The Microsoft UK Architect Council Meeting
8 & 9 June 2009
Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes
On the afternoon of the second day the Council broke into 3 groups to discuss interoperability in the context of
- Security & Identity
- Standards
- SOA
The groups were asked to consider the following questions:
- What does interoperability mean and what is its relevance to this area?
- What are your experiences on interoperability in this area?
- What are the challenges/opportunities?
- What the outcomes being achieved through interoperability in relation to this area?
- What does interoperability have to deliver?
And were asked to respond from a Business, Application and Infrastructure/Technology Architecture perspective.
Their output was captured/consolidated as powerpoints and their playback recorded. The output is provided below.
Security and Identity
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Facilitators:
Steve Plank
Cliff Evans
Presenter:
Michael Paulson, Avanade
Team:
Keith Straughan, UCMK
Mike Jolliffe, Equiniti
Chris Franklin, HMRC
Rupert Brown, Bank of America
Simon Cox, University of Southampton
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Standards
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Facilitators:
John Phillips, Microsoft
Giampiero Nanni, Microsoft
Presenter:
Ian Race, Bank of America
Team:
Bryan Boreham, Barclays Capital
Roger Wagland, Clifford Chance
Tim Gregson, Microsoft
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SOA
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Facilitators:
Jon Collins, Freeform Dynamics
John Whiteway, AstraZeneca
Presenter:
Barry Ellis, BP
Team:
Dave Robertson, AstraZeneca
Mike Lloyd, Carbonflame
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Microsoft UK Architect Council Meeting
8 & 9 June 2009
Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes
In June 2009 a group of senior IT Architects from across the industry assembled at Bletchley Park, the home of the World War II code breakers for two days to discuss the current state and requirements for interoperability, standards, security and service-orientation across the IT industry. Bletchley offered a more than fitting venue to discuss and debate these subjects given its history and the incredible achievements they made.
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Welcome to Bletchley Park
Dave Gristwood and I chew the fat before the two day meeting takes place to talk about what we’re going to be discussing and why Bletchley was such a great place to be doing this.
 But don’t let this stop you from viewing as there is then a great welcome from Simon Greenish, Trust Director at Bletchley Park who really made a special effort for us during our stay and who continues to be the driving force behind the growing success that is Bletchley Park today!
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A quick view of Bletchley Park
Bletchley is a key part of our cultural and scientific heritage and for the computer industry stands out, not only as the scene of some of the most amazing code breaking stories of WWII that undoubtedly reduced the duration of the war by some considerable time but also as the birth place of modern computing.
We all owe much to Simon and his team at Bletchley for the incredible job they are doing to not only save this for us and future generations but in so doing enable us to learn from the lessons of Bletchley and the work that went on there during the War!
However, it should be noted that Bletchley remains under threat and I would impress on all the importance of your roll in ensuring its continued survival and future success.
Many thanks in particular to our guide David Whitchurch and also to Tony Sale for demonstrating how Colosus boots faster than his copy of XP!
http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk | |
So what is Interoperability anyway?
| Interoperability means many things to many people but here just a few thoughts from the architects who met at Bletchley to discuss the subject … | |
The presentations …
 | The interoperability imperative Giampiero Nanni, Director of Interoperability, Microsoft Ltd Interoperability is at the same time a challenge and an opportunity for organisations, private and public, with implications that go way beyond the pure technical aspects and issues. Microsoft is committed to solve these challenges, starting from weaving Interoperability into the fabric of the company, and through a collaborative approach with the different communities, government and standard bodies |
 | Standards and software – combining innovation and interoperability John Phillips, National Security Officer, Microsoft Ltd The vibrancy and innovation of the software industry is incredible. It has created the modern tools needed by competitive enterprises. But raw innovation in the modern multi-vendor, multi-domain environment can challenge interoperability as implementers interpret standards in different ways. The advanced software architect needs to combine innovation and interoperability in complex systems to keep customers happy. This session will explore the challenges today’s standardisers in the software domain may face in building a standardizing capability for system-wide interoperability. |
 | Who am I? Steve Plank, Identity Architect, Microsoft Ltd Projecting your corporate identity in the cloud! |
 | Lessons from Bletchley Ian Race, Senior Architect, Merrill Lynch Bank of America Rupert Brown, Senior Architect, Merrill Lynch Bank of America Why is it that so many software projects fail? As the Standish Group's 2009 CHAOS report confirms, this record is getting worse, with only 32% of projects delivered on time, on budget, with all required features. 44% were challenged being late, over budget, and/or with less than the required features and 24% failed or cancelled prior to completion. |
| Bletchley represents enormous success by a relatively small group of contributors in a relatively short period of time. Was this just luck or judgement? Are their lessons we can learn? Taking a couple of assumptions into account the council represents well over 800 years combined IT experience, during this time there have probably been one or two successes? Is there anyway we can capture some of this collective wisdom and turn it into a form that could save current and future projects from failure? |
| University Challenge Keith Straughan, Dean, University College Milton Keynes Earlier this year the Higher Education Funding Council for England proposed a new University Challenge to 'unlock Britain’s talent" to support the Government’s aspiration to see up to twenty new Higher Education Centres in the UK. In many ways Milton Keynes is a natural choice, but perhaps rather than just proposing itself as being another University why not take a step back and maybe consider what the University of Tomorrow might look like. What if it were to really harness the power of modern technology? What would this 'virtual' university look like? Keith and his team have been spending some time thinking about this problem and have come up with some interesting thoughts. |
 | Security Strategy Briefing Ed Gibson, Chief Security Advisor, Microsoft Ltd Ed gave a free flowing account of the state of security across the industry. He covered many of the industries top security challenges, a new economy action plan, and described Microsoft’s strategy in relation to Trustworthy Computing and the Security Development Lifecycle. |
| Security Intelligence Report Cliff Evans, Security and Privacy Lead, Microsoft Ltd  Cliff provided his perspective on the changing threat landscape including software vulnerability disclosures and exploits, malicious software (malware), and potentially unwanted software. Using data derived from hundreds of millions of Windows users, and some of the busiest online services on the Internet, this session will provide an analysis of the threat landscape and the changing face of threats and countermeasures, including information on privacy and breach notifications. www.microsoft.com/SIR | |
 | SOA is Rubbish Jon Collins, Managing Director, Freeform Dynamics "SOA is Rubbish", "SOA is Dead", "SOA: Lives with Elvis" are just a few of the recent headlines from analysts and press over recent months provoking the debate on whether the great white hope of SOA has ever really materialised? What is the SOA ROI? But SOA has ridden worse storms over the many Gartner hype years than this. What is the state of play? Maybe the truth is we're doing this anyway, leave us alone! Just stop calling in SOA and stop getting my CEO all excited about nothing! |
| Architecting of "GEL" Interop John Whiteway, Lead Architect, Astra Zeneca 
Brief overview on Astra Zeneca's current GEL Application Architecture, then open out to the group to consider options for its extension to best realise our vision of maximum interoperability. | |
Council representatives:
Alastair Bain, Centrica
Bryan Boreham, Barclays Capital
Rupert Brown, Merrill Lynch/Bank of America
Simon Cox, University of Southampton
Barry Ellis, BP
Chris Franklin, HMRC
Tony Godson, Unisys
Darren Hallett, Sungard Vivista
Yvonne Harrison, Royal Mail Group
Mike Jolliffe, Equiniti
Mark Lewis, EDS
Mike Lloyd, Carbonflame
Stewart McEwan, Digital Semantics
Michael Paulson, Avanade
Stuart Preston, EMC
Ian Race, Merrill Lynch/Bank of America
Dave Robertson, AstraZeneca PLC
Stephen Simpson, Logica CMG
Roger Wagland, Clifford Chance
John Waterworth, Independent Consultant
John Whiteway, AstraZeneca PLC
Russell Wing, Zurich Financial Services
| <> </> Council Industry Analyst:
Jon Collins, Freeform Dynamics Guests:
Simon Greenish, Trust Director, Bletchley Park
Keith Straughan, Dean, University Centre Milton Keynes
Microsoft representatives:
Matt Deacon
Cliff Evans
Ed Gibson
Tim Gregson
Dave Gristwood
Giampiero Nanni
Steve Plank
John Phillips
Gurprit Singh
Simon Thurman |
Something that has confused and annoyed me over quite a few years are the words Interoperability and Integration and that they are used widely in IT and are often used interchangeably to suggest that perhaps they mean the same thing. My instinct has always known that there is a significant difference but at recent meetings/workshops on the subject I have found the terms used in equal measure and that each person seems to have their own definition, all of which comprise of several 100 words that don’t necessarily provide any more clarity. There are overlaps of course, but what is interoperability and is there a difference with integration?
Here’s the story is my little voyage ...
First stop, Wikipedia and the first thing to note was that the only relevant definition for Integration in a computer context was when prefixed with the word “System”, fair enough.
| Systems integration is the process of linking together different computing systems and software applications physically or functionally.( Wikipedia) |
Unlike Integration Interoperability had a top level definition of its own that spans both to systems and organisations:
| Interoperability is a property referring to the ability of diverse systems and organizations to work together (inter-operate). (Wikipedia) |
Therefore, to compare one needs to either promote integration (remove the word system) such that the definition includes organisations or to demote interoperability (introduce the word system) and limit the scope of its definition. I have elected to do the latter (although either approach would work) here is the definition for System Interoperability:
| System Interoperability is a property referring to the ability of diverse systems to work together (inter-operate). (Wikipedia – modified) |
The result is two extremely similar definitions that would suggest that integration and interoperability could indeed mean the same thing. However, I am still not convinced and therefore could it be that Wikipedia has an error?
For quite a while the word “diverse” stood out for me as the differentiating word but after many hours of pontificating to myself on this I had to accept that “diverse” and “different” are extremely similar words that are hard to separate in terms of meaning so Wikipedia it seems is still at fault. That said, the concept of diversity in an evolutionary context and the “future of the unknown” remained as being significant contributors to my thought process throughout as we shall see.
So the searches for other definitions came up with the IEEE definition for example which on the surface fared little better.
| the ability of two or more systems or components to exchange information and to use the information that has been exchanged. (IEEE) |
Going back to Microsoft’s view on Interoperability I watched a catchy interview with Bob Muglia discussing interoperability. He talked about “systems working together” and introduced the word “disparate” meaning “very different” which I liked a lot. He also talked about the need for “standards” too – now this was interesting. Obviously, we all associate Standards with our definitions of Interoperability but does “being interoperable” require one to adopt standards? No definitions so far have actually stated this requirement, but there would clearly be value in using standards. In returning to Wikipedia and the section on Software Interoperability it states that “the lack of interoperability can be a consequence of a lack of attention to standardization” and that “interoperability is not taken for granted in the non-standards-based portion of the computing world.” So is it possible that standards mark a significant difference between integration and interoperability? Next I went to the Wikipedia definition for standardisation which lists its goals as being “to help with independence of single suppliers (commoditization), compatibility, interoperability, safety, repeatability, or quality.” Ah so that’s good and ties the two together neatly.
But obviously, one needed to check with ISO and here’s their definition for Interoperability which firmly supports the use of standards by inferring the need for some layer of separation between systems, although explicit use of standards for this purpose is avoided:
So in one sense I thought I was close but then again does the use of some layer of separation differentiate the two terms? Maybe but it was now that a nagging thought returned how can you compare an “-ility” a “quality of being” word with a “-tion” an “action or process” word? Well according to various dictionaries that are apparently both abstract nouns so I guess I am excused to do so to some degree. But thinking about this, it’s clear that one can be involved in an “act of integration” but it makes no sense to be in an “act of interoperability” (well I don’t think so). Equally one can imagine the state of “being interoperable” but “being integration” is nonsensical (I guess one could be in the state of “being integrated” but that’s not very helpful to my argument). And I guess that’s where things clicked.
| Interoperability is a quality (attribute, property or feature) of integration. (Matt Deacon, July 2009) |
In this way all forms of integration exhibits some quality of interoperability. The type of integration method or approach will dictate the level of interoperability that is achieved. Here’s an example to explain further what I mean.
| If I integrate systems A and B, then by default I have automatically created some quality (or level) of interoperability. At a very minimum we now have some quality (or level) of interoperability between the systems A and B. However, depending on the integration approach I took the quality (or level) of interoperability maybe much higher such that integration with system C might prove quite easy. However, if the quality of interoperability between A & B remained low then this integration with C might prove extremely difficult. |
The key feature that the example illustrates is that by increasing the quality of interoperability when integrating systems allows one to deal with future integration requirements as yet unseen during design time. This really ties the notion of interoperability back to the concept of evolution and “diversity” and the “future of the unknown” I mentioned earlier. To quote a council member who stated that interoperability is about “future proofing”.
At this point I thought I was there and therefore returned back to the original Wikipedia definitions and to my amazement the points I thought I had uncovered were staring me in the face all the time. If you look again at interoperability you can easily replace “property” with “quality” and in the case of integration “process” could be replaced by “action”! In reality it turns out that these are the key words in understanding the definitions and more importantly the differences in the definitions between integration and interoperability, the first being the action and the second, the quality! If only Wikipedia’s definition of interoperability used the word “integration” then this path may never have needed to be trod!
With all this in mind I have provided a corrected top-level definition of system interoperability but second is a more complete statement that tries to reflect what the nature of the quality of interoperability is.
| Integration is the process of linking together diverse systems or organizations. (Matt Deacon, July 2009) |
| Interoperability is a property of integration that ensures a level of independence between existing and future systems or organizations. (Matt Deacon, July 2009) |
Next step is to take comments and to recommend the changes to Wikipedia.
Thanks for reading!
Just found that the German for environment is Umwelt after getting a mail from MS Germany on the launch of their new environment site www.microsoft.com/umwelt!
Kinda cool word I thought but the domain name is already taken;)!
But better than that was the BING Translator at www.microsoftranslator.com that I discovered when doing a search for translation tools:)!!
All they need to do is embed the Microsoft Translator Widget in their site and I’ll be able to read the articles too:)!
“Ist dass ein Banane. Nein dass ist eine frau!” – sum total of my German education I’m sorry to say (after 1 week of lessons before realising I was meant to be doing a Rural Studies course instead!).
This March I met with 30 senior architects for two days to discuss cloud computing and what impact this might have on enterprise.
Sessions were delivered from Industry trade associations, industry analysts, early adopters of cloud computing plus sessions covering what Microsoft are up to in this space around data centres, BPOS and Azure.
More photos …
More of the output including slide decks can be found on the Microsoft UK Architect Portal but this is what I collected from various debates and discussions …
Participating Organisations:
AstraZeneca PLC, Atos Origin, Avanade, Bank of America, BP, British Energy, Carbonflame, Centrica, Clifford Chance, Conchango, Easyjet, EDS, Freeform Dynamics, Logica CMG, Nationwide, Royal Mail, Solidsoft, Solidsoft, SunGardps, Unisys, Zurich
Technorati Tags: UKARC,Architecture,Cloud Computing,Azure,BPOS,Microsoft,Architect Council
Just realised that I’m presenting at the TechNet Virtual Conference this Friday:)!!
Boy was it fun recording this :)!!!
I’ll be talking for the first time about SLIM, a Sustainable approach to lifecycle and Innovation Management … this is the follow on from the white paper I published a few months back that spells out the 4 reasons why Green IT matters.
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Finally, after much delay I can confirm that the slide decks and keynote video are now available for download at:
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/aic2009
Additional breakout videos and additional podcast interviews should follow soon!!!!
The incredible story of humanity that you must watch.
Pick your moment as this is not a 10 second home video!
And don’t forget your popcorn but make sure you got it from a local source first as you’ll not want to eat it after a while of watching!
Gets interesting at around 28 minutes …
What’s also worth a look are the comments … some interesting conspiracy comments too … what a world hey:)!
http://www.youtube.com/homeproject
I'm still battling to get the video's of the event up on www.microsoft.com/uk/aic2009 - and they'll be there reall soon!!
But in the meantime click here to see some of the pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/architectinsight/
Here's the deck I presented to Accenture technical consultants. Bit of fun and got a chance to give my view on what's happening to IT. Here's what I was asked to cover ...
- What’s cloud computing?
- What’s the industry trend, projections, opportunity and client value?
- What does this mean for organisations and how are we expecting them to change?
- What’s Microsoft doing to define, capture or ride this trend?
- What’s Microsoft and Accenture doing together to capture this market?
- What’s the next big Disruptive technology?
On the last point - I said that we're in it, but the only problem is with disruptive technologies is that you can't normally see them until they disrupt:)! On the whole Cloud in all its forms is an example of radical innovation but in certain cases it will disrupt. Here's some candidates for disruption IMHO:
- Traditional OUtsourcers, that don't see the opportunity to innovate as organisations multi-source
- System Integrators/Consultants that don't seak to generate IP and business partnerships with their customers
- Organisations that don't service enable their IT & don't differentiate their assets against critical and non-critical functions
- Organisations that don't invest in architecture and integration at a strategic level within IT (and the business)
Thoughts welcomed ....:)
Back from a week's leave and all ready to go when I get ...
"Cannot start microsoft office outlook. Cannot open the outlook window"
Nice error message hey:)!
I tried a pile of the obvious stuff to no avail when I finally found the following forum entry from a guy called Dan Thomas (on the third search page!)
Run outlook.exe /resetnavpane
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.outlook&tid=4df24070-b33a-409f-82a5-c18385fd6739&mid=a28f285e-8029-4d8b-9dfa-ca17d4fd897b&cat=&lang=&cr=&sloc=&p=2
I guess it was obvious that the error would be to do with a navigation pane on the outloook UI - for goodness sakes!
Anyway, thanks Dan - wherever you are!!!
So by now we all pretty much know that we need to take significant action on climate change but the question is how do you get others to act?
Here's my paper that spells out the four arguments to use in arguing for change within your organisation:
- The Environment
- The Customer
- The Government
- The Money
Enjoy and let me know your thoughts ... I am really keen to flesh out more on the customer argument in particular and examples would be great.
After much effort by a great many people I'm delighted to say that we'll be holding the 4th annual Architect Insight Conference this year!!!
The format has changed to reflect the new world but the quality bar is still set as high as before:)!!!
Microsoft Architect Conference
May 8th, Microsoft Offices Cardinal Place, London
www.microsoft.com/uk/aic2009
After a rapid fire set of keynotes we'll split into two tracks of informationals and a parrallel set of roundtable meetings then back together to close up and have some drinks!
Follow us on twitter #AIC and let me know what you'd want us to cover :)!!!
A date for your diaries ...
Netuitive: Taking Guesswork Out of IT Performance Management
Tuesday, March 24, 2009 from 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM (GMT)
Based on nine patented technologies, Netuitive software uses an advanced mathematics analysis engine to understand and self learn the normal operating behaviour of IT systems (physical and virtual) and business services for any point in time.
Taking the raw data from existing monitoring systems, Netuitive is self learning and provides real time and predictive alerts while eliminating the need for any manual rules, scripts or thresholds. The result is a reduction in operating cost and a more pro-active and higher quality of service delivery using automation rather than manual effort.
Speakers:
Neil MacGowan, Technical Director Netuitive UK
Cardinal Place
100 Victoria St
London SW1E 5JL
United Kingdom
Registration here ... http://ukiasa.eventbrite.com/
I had the pleasure of talking at an IBM hosted SIIA event yesterday and thought it worth sharing some thoughts. It was hosted by Phil Waineright (http://blogs.zdnet.com/SAAS/) a well known commentator on SaaS and comprised of a series of 5 minute "lightening talks" (as popularised by Cloudcamp) from various invited guests. Other than myself, these included IBM, BT, CohesiveFT, CODA (hosted on Force.com), Accounts IQ (OpSource) and Cast Iron. There were around 60 or so people in attendance with a healthy cross-section of SIs, Hosters and ISVs plus the obligatory IBM and of course Google too.
The presentations and format I find really appealing - if you can't get your words out fast enough then the buzzer goes and it's on the the next presenter! Some of the presenters fell foul of the time limit but using the importal words "I've started so I'll finish" I managed to get my final point out there before Phil reclaimed the stage:)! I spent some time preparing for this over the past day or so and although time is limited it really forces you to focus on what you want to share. What is the one thing you want to get across? We often get an hour or more to talk to an audience and to my mind I think this can make you lazy about getting your point across.
Cast Iron are an interesting company offering "Integration as a Service" a key barrier for SaaS adoption that I would recommend taking a look at. Alexis Richardson from CohesiveFT (who hosts Cloudcamp) was great, I'm a big fan of AMQP plus their work on crossing clouds is great - plus we got to chat about Azure too which was great!
I took most notes from the guy from AccountsIQ - I thought he gave a great insight into being a SaaS provider and here's a map I drew up from it.
Click on image to set larger version
Plus here's the deck I used. I ended up with what I jokingly called a "maturity model" for which I got some positive comments. I've also added the mind map I put together while preparing for the session in the hope that I get points for showing my working out:)!
