 Cents : Talks

Architect and Develop Search-Enabled Enterprise Applications

beatsch — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 19:43:00 GMT

I have to admit that I fell in love with Enterprise Search... Finding stuff within an Enterprise is a very challenging task that differs in many ways from searching html or pdf on the web. Some of the questions I started to ask myself were:

What is the impact of Enterprise Search for a Solution Architect?
What does it take for an application to become searchable?
Or even more interestingly, how can I add search capabilities to my application?

If your interesting in these topics, my paper on "Architect and Develop Search-Enabled Enterprise Applications" might be an interesting reading for you ;-)

BTW, this will also be the topic for my TechEd.session in Barcelona.

The Iron Architect is back...

beatsch — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 20:37:00 GMT

Simon just announced this year’s Iron Architect problem! I’m already looking forward to see some inspiring solutions…

TechEd Europe, I'm coming...

beatsch — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 14:28:00 GMT

After Tech·Ed Israel and Tech·Ed US, Europe will be my third TechEd this year and I'm really looking forward to it! Being part of the content team, I'm especially proud about the great speaker line-up and the quality content. Everyone involved in events like this knows how much energy and passion is required to compile a great track. And so was it for Emmanuel and myself: Over the last 5 months, we put a lot of effort into our two tracks, the ARC and the CTS track. (If you wonder why there is no session with a CTS prefix, here is the answer: "We decided to reduce the amount of tracks to 5 (ARC, DEV, MBS, OFF, SQL). Therefore the CTS track is now embedded within the DEV track. However all CTS sessions are part of the BPI (Business Process Integration) virtual track.").
As you can imagine, we're really looking forward to see the result of our work...

If you can't go to Barcelona check out the amazing Virtualside. This is just a great idea, I love it...

If you're lucky and will go to Barcelona here are a couple of things you shouldn't miss:

The ARC booth
Whether you have a specific question or just want to have a chat with another Architect, this is the place where Architects meet! BTW, this is also the place where you find more information about the great p&p stuff such as the Enterprise Library or the Service Factory. Come and visit us...
Participate in the Iron Architect Contest
Who comes up with the best/most elegant/most innovative/smartest/... solution for the given problem and wants to win an amazing price? Come to the ARC booth and pick up the 'ingredients' for the Iron Architect showdown. The showdown will be live on Friday Fri Nov 10 15:15 (ARCWD06 Iron Architect Finals).
Don Smith's and my session "Proven Practices for Implementing Services"
DEV308 Thu Nov 9 10:45 - 12:00 Room 113
This session will take a closer look at some of the issues developers and architects encounter while implementing services using ASMX and Windows Foundation Classes (WFC). We'll discuss common challenges around contracts and messages and elaborate on how to decouple the service internals from its service interfaces without adding too much complexity to the overall service design. At the end of this session, we're going to demonstrate how to implement such services by leveraging the ASMX and WCF Service Factory from the patterns and practices team.
My session "Abstract Concepts: Architecting Applications for a Service-Oriented World"
ARC 206 Fri Nov 10 13:30 - 14:45 Room 112
Many people still believe that service-oriented systems are just a Web of applications connected through Web services, where as the real power of service-orientation lies in the definition of a conceptual service model that defines the contract and interaction of the services. Given the fact that few projects count as 'grass root' projects, this session covers how to build new applications and also about architectural re-factoring to move an existing application into the service-oriented space.
Iron Architect Finals
ARCWD06 Fri Nov 10 15:15 - 16:30 Room 130
Come and be a member of the audience and help decide the winner of the first annual Iron Architect showdown. Contestants have been given their ingredients, now it's time to see them perform in front of a live audience. All members of the audience will participate in voting for the winner. Come and be part of history and make your vote count!

Last but not least, don't forget your swimsuit as there are rumors that it it's still possible to take a swim in the Mediterranean...

My Tuesday at JAOO

beatsch — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 14:37:00 GMT

What a day it was. I was surfing on a great wave while attending sessions about DSL, AJAX and Agile Development. I started the day with Markus excellent session on DSL best practices. Beside many other things, he emphasized on building your own metamodel, which represents the formal definition of the domain being described. Hey and I couldn’t agree more with his advice to never ever modify generated code (that’s exactly why I love partial classes ;-).

After lunch, I decided to interrupt my flow on DSLs and I attended Nikhil’s session on ASP.NET Ajax (aka Atlas). I liked his definition of Ajax: “It’s not about scripting or XML over Http but about providing a smarter experience for the user”. How right he is! An important building block for ASP.NET Ajax applications are server side controls. They provide a very nice programming model to abstract many of the client side scripting and therefore simplify the creation of consumer pleasing websites. In addition to that, it also provides a nice separation between content and site functionality.

A short break, and it was time to learn more about the intention of “Intentional Software”. They have a very ambitious goal of changing the way software is written: Today, the gap between the domain knowledge and the actual implementation in code is too big. Therefore it’s extremely difficult to provide traceability and consistency between these two representations. In contrast to the classical DSL approach, “Intentional Software” developed a “domain workbench” which allows them to mix the representations of different domains within a unified view. I certainly stay tuned on that…

Now back to web and Ajax: I attend Bruce’s great session on the “Google Web Toolkit (GWT)”. In a nutshell, it’s a toolkit that allows developers to build “Ajaxy” websites by leveraging the Java programming model. Its architectural foundation is around a Java compiler that finally produces JavaScript. It comes together with a Java class library to build the actual sites. Bruce really emphasized the fact that they put a lot of effort to make building Ajax applications as easy as possible and to give the user a very rich user experience. For example, this includes support for history, bookmarking and keystroke enabled tree controls.

Last but (certainly) not least, I attended Alistair’s session with the arcane title “If I was going to Glasgow, I wouldn’t start from here”. If you haven’t been there, you truly missed something. I don’t even try to summarize this 45 minutes but I want to say “thank you Alistair“: “I really enjoyed it and I wished it didn’t end after 45 minutes…”.

Speaker Idol - Are you the Next Speaker Star?

beatsch — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 17:43:00 GMT

I’m super excited about the “Tech·Ed Europe: Developers” Speaker Idol contest. I believe this is a great opportunity to become an invited speaker at Europe’s largest IT event! If you’re a great presenter as well as a subject matter expert, you should definitely consider to participate in our “Speaker Idol” contest. I thoroughly believe this is a great platform and I hope to discover some new super stars! We're looking for you...

Don’t wait; go for it!

Service-Oriented Modeling for Connected Systems – Part 1

beatsch — Mon, 08 May 2006 11:05:00 GMT

Due my intense travel I completely forgot to blog that the first part of Arvindra and my paper on “Service-Oriented Modeling” got published on the Architecture Journal…

In this paper we introduce a three part model that helps you to map business capabilities to service oriented implementation artifacts by using a so called service model.

The more I work with this model the more I realize how important this separation of concerns really is. Especially defining the conceptional service model allows you to decouple contracts from technology restrictions. If you’re interested in that topic and plan to attend TechEd Israel or TechEd US, my session “Architecting for a Service-Oriented World” might be of interest for you.

The three part model is going to the PDC

beatsch — Tue, 02 Aug 2005 03:54:00 GMT

I’ve just came back from a podcasting session with Ron Jacobs. We recorded some podcasts about the “three part model” that Arvindra and I presented at TechEd Europe. If you’re interested in this stuff, come and join us @ the PDC pre-conference session “Patterns and Practices for Designing Service Oriented Applications — An Illustrated Example”.

TechEd - What a great week...

beatsch — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 15:40:00 GMT

TechEd Europe was a blast and I’m really proud that I was part of it! As a track owner for the ARC & CTS tracks, planning for TechEd started already in January. It looks like we made the right decisions: Both tracks were extremely well received! In addition, our 1 day pre-conference was also a great success: more than 350 people spend one day with us and learned about service orientation in the context of the three part model (Business, SOA and Technology).

Finally, I like to thank to all the speakers who made this TechEd such a success for architecture and connected systems! You guys rule!

Melted Cheese Effect...

beatsch — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 15:27:00 GMT

You can find the first installment of a series of article about services and contracts here. Well done Maarten! Stay tuned for more articles and tools from Maarten, Christian and myself.

TechEd Europe: Your input is required

beatsch — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 10:56:00 GMT

All our tracks will host a panel. This allows you to have your question answered by an impressive group of experts. We are running the following two panels in the ARC and CTS.

PNL002 Software Factories: How and When?
Steve Cook , Eric Lee , Ted Neward , Maarten Mullender , Gareth Jones , Imran Ali
Fri Jul 8 13:45 - 14:30
Software Factories is a Microsoft strategic initiative that proposes to make it faster, easier and cheaper to build software. A software factory is like a starter kit on steroids. It provides a set of reusable assets that support and automate tasks for a specific type of deliverable. The goals of a factory are to offload menial work, so that developers can spend more time on creative activities, and to reduce risk and effort by providing guidance representing known good practices. This panel will discuss how these ideas can be put into practice, when realistic implementations of software factories will be available.

PNL003 WS-I_M_REALLY_CONFUSED
Rafal Lukawiecki , Christian Weyer , Steve Swartz , Michele Leroux Bustamante , Omri Gazitt
Wed Jul 6 13:45 - 14:30
Web Services are a great success and Microsoft together with most other vendors are betting on it to make interoperability a problem of the past. But, isn’t it quite easy to feel lost in the near to endless number of Web Services related specifications? WS-X replaces WS-Y but is not compatible with WS-Z. This panel won’t only elaborate the different driving forces behind specifications but is also looking forward to give answers to your questions and concerns! Be prepared to get rid of your confusions around WS-* specifications. We count on you…

If you already have a topic you would like the panel to talk about, why not post it as a comment to this entry (or send me a private message)? This would allow us to build a nice story around some of the questions.

Virtual Indigo Track @ TechEd Europe

beatsch — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 03:26:00 GMT

I'm really happy about the massive Indigo coverage we're going to have at TechEd Europe. Since this content is brand new, the presenters agreed on doing a lot of extra work! Thanks guys, I owe you all a beer...

Introducing "Indigo" - The Unified Framework for Building Connected Systems, Ari Bixhorn
Implementing "Indigo" Endpoints – Addresses, Bindings, and Contracts, Steve Swartz & Christian Weyer
Implementing "Indigo" Endpoints – Secure, Reliable, Transacted Messaging, Steve Swartz & Ingo Rammer
"Indigo" Under the Hood, Steve Swartz & Clemens Vasters
Implications of "Indigo" and Service Orientation for Architects and Architecture, Steve Swartz & Clemens Vasters
The Day "Indigo" Met the "Tiger", Ted Neward
BizTalk Server 2004 and "Indigo", Morten Abrahamsen

TechEd Europe is the best way to get a full dose of Indigo ;-)

You want to have fun, you come to my room...

beatsch — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 12:01:00 GMT

I know I’m late but Gregor’s list of the best quotes on TechEd US is just great!
Hey Gergor, you’ve missed one

Mr. S…..crewdriver (a waitress in a Japanese restaurant while trying to pronounce my name on the credit card)

Looking forward to Gregor’s list about TechEd Europe
cu there...

WSCWS: Post Mortem,

beatsch — Thu, 26 May 2005 09:22:00 GMT

I delivered my Web Service Competency Workshop (WSCWS) in EMEA during the last 4 month. It was a great time: I met a lot of bright people, had great discussions about technology as well as the meaning of life. That’s why I like to share some of the non-technical experiences with you:

Iceland, Reykjavik
I haven’t seen much of this fascinating place (it was January and we had approximately 3-4 hours daylight). However, I won’t forget the great dinner (thanks Gisli) Eating seafood in Iceland is a must…
Norway, Oslo
With ~300 attendees this was definitely the largest audience on that tour. I would love to see Oslo in the summer…
Russia, Moscow
I’ll never forget that trip to Moscow. But also working with a translator added to the unique experience of delivering the WSCWS in Russia.
Spain, Madrid
During my stay in Madrid, an anti-terrorism conference was held in the same Hotel where I stayed. This implied security screening every time I got to the hotel. Beside that, I just liked the food…(thanks Carlos)
Finland, Helsinki
The Finnish language offered me some interesting challenges: Just try to tell the taxi driver that you have to go to a street called Satamaradankatu…
Ukraine, Kiev
Beside the frightening event in the hotel, I won’t forget the great atmosphere of that event.
Portugal, Lisbon
Jose and I really enjoyed the nice waves of the Atlantic ocean. Surprisingly, the water wasn’t that cold…
Israel, Tel-Aviv
A great place to be! Beside the superb audience you get a lot of sun, beaches and great food.

I’m looking forward to WSCWS Reloaded! Hope to cu there…

Web Services Competency Workshop in a Box

beatsch — Wed, 25 May 2005 09:43:00 GMT

Eliaz just uploaded the latest version of my Web Service Competency Workshop. You can download ~20MB of slides and demos from here. 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)

Web Services - Resources, Books, Tools and Events

beatsch — Fri, 13 May 2005 04:56:00 GMT

I’ve just compiled an incomplete list of Web Services related resources:

Online Resources

WS-Interoperability
Have a look at the WS-I BP 1.0 and the corresponding testing tools. They are essential resources for building interoperable Web Services.
WebServices.org
A great site to keep yourself up-to-date with WS-* related stuff
Web Services Developer Center on MSDN
THE Microsoft site for information about Web Services
Advanced Web Services on MSDN
Great source of information about WS-* specifications. The articles are not rehashes of the specs but explain them in a non specy way…
Designing Extensible, Versionable XML Formats on MSDN
Have you ever thought XML versioning is easy? Read this article and you will suddenly realize that we’ll have to relay on advanced platforms if it comes down to versioning
Web Services Enhancements (WSE) 2.0 on MSDN
The WSE site contains download links as well as great articles
Building Interoperable Web Services: WS-I Basic Profile 1.0 on MSDN
An invaluable resource to create WS-I BP 1.0 compliant Web Services by using .NET 1.x
W3C Web Services Activity
That’s where you get all the nice specs from…
…

Books on WS-*

Web Services Architecture and its Specifications by Luis Felipe Cabrera & Chris Kurt
A nice book explaining the driving forces and approaches of many WS-* specs in an easy way
Understanding Web Services Specifications and the WSE by Jeannine Hall Gailey
Similar to the one above but does it in the context of WSE

Tools

VS.NET 2005
THE tool and platform to create Web Services
WS-I BP 1.0 Testing Tool
A free tool to test your Web Services for WS-I BP 1.0 compliancy
SoapScope
A very nice tool to work with Web Services although the UI experience could be improved…
WSCF
A great tool to realize a schema and wsdl centric approach to build Web Services

Events

TechEd US and TechEd Europe
If you want to get the latest news and updates on Web Services, TechEd is the place to be!