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.
http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/ARCast.TV/ARCastTV-Implementing-a-Hybrid-Architecture-Based-on-SOA-and-ROA-in-the-Enterprise/
With effect from 4 July 2009, I will be moving on to a new role in Microsoft and that is Senior Project Manager with Microsoft Consulting Services in Singapore. My portfolio includes project management and presales engagement, focusing primarily on application development opportunities and engagements such as .NET consulting, solution architecture, SOA, SQL Server/BizTalk/SharePoint consulting, etc. I am no stranger to Services business as I was previously working for IBM Consulting Services for almost 10 years before I joined Microsoft. Having completed 3 years 10 months as an Architect Evangelist, I kind of find it a pity that I am no longer engaging actively with the architect community in Singapore. Nonetheless, I will still continue to blog and welcome connections through
Facebook,
LinkedIn and
Twitter. And I will now embark on my journey to accept new challenges! :D
The second Architect Council for year 2009 was held on 10 Jun at Microsoft office. The theme was around Application Lifecycle Management (ALM). In the morning, we had 68 attendees. We covered overview of ALM, NCS consultants who spoke about their ALM experiences and Agile development methodologies. In the afternoon, there were 2 breakout tracks with a total of 107 attendees. One breakout track on Visual Studio Team System, Microsoft’s ALM tool and the other on BizTalk Server 2009. All the sessions were well received.
Some of the positive comments below….
- I like the interactive session
- The sample/demonstration
- The real life demo by Quah is good
- Showing practical example helps in understanding
- Deep dive on VSTS Track provide a lot of info about VSTS which is very useful
- Relevant to current business
- Very good content and speaker. Valuable knowledge
- Information on ALM and Agile are useful and informative
- Good Envisions into Microsoft Technologies
- Simple and easy Registration
Cohesive environment with writing materials
Interactive - "Deep dive on VSTS track" content and demo, venue and timing
- Explore the latest tools and methodology
All the presentation slides and video recordings can be found at geeksengaged, the technical community portal.
Some memorable moments….
| Microsoft patterns & practices is excited to announce the latest addition to
the p&p library of software engineering guidance: 
Acceptance Test Engineering Guide,
Volume I
(BETA 2) |
Quick Links
– Codeplex site: http://codeplex.com/TestingGuidance
Common Scenarios
– How to Plan for Acceptance Testing
– What Kinds of Acceptance Tests to Run
– How to Create and Run Acceptance Tests
– Defining What “Done” Means
– How to Justify Your Approach
– How to Streamline Your Acceptance Process
Contents of at a Glance
PART I – THINKING ABOUT ACCEPTANCE explains six mental models that are useful when thinking about the acceptance process.
Chapter 1 The Acceptance Process
Chapter 2 Decision-Making Model
Chapter 3 Project Context Model
Chapter 4 System Requirements Model
Chapter 5 Risk Model
Chapter 6 Doneness Model
PARTII – PERSPECTIVES ON ACCEPTANCE describes the acceptance process from the perspectives of key stakeholders in two different kinds of organizations: the Information Technology Department in a business and the Product Development Company. Most readers involved in the acceptance process should find some commonality with at least one of the roles describes.
Chapter 7 Business Lead’s Perspective
Chapter 8 Product Manager’s Perspective
Chapter 9 Test Manager’s Perspective
Chapter 10 Development Manager’s Perspective
Chapter 11 User Experience Specialist’s Perspective
Chapter 12 Operations Manager’s Perspective
Chapter 13 Solution Architect’s Perspective
Chapter 14 Enterprise Architect’s Perspective
Chapter 15 Legal Perspective
PARTIII – ACCEPTING SOFTWARE introduces the practices that are necessary for planning the acceptance process, for performing acceptance testing and for improving the acceptance process.
Chapter 16 Planning for Acceptance
Chapter 17 Assessing Software
Chapter 18 Managing the Acceptance Process
Chapter 19 Streamlining the Acceptance Process
– Visit http://msdn.microsoft.com/practices/ to see the full line of existing patterns & practices.
Interesting insights on IT Spending in 2009 by KnowledgeForward…..
We are currently doing research into how IT organizations are approaching communication, collaboration, and content management needs in a recessionary environment. Since many of the technologies in this area don’t seem to be needed to keep the lights on or invoice customers, they have the potential to bear the brunt of the axe when cost cutting occurs.
To start my research I wanted to find out what the forecasts were for IT spending this year. Burton Group doesn’t do forecasting, so I used a survey of surveys approach to come to an unscientific consensus of spending (over- and under-weighting forecasts based on my read of their methodology and applicability to our target of large enterprises). The results are shown below.
I think it’s fair to say there is a slight increase in IT spending expected for large enterprises, but this will be much lower than in previous years (perhaps lower than any year since the IT revolution). It’s also fair to say that the increase will mostly be in developing economies, while the G7 is close to flat.
Some important comments are worth noting:
1. In some cases the difference in the forecasts is simply a difference in the underlying assumptions about the economy. For example, Forrester said: “‘Our forecast for 2009 rests on the assumptions that the economic recession in the US and other major economies will start to end in the second half of 2009,’ explained Andrew Bartels, a vice president and the principal analyst at Forrester.”
2. Analysts and CIOs may not be thinking of the same definition of “IT spending”. To analysts, IT spending generally equals “sales”. For example, Goldman Sachs equates spending to hardware+software+services+networking. But to CIOs, they think in terms of IT budgets which include spending on internal employees, not just sales. Most of these estimates are for spending “on” IT, not “by” IT, since they are targeted at IT vendors and service providers. Some include consumer spending (The Economist and, from what I could discern of the wording, IDC). Estimates may include telecom and networking. The few estimates I could find that specified “budgets” (including internal employees) instead of “spending” forecasted flat (Computer Economics) or practically flat (+0.16% from Gartner) change over 2008.
3. Your results may differ. There are strong differences by geography (emerging markets are predicted to do better than the U.S. and developed economies), locale (Michigan vs. total U.S. spending, Spain vs. Europe), and industry (government and healthcare are expected to lead the spending pack).
4. This year, forecasts must be fresh. Usually the analysts publish estimates around September and that’s it for the year. But this year, like lemmings, all the forecasts followed each other off the cliff sometime around September as they revised their estimates downward. For example, Gartner revised downward from 5.8% to 2.3% and Forrester revised from +6.1% to -3%. In general, the consensus forecasts pre-Sept ‘08 were about +3% compared to those starting with the October revisions.
Sources for recent forecasts: Computer Economics, Economist Intelligence Unit, Forrester (and here), Gartner and here), Goldman Sachs (full survey requires registration), IDC (and here).
External source: http://knowledgeforward.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/2009-it-spending/
Microsoft System Center products and solutions help capture and aggregate knowledge of IT infrastructure, policies and best practices to help IT organizations build manageable systems and automate operations to reduce costs, improve application availability and enhance service deliver. Dhananjay Mahajan interviews Vij Rajarajan, GM of System Center, about his vision of the future of System Center and how it is poised to help Enterprises prepare for new industry trends and challenges. We will learn how System Center fits in the Dynamic IT and broader Microsoft strategy. We discuss how Enterprise IT Architects can help prepare their organizations for upcoming changes.
http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/ARCast.TV/ARCastTV-Dynamic-IT-Trends-in-IT-Operations/
It is common to hear of massive IT failures; projects that are over budget, late, poorly aligned to business needs, or all of the above. Often, the resulting losses are in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The cause is almost always the same: uncontrolled complexity. The solution to complexity is simple — or more specifically, simplicity. This talk is about the mathematical models of complexity and the methodologies needed to control it. Complexity is the most insidious problem facing IT architects. Control it, or it will bury you! David Solivan interviews Roger Sessions about his book 'Simple Architectures for Complex Enterprises'.
http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/ARCast.TV/ARCastTV-Roger-Session-on-Simple-Architectures-for-Complex-Enterprises/
For folks developing on Silverlight, you can refer to this site for Silverlight Kits Whitepaper.
The MySpace Silverlight Kit
View Recording
CodePlex project
The New York Times Silverlight Kit
View Recording
CodePlex project
Building Silverlight Kits for Web 2.0 APIs
View Recording
Whitepaper
Brian Keller and Charles Sterling produced an excellent episode of the 10-4 show that goes through in detail how to setup a complete Beta 1 environment including a base virtual machine, SQL Server 2008, Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio Team System.
Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit – May 2009 Preview
The Framework and Tools Evangelism Team in DPE released the May preview of the Visual Studio 2010 & .NET Framework 4 Training Kit including 28 presentations, 13 Demos and 16 Hands-on Labs.
10-4 is a weekly video podcast which gives you a look at what's coming in Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0. Over and out!
Windows 7 RC Training Kit for Developers includes presentations, hands-on labs, and demos designed to help you learn how to build applications that shine on Windows 7.
This content is based on Windows 7 RC and provides an early peak to our final training. This training kit is designed to help you learn how to build applications that shine on Windows 7 by utilizing key features such as:
- Taskbar
- Libraries
- Multi Touch
- Sensors and Location
- Ribbon
- Trigger Start Services,
- Instrumentation and ETW
- Application Compatibility
New Windows 7 Videos on Channel 9
In this interview Craig Morris, senior solution architect and mobile application specialist at Avanade, discusses with Zhiming Xue his thoughts on mobile application development and deployment. Speaking from his many years of experience, he discusses how to deal with architecture level issues such as selection of the right type of mobile applications, web vs. client, usability on mobile devices, support for globalization and localization, security and data management, and mobile application deployment and subsequent updates. It is important, as he points out, that architects and developers always plan ahead with these big issues rather than dealing with them down the road.
http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/ARCast.TV/ARCastTV-Craig-Morris-on-Mobile-Application-Architectures/
Microsoft Singapore just launched the Internet Explorer 8 Online Challenge. Take this opportunity to learn about the cool new features in Internet Explorer 8 by playing the Internet Explorer 8 Online Challenge and stand a chance to win a MSI Wind U123 netbook and other cool prizes! Go go go!!!
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4 are the next generation of Microsoft development tools. They work together to accelerate the process of turning vision into reality for the developer. Visual Studio 2010 Professional has been engineered to support the development of applications for Windows, the Web, and Office. Download the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 1.
Microsoft has announced the IIS Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Toolkit Beta – a free toolkit that helps Web developers, hosting providers, and server administrators improve their sites’ relevance in search results by recommending how to make them more search engine-friendly. The SEO Toolkit Beta is available for installation via the Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta.
The IIS SEO Toolkit can:
- Improve the volume and quality of traffic to Web site from search engines
- Control how search engines access and display Web content
- Inform search engines about locations that are available for indexing
The IIS SEO Toolkit includes three modules that integrate with IIS Manager:
- Site Analysis, which suggests changes that can help improve the volume and quality of traffic to your Web site from search engines;
- Robots Exclusion, which makes it easier to control and restrict the content that search engines index and display; and
- Sitemaps and Site Indexes, which can help inform search engines about locations that are available for indexing.
The IIS SEO Toolkit Beta can be installed with the Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta.
