One of Microsoft great resources for architects over the past few years has been it's ARCast series of Webcasts pioneered by Ron Jacobs.
Over the past month a new set of ARCasts have been published on Channel9. These ARCasts are episodes created by Microsoft Architect Evangelists in the field. They typically last about 15 minutes and are interviews with influential architects on topics they are passionate about. New ARCast episodes are published weekly.
Check out the latest episodes on ARCast.TV.
David Chappell, noted author and lecturer, gave a presentation on Software+Services to a group of architects recently in New York. This is an interview with David where he expresses his views on how Cloud software development will resemble on-premises software development. Interesting speculation.
Quite a few folks have expressed an interest in the Microsoft Certified Architect Program. This is a masters level certification program for architects of all types, not just just architects that focus on Microsoft technologies.
More than 100 people at Microsoft and from the IT industry in the world today have become Microsoft Certified Architects since the program was launched about two years ago. For people who are interested to become an MCA, they may wonder what it is like to go through the certification process. In this interview with Biff Gaut, who earned his MCA title during the pilot phase of the MCA programs, Dr. Zhiming Xue “Z”, Architect Evangelist of the Microsoft DPE East Region, and George Cerbone, Microsoft MCA Program Manager and an MCA himself, interview Biff Gaut about the untold aspects of the grueling interview process, the trade-offs candidates have to make, and the key things to do before the interview day. See http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/ARCast.TV/ARCastTV-Bill-Guat-discusses-the-Microsoft-Certified-Architect-Program/.
Bill
We recently held a New York IASA chapter planning session to determine the topics that the chapter members are most interested in having covered at future meetings. We did a brainstorming session with about 25 of our members that resulted in a list of approximately 45 potential topics. Then the entire membership engaged in a dot voting exercise to rank the topics. The results below group them by the number of votes received. Topics in the same group were requested equally.
We thought that you would be interested in the results since they are indicative of what is on architect's minds today.
#1 Enterprise Architecture: Successes and failures, what worked and what didn’t. Lessons learned
#2 Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
#3 Cloud Computing, SaaS, S+S. Offshoring and Outsourcing. Cloud Infrastructures. How Google, Yahoo, Microsoft etc. do it. Cloud Virtualization
#4 Presentation by local companies on how they handle Enterprise Architecture Agile Methodologies (including Agile Architecture, Scrum , Lean) Industry Architecture practices (Financial, Telcom/Media, Government, Health)
#5 Application/System/Project Life Cycle Management. Distributed caching Business Intelligence, Data Modeling, Data Warehousing Case Studies, Case Studies! Architect soft skills (Presentation skills, leadership, persuasion, politics, etc.) Business Process Reengineering Modeling (Data, Architecture) Concerns and tools Scalability (web and database) Usability Real-world relationships between Architecture, Development Operations and Quality Assurance Domain Driven Design
#6 Concurrency, parallelism and the death of Moore’s law Test Driven Development When to replace old systems. The end of the life cycle Siloed Information systems and how to integrate them Virtualization Open source economics, tools and licensing issues. GPL, FreeBSD, etc. Career development
#7 Why Projects Fail Defining Technical Strategies Defining the roles and responsibilities of the architecture group (case studies and/or panels) Representational State Transfer (REST) Rule based computing Data presentation Methodologies (Aggregation, Visualization, Presentation) Risk Management Master Data Management (MDM), Data Governance Strategies Simple Iterative Partitioning (SIP) Methodology workshop Performance metrics Forecasting Methodologies Enterprise Architecture Frameworks Portals (.NET and J2EE)
#8 Interoperability between J2EE and .NET Six Sigma IP protection considerations TCO and other cost/benefit measures
As some of you may know, in addition to working for Microsoft I also run the New York City chapter of the International Association of Software Architects (IASA). IASA is a vendor-neutral association of/for/by IT architects all over the world. The New York IASA chapter is one of the most successful IASA chapters in the United States.
We recently did a quick survey to see what companies were represented in our chapter membership. This is only a partial list of some of the larger companies.
Bank of America, Bank of NY, BankLink, Bearingpoint, Berkshire Life, Bloomberg, Computer Automation, Christies, Chubb, CITI, Coach, Comcast, Credit-Suisse, City University of New York, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP , Dreyfus, Dunn & Bradstreet, GHI, HRA (NYC Gov), IBM, IEEE, ISO, Jet Blue, JPMorgan Chase, Kaplan, Kodak, Konica/Minolta, KPMG, Lehman, Marsh McLennan, McGraw Hill, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, Moodys, Morgan Stanley, New School, New York Life, NYC Gov, NYC Department of Education, Oracle, Pearson, Pfizer, Prentice Hall, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Roche, Siemens, State Farm, Sunguard, TAL International, The Hartford Group, Tibco, Tiffany, Toysrus, UBS, UPS, and Weight Watchers.
It is a is pretty impressive list. We will be doing a more detailed survey later this year. Stat tuned.
Bill Zack
Last year Microsoft held a Web Cast series for aspiring architects that was attended by over 1200 individuals and covered a number of strategies that can help developers and IT professionals to transition to the architect roles.
The Aspiring Architect Series 2008 builds on last year’s content and covers a number of topics that are important for architects to understand. You can find the 2007 series Webcasts at: http://blogs.msdn.com/mohammadakif/archive/tags/Aspiring+Architects/default.aspx.
We are hopeful that you will find the upcoming series to be a very useful investment of your time.
June 16th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Introduction to the aspiring architect Web Cast series http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx? EventID=1032380836&Culture=en-CA
June 17th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Services Oriented Architecture and Enterprise Service Bus – Beyond the hype http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx? EventID=1032380838&Culture=en-CA
June 18th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – TOGAF and Zachman, a real-world perspective http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380840&Culture=en-CA
June 19th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Services Oriented Architecture (Web Cast in French) http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx? EventID=1032380842&Culture=en-CA
June 20th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Interoperability (Web Cast in French) http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380844&Culture=fr-CA
June 23rd , 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Realizing dynamic systems http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380846&Culture=en-CA
June 24th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Web 2.0, beyond the hype http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380848&Culture=en-CA
June 25th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Architecting for the user experience http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380850&Culture=en-CA
BZ
On May 22nd and 23rd the New York chapter of the International Association of Software Architects (IASA) held its first annual two-day IT Architect Regional Conference. This event received the highest rating of any conference run by IASA to date. It was considered so successful that we are already planning the 2009 version.
IASA is a vendor-neutral association of/for/by architects all over the world. In addition to working for Microsoft I also run the New York chapter. The New York IASA chapter is one of the most successful IASA chapters in the United States. Sponsors of the event included Sun, Oracle, Microsoft and Robert Half. Although this was a regional conference attendees came from as far away as Nashville Tennessee, Boston and Redmond Washington.
The conference featured over 30 speakers from sponsor companies, the local architect community and others arranged in common keynote sessions and four breakout tracks (Enterprise Architecture, Software Architecture, Infrastructure Architecture and Architecture Fundamentals).
Keynote speakers included presentations on: Software Plus Services, presented by Joseph Williams, Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft Enterprise Services; Interesting Real-world Architectures and the Handbook of Software Architecture presented present by Grady Booch, Chief Scientist, IBM Corporation; The Next Generation SOA Grid--Not Your MOM's Bus, presented by David Chappell, Vice President and Chief Technologist, Oracle and Technology Strategy in the World, presented by Paul Preiss, President of IASA. The Breakout sessions also featured many presentations by local architects from companies such as Bloomberg, Group Health, Hartford Insurance, Weightwatchers and Microsoft.
For more information about the conference agenda see http://www.iasahome.org/web/itarc/nyc/agenda.
Microsoft made a major announcement yesterday that will affect those of us who architect systems using Microsoft, non-Microsoft, mixed vendor and Open Source technologies.
We have announced a set of broad-reaching changes to our technology and business practices to increase the openness of our products and drive greater interoperability, opportunity and choice.
These changes are codified into four new interoperability principles and corresponding actions:
1) ensuring open connections; 2) promoting data portability; 3) enhancing support for industry standards; and 4) fostering more open engagement with customers and the industry, including open source communities.See: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/interoperability/default.mspx
The International Association of Software Architects (IASA) has been running a series of IT Architect Regional Conferences all over the world. These conferences are the largest event in the regions to address the pressing needs of IT architects today. (See http://www.iasahome.org.) The theme of the conference, “Kick your skills into high gear”, is targeted at architects of all levels who are interested in walking out of every session with a new capability. The conference will carry forward the success of the recent IASA Architect Skills Library, which delivered over 600 pages of material on architect skills from IT architects all over the world.
Recently we held conferences in San Diego and Atlanta with excellent response. Now we are planning one for March 22-23 in New York city. We are currently looking for presenters and sponsors. If you are interested in either drop me a note at wzack@microsoft.com and I will send the forms to you.
ITARC 2008 will host over 30 seminars and four tracks separated by specialty:
1. Enterprise Architecture Track:
Attendees will learn efficient strategies for linking enterprise strategy to implementation, create and articulate sound ROI, prioritize objectives, inspire employees to share your vision, dive in to governance concepts, and enhance existing agile strategies.
2. Infrastructure Architecture Track:
Attendees will learn how to create and maintain successful deliverables, position service oriented architecture within a sound enterprise infrastructure, model network, security, information and technical architectures, better utilize tools to optimize the infrastructure services.
3. Software Architecture Track:
Attendees will learn how to increase alignment between architecture, business and development, troubleshoot software architecture, assess architecture and software maturity, drive architecture evolution by effectively selecting next generation technology through a rigorous evaluation process, integrate with dynamic management processes, governance for the successful software architect, and enhance de-sign with realistic software architecture toolsets.
4. Fundamentals of Architecture Track:
Aimed at aspiring architects, this track will develop skills needed by every architect based on real world experience from senior architects around the world, teach effective communication techniques, dive into real strategies for design optimization, communicate ROI and the value of architecture to stake-holders, explore, build effective teams and learn the fundamentals that provide the backbone of the architect's skill set.
A member of my Evangelism team, Glen Gordon asked me to tell you about an event that you might be interested in if you are in Northern New Jersey. It is on December 4th at the Microsoft office in Iselin, New Jersey at 1:00 PM. For more details see his blog.
Session 1: What’s New for Web Development in Visual Studio 2008
The next version of Visual Studio, Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008, will provide an industry-leading developer experience for Windows Vista and the Web, while continuing the Microsoft tradition of development language innovations. In this session, you’ll get a VIP tour through the tools and features for Web development in Visual Studio 2008. You’ll discover how the all-new Web designer easily manages CSS and experience the powerful IntelliSense for JavaScript – including type inference and support for external libraries. Next up, we’ll put the JavaScript debugger through its paces and cover several effective new server controls, plus the basics of LINQ in Web applications, creating and consuming WCF services, and much more. Finally, we’ll touch on several simple but powerful benefits, such as targeting multiple versions of the .NET Framework and support for nested master pages. Witness the future of Web development with Visual Studio 2008.
We’ll cover:
- The new tools, features and innovations in Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
- Enhancements including the new Web designer and IntelliSense for JavaScript
- Powerful benefits of ASP.NET 3.5 and its support for AJAX and nested master pages
Session 2: A New Paradigm for Data Development with Web Based Data Services
Building the next generation of Web applications requires a next generation way of accessing data. Join us and learn about the latest data access technologies that will change how you architect Web applications. In this session, we’ll explore the ADO.NET Entity Framework and Microsoft codename "Astoria." We’ll see how the Entity Framework raises the level of abstraction when programming data-aware applications, and how Astoria enables developers to create and consume Data Services for the Web, exposing them over a simple HTTP interface that can be consumed by various Web applications. You’ll also learn to develop AJAX-based Web sites and Rich Interactive Applications using the Astoria client libraries.
We'll cover:
- The basics of the ADO.NET Entity Framework
- How to create flexible mapping from databases to objects
- Exposing your data as RESTful data services
- Easily retrieving and updating data over HTTP
- Using Astoria in AJAX-based and Rich Interactive Applications
Session 3: Building Rich, Dynamic Web Experiences with Microsoft Silverlight, ASP.NET and ASP.NET AJAX
Microsoft® Silverlight™ is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. Silverlight’s architecture enables you to take advantage of the latest web development techniques, because the rendered objects are full-fledged members of the HTML document in the browser. This session will highlight how you can enhance Silverlight applications by applying these techniques. We’ll explore how to use ASP.NET AJAX to provide dynamic updating and asynchronous server communications for a Silverlight object in a web page. We'll show you how to build ASP.NET AJAX controls (server and client-side components) to encapsulate the XAML, Javascript, ASP.NET code and managed code that comprise the Silverlight object, allowing you to incrementally enrich your ASP.NET applications while preserving a familiar control-based programming model. You’ll also get a sneak peek at some Silverlight server controls that are part of the ASP.NET Futures project.
This session will cover:
- Using ASP.NET AJAX to obtain data and update a Silverlight asset
- Building an ASP.NET control to deliver Silverlight assets to a Web browser
- Communicating with managed code within a Silverlight asset from Javascript in the browser
- Using the Silverlight controls in the ASP.NET Futures release
One of the interesting things about having been in this business for a while is that I can mark the turning points points in my career by the technologies that I adopted along the way. I remember being in school when I met my first computer, an IBM mainframe. I remember my first PC, an Atari 800. I remember leaving the mainframe behind for OS/2 and the Client/Server revolution. I remember leaving OS/2 for Windows NT when I realized that OS/2 was a dead end. And I remember my discovery of Beta 2 of .NET 1.0 and Visual Studio.NET.
I guess the reason that I am telling you all this is that I feel that Silverlight marks another major turning point in my career and maybe in all of the careers of those of us who work with Microsoft technology. Silverlight is the first cross-platform cross-language application development tool from Microsoft and as such it represents a true paradigm shift in the world of Microsoft development.
By now we are well used to thinking in terms of the multi-layered multi-tier server-side architecture that has become a best practice in our industry. Silverlight changes that a bit, or rather I should say it extends the model to the client tier. In some of the presentations that I give I half jokingly expound about the 6-layer 3-Tier architecture that will soon become another best practice. And yet there is some truth in that I think. (As an aside we better start thinking about separation of concerns and separating things into layers on the client-side of the world as well or we are going to make the same mistakes that we made on the server side. )
The web and the web browser started us down the path of ubiquitous available-anywhere applications, but with the reduced functionality and performance characteristic of HTML served over the World-Wide-Web. DHTM (and later AJAX) took us further down the path of building web based applications with more of the rich interactivity that smart-client Windows based applications provided. Silverlight (and especially Silverlight 1.1) will complete the trip for us.
Silverlight 1.1 brings essentially the same model of web development that we have used on the server to the client side of development.(ASP.NET pages with C# and/or VB.NET Code-Behind files.) In fact I am fond of saying in presentations that I give that, if a space alien were to come down to earth and observe what we have to do to build a web based application his first response would be "What were you thinking?". As it exists currently you have to know 5-6 languages/development models to build a web application (JavaScript, HTML, CSS, a .NET language like C# or VB.NET, etc.) Silverlight, and similar technologies, should go a long way towards allowing developers to work in one development paradigm. Rocky Lhotka wrote an excellent Guest Opinion piece for Visual Studio Magazine saying much the same thing (The Web is Dead). And you can read also his blog which is always worth reading.
To learn more about Silverlight you can go to the source of all things Silverlight, the web site Silverlight.NET. This is arguably the best most useful web site that Microsoft has ever built. On that site you can find a Gallery of dozens of working Silverlight 1.0 and 1.1 applications that you can both run from that site and also download all the code for. It has Quick Starts and Labs and even a vigorous set of community Forums to let you network with other Silverlight developers. It is a very valuable resource if you are even considering developing a Silverlight application.
And while you are at it, check out Tim Sneath's blog. and Jesse Liberty's blog. These two guys are Silverlight Evangelists who are worth following.
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Last week I recorded an Architect Point of View (arcPOV) session on Choosing the Right Flavor of LINQ for accessing relational data.
An Architectural POV is a short (10-15 minute) video covering a technical topic from the Architect’s point of view. An arcPOV takes the Time-Scope-Resource balance into consideration and discusses the topic within one or more phases of a project. The objective of a POV is to state a position and solicit opinions/feedback from the community on the position taken and its validity.
In this POV I talk about the tradeoffs involved in choosing between the three flavors of LINQ that can be used to access relational data: LINQ to SQL, LINQ to Datasets and LINQ to Entities. I discuss the impact on the project time line and the thought process you would go through evaluating LINQ during the Define phase of a project.
Let me know what you all think.
Since this is my first blog post I thought that I would start off by introducing myself and letting you know a little bit about what I will be focusing in future posts.
My name is Bill Zack and I am an Architect Evangelist in the Developer & Platform Evangelism group at Microsoft. Although I live in Connecticut I am based out of Microsoft's New York office. I have written a few books and assorted magazine articles. Most recently I was a contributing author to the book Programming SQL Server 2005. I currently focus on presenting on the architecture of current and future Microsoft technologies at Microsoft events.
I am also pretty active in the area user group community, both as a user group leader and as a supporter of the local user groups. Before I joined Microsoft I founded several user groups myself including the New York Enterprise Windows User Group and the New York City .NET Developers Group which I currently still run together with several other community leaders. I also founded the New York City Chapter of the International Association of Software Architects (IASA) and am on their International Board of Directors. I started these groups before I joined Microsoft and still do run them even though I have "swallowed the blue pill". In fact my stock answer to people who asked me why I joined Microsoft is "I have been an unpaid evangelist for Microsoft for over 15 years. I just decided that it was time I got paid." :-)
And that brings me to the focus of my blog. There are two things that I am passionate about 1) Solving interesting architectural problems using Microsoft (and other) technologies, and 2) Helping to legitimize the IT Architecture Profession. My posts will probably alternate between the technical issues that confront Architects and the issues that affect the IT Architecture Profession as a whole. The later will include topics such as: What is the difference between an Architect and a Developer? (And yes I have heard the joke: "about 10K a year" That's not it. :-)); how does a Developer who aspires to become an Architect map out a career path to get there and what skills does an Architect have to have? Indeed helping Aspiring Architects (and Developers) advance their careers is why I started the IASA chapter and this whole user group thing in the first place.
More to come later.