Microsoft Certified Architect

The Architect title

What is all the fuss about the title Architect?
An architect is a person who translates the user's needs into the technical requirements, so an architect sits on both sides of the fence – the demand side and the supply side. Being the central pivotal point he is by far the most crucial and valuable person of any solution or project. Therefore being an architect is very prestigious and an unrealized dream of lots of engineers, project managers and marketing people.

But I thought that the title Architect is regulated?
Sadly it is not. Unlike in the construction business, the IT industry is completely wild and there is no restriction to call yourself Grand Principal Enterprise Architect. In the construction business the title Architect has legal protection and it is against the law for people who are not registered to use the title Architect. (see the UK Architects Act 1997 - http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1997/97022--f.htm)

If the title is protected, how can then be used in the IT industry?
Well, it is protected in the building design context. The ARB (Architects Registration Board) sais on their website: “The Board is aware of widespread use within the computer and IT industry of the word “architect” being incorporated into certain job descriptions, eg. “Systems Architect” or “Software Architect”. ... “The Board therefore takes a pragmatic view, and accepts that the use of the word “architect” causes no concern when used in a context which is clearly not related to the design and construction of buildings.” (http://www.arb.org.uk/regulation/regulation-of-title.shtml)

OK, what does that mean, in plain words?
It means that ARB (or other similar organizations) regulate Architects in the construction industry only. Outside that they let others to regulate it – or let it grow wild. They couldn’t care less if it grows wild. And in IT industry it did grow wild. Very wild. Just about anybody and everybody can claim the title. As WWISA puts it nicely: “In software construction, many borrow the gravitas of the title, but fail to fulfil the role” (http://www.wwisa.org/wwisamain/role.htm)

Is it really so bad if I call myself the GrandMaster Architect?
Yes it is. It is especially bad for the profession of IT architecture as it tries to define itself and find its role in the IT lifecycle. What the IT Architecture as a profession needs most is clarity, perception and recognition. Clarity of role will allow sifting the grain from the chaff and limit the proliferation of I_call_myself_whatever_I_want cowboys. With better clarity the perception of what is expected from IT architects will improve. And with better perception we’ll get better recognition as well.

But how can Microsoft be the body that will register and certify IT architects?
Well, in lack of any other independent board, society or chamber, Microsoft decided to lead the way in the IT architecture space. And it is not universal certification for architects; that’s why the title is called MCA – the Microsoft Certified Architect programme. It requires from the candidates the knowledge of much more than just Microsoft stack of technologies and strives to be technology-agnostic.

So what can I expect from the person who carries the title of Microsoft Certified Architect?
You can expect a person who has well-rounded tactical and strategic view of the industry, who can offer reliable advisory services and whos opinion is balanced, justified, substantiated and without marketing hype. MCA people have many battle scars and enough experience to fill the whole evening with anecdotes of both wonderful and horrendous projects.

The first public application period for the MCA program is closed

At TechEd in Boston (on 6/12) we opened the first public offering of the Microsoft Certified Architect program. The offering was for the first 250 applicants or until July 14th, whichever came first. We've been developing this program for over two years and have been hosting review boards for over 1.5 years, selecting the people that participated. We currently have 70 certified architects based around the world.  

The first public application window is now closed but from the number of emails I've received it sounds like a number of people were not able to take advantage of the offering and wanted to. They've asked me when we would open the application process again and how often it would open. The short answer is sometime early in 2007 and as we have capacity in the program. Two things I want to cover in this entry are what the overall process looks like and when/how often we plan on opening the process.

To achieve the certification, a potential candidate must:

- Apply for entry into the program - People that are interested in the certification must apply for entry into the program. We have limited availability for candidates to go through the process because this is a high-touch process and requires a lot of interaction with people that have achieved the certification. Also, the cost to the candidate in time and money is significant and the role of IT architect is ill-defined (currently). Before we have a person go through the effort and cost required we want to make sure they have a good chance of being successful and that they are the type of architect we are certifying.

- Be selected to enter the program - We will take more applications than we have slots available in the program. We ask the applicants to submit documentation highlighting their experience and background. Though a series of processes we will stack rank each of the applicants and invite as many applicants as we can to enter the program until the availability is gone. The cap I've currently set is a 5:1 ratio but that may change as we fine-tune the process.

- Complete four mentoring sessions - The person accepted into the program will work on their own for the most part, but will have the opportunity to work with four different MCAs. The idea behind the mentoring is to help the candidate prepare for the interview process that is the certification. It is not to transfer architectural skills and knowledge from the mentor to the mentored.

   - First session, the candidate will talk to the mentor about the project or case study to present to the review board and help the candidate select the one that will best display their skills and experience as an architect to the review board. The mentor is providing advise to the candidate, but ultimately it is the candidate's decision what they present to the board.

   -  Second session the candidate has completed a draft of the documentation that they will submit. The three documents are a resume/CV, a document describing how they have demonstrated expertise in each of the seven competency areas (~500 words per competency), and a 20-page brief on a solution or case study that they designed. The brief should cover the project through the IT lifecycle describing the business problem, design,  development, testing, and handoff to operations for the project, provide physical, logical, and functional diagrams, describe the metrics used to determine success, overall cost (capex and opex) of the project, and insights the candidate gained that they will employ on future projects.

   - Third session is a mock interview. The candidate will present their solution (in 30 minutes) and then the mentor will question the candidate in the 7 competency areas. This is meant to prepare the candidate for the types of question they will get and to make sure the candidate is at the right level to be successful during the interview.

   - Fourth session is a mock interview. This is the "final" check ride and the mentor is an MCA that has served on a review board. They are also the gatekeeper for scheduling the actual interview; they have to approve you to go for the interview.

- Go for your interview - The interviews are a week long event where we have 13 candidates go for their interviews in front of the review board. The events are scheduled regularly and will be hosted around the world. The candidate will be given a time and date for their interview. For them, the interview process is 2 hours long. The candidate has 30 minutes to present their solution/case study and then the review board has a total of 40 minutes to question the candidate about what they presented. The candidate then has a 5 minute break and comes back for a second round of questioning. The second half of the interview is also 40 minutes in length. The first half of the interview is to give the review board an understanding of the overall level of the candidate. The second half is to identify the areas that require futher investigation and then to validate the candidate's level of competency in those areas.    

As you can tell, the process requires a lot of interaction with a certified architect. Once you get your certification part of the requirements to maintain the certification are to support the community and the program; a portion of that is to mentor others going through the process. Still, there is a limit to the amount of time the MCA can invest in the program and that throttles the number of candidates we have enter the program. As we have more certified architects and more robust self-mentoring tools for the candidates we will be able to increase capacity.

We'll open the application process several time a year once we have a critical mass of certified archtects to support the program. Until then, entry windows will be limited and less often. That said, I plan to open one early in 2007 but cannot provide a specific date. As we get close to that date I'll post here and on our public web site. Stay tuned...     

A sample question for infrastructure MCA candidates

The information about review board questions is still too vague and hazy? You need a specific example? OK, here we go...

Automatic software updating is one of the critical knowledge areas for any infrastructure architect. Grab a marker and sketch your proposed architecture for the planetary-scale patch dissemination service. It has to be fast, effective, massively scalable and capable of patching up to a billion of globally connected computers every month. Think Windows Update service on steroids.

Sketch the conceptual design of proposed system with enough detail to enable the discussion around the following questions:

• How many physical tiers would you design into a proposed architecture? Why?
• What non-functional (systemic) qualities of the system would be the most important? Why?
• What traffic properties would you expect? How would you measure the patterns and how would you make the system adaptable to unforeseeable spikes?
• What is your signalling strategy to inform all subscribed computers on time without choking the distribution?
• What is your preferred patch dissemination strategy? What would be good alternatives? Why?
• Compare the patch distribution system with traditional content distribution (such as Web content). What are the major differences?

Try to VERBALIZE the answers. Be short and to the point. Keep the structure of answers and balance the conceptual view with enough of supporting details. Would you be persuasive and influential enough to satisfy a picky CIO of massive ISP and the group of his closest advisors?

Now go and read the following article: http://research.microsoft.com/research/pubs/view.aspx?tr_id=1129.

MCA candidate facing the review board should be able to know, understand and explain most if not all of the concepts described in this paper. Especially if the candidate claims that the operations (SMS, WUS and MOM) is his core technology discipline.

The value of MCA certification

These days all progressive IT firms recognized that many technically gifted people have no desire to enter the management chain. As an individual contributors they are more valuable, more motivated and often better paid than management. Don’t get me wrong – management roles are vital positions in organizations, they are just different positions than engineering and therefore require different talents.

So, what happens to an engineer who outgrows his position and wants more complex work, new title and more money? The most common title these days is [prefix] architect. (prefixes: senior, principal, lead, chief, enterprise, or strategy). But how will the employer get an independent proof that a person is indeed on an architect level, not a mere turbo-charged engineer with inflated ego?

In the management world, the best distinction is the magic MBA qualification. Now I don’t want to get off on a rant here but there are so many MBA-offering institutions out there pumping so many new MBA graduates to the market every semester that the title lost a most of its initial shine and value. The mere fact that there are lots and lots (and lots) of MBA graduates saturates the management market and lowers the value of the credential.

In my personal (and highly subjective) opinion something similar happened to the MCSE credential. Being a MCSE used to mean something, used to be rare and used to be prestigious. But nowdays it isn’t good distinguishing credential anymore for the ‘higher echelon of technorati’ who want to be top individual contributors in top technology organization, for people who want to shape the IT strategy and want to influence others with their insights and inspiration.

Here is where the value of MCA certification becomes clear and obvious: Employers can set the MCA certification as one of the prerequisites before engineer can be inaugurated to the higher echelon of leaders. De-facto architects can get an independent assessment and proof of their skills, abilities and maturity. Wannabe architects can get a clear target of prerequisites before they will be recognized by their peers as true architects. Customers can start distinguishing between pompous hollow titles (Principal architectural engineering lead) and titles that have some weight. And IT architecture as the profession can get some more distinctive shapes of what it takes to be called an IT architect.

All in all, if you have the prerequisite experience to pursue the MCA certification, I would deeply recommend that you embark on the mission. In contrast with other exams/certifications it is not a quick cramming affair and you should set a realistic target of 8-10 months (or even longer) to fulfill the requirements, satisfy the allocated mentor and pass the MCA review board. It is a long path and success is not guaranteed, but at the end you’ll feel such a tremendous sense of accomplishment and pride that you’ll be able to wear your underwear on the outside – just to show how good you really are in the IT profession.

Good luck to all candidates who decided to pursue the certification in this round!

What questions to expect?

So, you want to know what the MCA review board will ask? Instead of giving you the battery of answers, let me instead explain the different cognitive levels that the IT architect has to demonstrate to the board to pass the review. (The taxonomy used is from Benjamin Bloom’s research of Educational objectives)

Knowledge

Remember and recall information.

Q: What are the core tenets of object-oriented programming? What are the typical components of modern email solution?

Words used by MCA board: who, what, where, when.

Comprehension

Organize and arrange the material mentally with sufficient understanding.

Q: Compare the logical models of client-server and n-tier architectures? Explain how the IPSec tunnelling works.

Words used by MCA board: describe, compare, contrast, rephrase, put in your own words, explain.

Application

Apply previously learned information to compose an answer.

Q: How do you apply the Enterprise Architecture Framework to your architectures? According to the definition of SOA, where do authentication services fit?

Words used by MCA board: how did you do it, apply, classify, choose, whiteboard the example.

Analysis

Think critically and in depth.

1. Identify the motives, reasons, and/or causes

Q: Why would you use an XML interface when querying a relational database? Explain the motives behind defence-in-depth concepts.

2. Reach a conclusion, inference, or generalization based on available information

Q: When is it inappropriate to loosely couple your components? What systemic qualities would change if you’d add the F5 balancers to the solution?

Words used by MCA board: identify motives/causes, draw conclusions, determine evidence, support, analyze, why.

Synthesis

Perform original and creative thinking.

1. Produce original inventive ideas.

Q: How would you design a space-station life support application architecture? If you could build it from the scratch, how would you build a geo-distributed computing operating system?

2. Make predictions.

Q: How will outsourcing to 3^rd world countries change the way you develop applications? How will the next wave of technologies impact the staffing of datacentre administrators?

3. Solve problems creatively.

Q: How can you implement a unique identifier for individuals, given typical privacy laws? How could we switch the internet to IPv6 quickly and painlessly?

Words used by MCA board: predict, design, develop, synthesize, construct, how can we improve, what would happen if, can you devise, how can we solve.

Evaluation

Judge the merit of (or give an opinion about) an idea, solution or offering

Q: Which object model is better, J2EE or .NET? Compare and rank the currently leading operations management solutions.

This type of question is used to surface candidate's values and test the confidence in own opinion. It can also precede a follow-up analysis or synthesis question like, "Why?"

MCA review board

Readiness
I tried to prepare for the board review couple of weeks before but with no guidelines or specific topics this is impossible task. I focused on reading as diverse material as I could find: Gartner slides from the last ITXpo, Business trends reports, Theregister.co.uk (that source helped me with two questions), RUP and UML, System Definition Model, Storage Area Networks, Anything that even remotely looked like infrastructure I absorbed. I made myself a deck of cue cards (more than 50 of them) with key architectural models, process frameworks, management theories and similar useless stuff that might be useful.

Preparations
I landed in Austin the night before and went straight to bed – next morning the preparations started. I needed to know where exactly the test centre is – so I planned the test-drive to see how long it takes. I needed to dress-up for the board, but not too much – I brought the full 3-piece suit with me (due to insane heat that morning I decided later to be ‘smart casual’, with a tie). I needed to be in my peak performance at 3:30pm when my jetlagged body will think it is 8:30am – forced sleep a night before helped greatly. I needed to be lavatory-free for the duration of the review, but still have enough liquid intake to not dehydrate my brain. I need to feed the brain at the right time (2-3 hours before the event). Each and every risk needs to be assessed and mitigated.

Timetable
I made the exact timetable for the D-day: breakfast at 9am, test-drive to the test centre at 9:30, shopping in the nearby mall at 10:30 (to force the brain to relax a bit), lunch at noon (a light meal that will not put me asleep), shower at 2pm, dressing-up at 2:30, on the road to the testing centre at 3pm. Arrival to the reception of the centre at 3:15. And then… Well, I didn’t want to think what will happen then.

Introduction
Andy Ruth greeted me and gave me the complete process overview. I noticed that he sounded like a memorized record – obviously he gave the same speech to hundreds and hundreds of candidates before. I was pleased that I noticed his monotony in the speech – that means I was observant enough and my brain was active. I set-up the notebook with presentation and started my intelligence gathering process: what are the names of people on the board? Where are they from? What is their profession? I gently probed Andy and got enough information to be prepared – and scared.

The board
I got two infrastructure and two solutions architects in the board. Only one was from Microsoft and three were externals. And the one from Microsoft was Lewis Curtis. The I-don’t-understand-a-word-on-his-blog Lewis Curtis! I physically felt how waves of panic and horror pulled me under… When board members started to arrive into the room, I put myself back together, greeted each one of them and then the formal introductions started. When it was my turn to introduce myself, Andy started the clock. I got 30 minutes and not a second more.

The presentation
I started with a joke or two and relaxed the tension in the room. The presentation was structured to build-up from the business overview through the requirements towards the solution explanation. The complexity of the presentation increased from slide to slide and when I was two thirds through I saw that I reached the limit of absorption-per-second of board members. Luckily I was over the peak of the presentation and when I eased towards the last part I also slowed the pace of speech. I finished the last slide three seconds before my time was out. Phew!

The precision questioning
Now each board member got 10 minutes to probe me, poke me, squeeze knowledge out of me and torture me. As they wanted to get as much in their allocated time, new questions came the same moment they heard that my answer yielded to the right direction. I knew this precision questioning technique from before and although I find it rude and very impolite I was prepared for it. I went through the same process again and again: check the body language of questioner; check the tone of the voice; analyze the words of the question; analyze the semantics of the sentence. This way I was able to detect the traps and hooking questions.

The precision answering
I knew that time is my enemy – I had just 10 minutes to satisfy each examiner. That’s only 20 questions if question takes 10 seconds and answer follows with additional 20 seconds. So my brain was in 5th gear to find the root of each answer and then I quickly barked it out. No fluff, no wrapping, no gimmicks. If I needed clarification, I asked for it – but I knew that by getting it I’m losing the precious time to answer more. I saw the dissatisfied face each time when the time was up and the next inquisitor took over. I felt like a brain on the stick – no emotions, no interpersonal skills, pure intellect that was probed under the examining spotlight.

The break
When all four board members got 10 minutes each to tear me apart, I was allowed to take 5 minutes break. I went to a toilet, then sipped some water and thought about nothing. That sounds very zen but I knew that the hardest part is yet to come so I needed to relax my overloaded brain. The board members had some debate behind the closed door and somehow I felt that the second part will be extremely frustrating.

Round two
The torture started with the same fierce tempo as before, but this time the questions probed for all the boundaries of my knowledge. More than half of the questions were outside my domain of expertise and I had to improvise, innovate and think completely outside the box. I drew some really lame diagrams on the whiteboard and with every minute I was more desperate. Being consultant most of my professional life it was hard to accept that there are so many areas I know almost nothing about. It was especially hard to leave unanswered question behind and focus on the next one while my brain still tried to solve the previous one. Focus on the next one! And the next one! And then the next one. Will this ever stop?

The closing speech
And there it was – the moment when Andy said that it is my time to say any closing remarks. I got 5 minutes – I could either use them or just pack and leave the room. Gosh, I had so many wonderful closing speeches ready but I felt too empty and conquered that none of prepared statements fit the moment. I just remembered all dissatisfied faces of board members each time Andy told them that their time is up. So I rather offered my 5 minutes back to the board: what else did you want to ask me but there was not enough time? And the questions started rolling again. Oh my gosh, what a masochist am I to ask for more?

Game over
Finally Andy interrupted the debate and sent me out. My head buzzed, my eyes hurt and I felt defeated. I packed my stuff, thanked for the time and left the room with my adrenaline dangerously high. To be honest, I don’t remember how did I come to the hotel as I was thinking about all the questions I couldn’t answer. How could I forgot about X? Why didn’t I mention Y? Why am I such a moron to babble about Z? I was intellectually exhausted, emotionally defeated and physically tired. But at least it was challenge over.

The epilogue
Later that evening I got the congratulating email from Andy: ”We are pleased to inform you that you have passed the review board interview and have achieved the certification”. Well, at that moment it didn’t really matter to me as I still felt emotionally low and depressed. But later the satisfaction and joy and pride replaced the bad taste of personal failure. I did it! They decided that I’m good enough to be a Certified Architect! Woohoo! It wasn’t easy, but just like long running a marathon it was a terrific experience once it was over. It was hard but it was great. It was challenging but worth it. I hated every moment of it yet I’d do it again any time. That doesn’t make lots of sense, does it?