shlock (1) - Nigels Retrospective : Architecture News

Architecture Forum site is now back up and running.

shlock — Mon, 12 May 2008 06:55:00 GMT

Minor glitch I think, but the AAF site was back online this morning. Register away - only a few days to go before we kick off in Melbourne!

Software + Services Architecture Round-tables

shlock — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 05:22:00 GMT

This week, I've been helping host my good friend and colleague Gianpaolo Carraro at a number of round-tables discussing Software + Services. We're half-way through; yesterday we conducted a session in Melbourne, and this morning we were in Canberra. As I write this, I'm at Canberra Airport waiting for our flight to Sydney, where we're on again tomorrow morning.

I have to say it's always fascinating to observe how differently architects in the private sector see the world compared with architects from the public sector. With regard to Software + Services, in Melbourne much of the discussion centred on the practicalities of integrating internal with external systems. In particular, authR/N got a fair bit of attention - i.e. how are you going to do SSO between your internal systems and stuff that's hosted by a cloud provider? Obviously you want your users to have as good an experience as possible, and this doesn't include having to type credentials into every app you access (or incorporate into a mash-up of some kind). Moreover, what about authorisation? It's important that you can map internal user auth groups onto the roles that are (presumably) provided by the service running in the cloud. Very interesting conversation, and to me the entire session was an implicit validation of the model that enterprises will increasingly start to consider externally hosted and run software as well as software that will continue to run on-premise.

On the other hand, at this morning's session in Canberra - to predominantly public sector architects - the focus was much more on the cultural and legaslative aspects of consuming services that are provided by outsiders. As you'd expect, for some federal agencies, relinquishing control over citizen or national data is simply not an option. Think tax, or defence. One of the major concerns is privacy - in the private sector, if someone inadvertantly discloses your financial details, you could probably redress this with some kind of monetary compensation. In the public sector, if someone inadvertantly discloses something about your - say - health records, then it could potentially ruin your life. Because of this you could argue the stakes are considerably higher for this sort of information, and the agencies take the custodianship of this information very seriously.

However, having said this, it was also clear that even in the public sector there are lots of commodotised capabilities that dont necessarily hold personal information, or information of concern to national security, that may be very good candidates for externalising. One example given was ERP - many government purchases are a matter of public record - i.e. department X spent $Y with provider Z. The financial transaction is already in the public domain, and therefore could be hosted/executed by a third-party provider. The details of the transaction i.e. exactly what was purchased, may not be, and could be retained on internal ERP systems that are in some way linked with the external application provider. This to my mind is one of the best aspects of the S+S vision - you can concentrate on what's important for your business (tracking the inventory of what you've bought), and factor out the stuff that's not that interesting (the fiscal details of that purchase).

Anyway - I'm looking forward to the session in Sydney tomorrow morning. I've attached GP's deck to this post - enjoy!

Slides from last week's Architecture Council - Glenn Smyth, Chief Architect Adelaide Bank

shlock — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 03:21:00 GMT

Last week Glenn Smyth, Chief Architect from the Adelaide Bank presented for us at the Melbourne Architect Council.

Ostensibly, this was a talk about SOA, and how you can use capability modelling (ala Motion, now called MSBA) to guide some of your decisions about implementing service oriented architectures. But really, the talk was about good old fashioned organisational politics.

Want IT architecture to have an impact on the business? Get the role out of IT, and _into_ the business. What does this mean? In the case of Adelaide Bank, it means that architecture is a strategic group that reports directly to the CEO. They have a voice with the business, and are seen as adding strategic direction and business value to the organisation rather than simply being seen as 'governance' and 'standards'.

This also means that to be truly effective, enterprise architects MUST understand the business, which further implies that the business itself must be able to articulate what their actual business strategy is. This might seem trite, but quite often it's the case that the business has trouble with this. It's not enough to say "increase market share" or "improve customer retention and monetisation" or even "maximise profits through improved execution and reduced costs". The strategy needs to be more specific than this, and include a clear view of the business intent of the organisation as well as some clear thoughts on the business operating model (ala the thinking from Enterprise Architecture as Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution).

The upshot is that if, as an enterprise architect, you aren't armed with a clear view of the business intent, strategy and operating model, you are more or less working in the dark as you try to align your architecture (and services) to the business.

It was a great session, with plenty of food for thought. I've attached Glenn's very useful annotated deck to this post - feel free to grab it and have a look at how capability mapping can help your thinking around SOA and working more closely with the business.

Only a few days to go before the Australian Architecture Forum - its not too late to register!

shlock — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 05:04:00 GMT

It's hard to believe that it's only a few days until the inaugural Australian Architecture Forum. But don't despair, there's still time to register for the event if you haven't had a chance to yet. I've been looking at the agenda today, and it looks like it'll be a really interesting conference. Some highlights - at least for me - are:

Dr Paul Ashley from IBM talking about IBM's take on e-Business patterns

The IBM Patterns for e-Business (p4eb) have been used by architects and specialists in sales and delivery situations for a number of years. They can be used to provide a step by step approach to designing a solution for a client, by partitioning the problem into logical business patterns. These patterns are then refined through application, runtime and deployment patterns. The advantage of using p4eb is that they are a great productivity tool in designing systems and also express the design in a common language that is easily understood. With the advent of SOAs and Web 2.0, the p4eb are evolving to make use of these new technologies. Significant work is underway to update the patterns so they reflect the current thinking in both these areas, providing new solution approaches.

It's clear to me that - at the moment - there's a dearth of good architectural guidance for enterprises looking at how best to incorporate Web 2.0 concepts into their architectures, so it'll be interesting to get IBM's perspective on this.

Phil Argy, ACS president hosting a roundtable discusing IP, and ramifications for software development

As a partner of Mallesons Stephen Jaques for over 20 years and President of ACS and on World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) panel of arbitrators for the resolution of intellectual property disputes Philip Argy is uniquely qualified to lead this discussion on the discussion on the legal ramifications and challenges of writing software in Australia.

This is a really interesting topic. Do we pay enough attention to the legal side of the systems we architect? In my experience, I'm not sure we do...

Evan Bottcher from Thoughtworks discussing legacy application extension

The project team faced a tough challenge. The business wanted to build some major new features for their resource planning application, but the existing code was a bit of a mess. Serious design problems were immediately apparent which would make it difficult to deliver the new features required, and the current functionality could not be clearly understood. There was almost no automated test coverage to give confidence. Surely it would be best to start from a clean sheet of paper?
Instead the team embraced the legacy and carefully renovated the application while delivering new functionality. This enabled us to make earlier and more frequent releases and reduce risk dramatically. This session will share the approach used by the team to quickly and safely extend and improve the application.

IMHO War stories are probably one of the best ways to learn more about the practice of architecture, so this session and other similar case studies from the community are going to be really valuable parts of the conference

Brett McDowell from Object Consulting talking about the practice of Architecture

What skills, experiences and other attributes are needed to be an Architect? What levels and types of Architects are out there and what exactly do they do?

'Architecture' in IT can mean a range of things. Typically it is a poorly structured discipline within the software industry as a whole and within the software engineering fraternity in particular. One of the reasons is the number of 'soft' aspects to architecture which have proven difficult to formularise, codify and document.

Most Architects work in an ad hoc manner and will have a range of tricks and techniques and some shortcuts and preconceived ideas of what works and what doesn’t. But very few Architects can actually describe how to actually architect a system clearly, which makes it very difficult for people wishing to become architects.

'Architecture' is such a broad term that it's often hard to figure out what it actually means to be an 'architect'. Should be a fascinating round-table.

On that same topic, it's also good to note that IASA international president Paul Preiss will be in Australia especially for the Architecture Forum to talk about how the IASA are working with the international community to address some of the concerns the industry has regarding legitimising the role of 'architect'

Join Paul Preiss, President of the International Association of Software Architects, as he guides you through the knowledge required in today’s software architects. This knowledge base comes from the official IASA skills taxonomy (http://www.iasahome.org/web/home/skillset) which represents a revolutionary step in the development of the architecture profession. For the first time real architects detail the knowledge and capabilities which have taken them to the top of the field. The knowledge was taken from over 85 of the world’s top architects, each with over 10 years experience in IT architecture. It has been compiled into a powerful set of materials which describe the skills you need to be successful. In this exclusive session Paul will show you how to increase your existing skill set using this powerful knowledge base.

There's lots of other great sessions - the entire agenda is online for you to have a look at on the forum site. So, if you haven't registered to come along already there's still time! Hope to see you there!

Australian Architecture Forum - register now!

shlock — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 06:02:00 GMT

Just a reminder, for those of you that haven't seen an invitation yet - time is ticking away to get yourself registered for the Australian Architecture Forum, which runs in Sydney and Melbourne in a couple of weeks time.

This is a truly unique event; IBM, Microsoft, Object Consulting, ThoughtWorks, EDS, SDM, and WDG, along with the IASA and ACS all working in unison to bring together some of our local community's brightest to discuss and share solution architecture practices.

Top five reasons why you should consider coming along:

Meet and network with your peers in the industry. What do architects at other organisations do? How does this compare to what you do, and what can you learn from others?
Discuss and share experiences. The majority of the day is made up of round-tables, hosted by subject matter experts from the community. This is YOUR opportunity to learn directly from someone with an architectural speciality while at the same time having a chance to voice your own thoughts.
Find out how you can progress your career as an architect. What certifications are available? How do you get onto these programs? What sort of mentoring is available?
Learn about the latest best practices in architecture in some of the breakout sessions. The keynote will be delivered by none other than Don Ferguson, otherwise known as the 'Father of Websphere'. This is a very, very special chance to hear his thoughts on how SOA, ESBs, Web Services and Web 2.0 technologies are harmonising in the industry.
The event is a single-day, in either Sydney or Melbourne. No need to block out 2-3 days for a long, drawn out conference. AND it's incredible value for money - less than $300.00 to participate in a unique forum in which you can help set the agenda for the day.

Hope to see you there!

ASWEC2007: Unloading can be cathartic!

shlock — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 10:01:00 GMT

I'm an Industry Track paper reviewer for the 2007 Australian Software Engineering Conference, being held in Melbourne in April this year. The venue is booked... the track committees and chairs selected... sponsors are being charmed... and now all we need are people to share war stories, ideas, and experiences in the Industry track.

This is a great opportunity to talk about your favourite (or not so favourite) project in front of your peers. Some of the topic areas you might consider are:

Architecting Software as a Service solutions
Large-scale information systems development
Enterprise application integration
Building interoperable applications
Building secure systems
Novel development method experiences (eg. Agile, Aspect Oriented)
Adopting new technologies
Model driven development experience
Service oriented architecture case studies
Advanced web services projects
Patterns and practices
Measuring ROI
Software project management challenges
Enterprise architecture and governance issues
Technology acquisition methods and experiences
Outsourcing experiences
Local product development success stories
Vertical industry project case studies

... or create your own topic. You'll have to hurry, though - abstracts (200 words or thereabouts) need to be submitted by the 4th Feb.

Australian Architecture Forum: Raison d'etre...

shlock — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 04:53:00 GMT

Chuck and I - in conjunction with Object Consulting and the ACS - are working on catalysing a community architecture event for next year, which he blogged about last week here and here. I wanted to chime in on some of the underlying thinking behind why we think this event will be important, and what you should expect from it.

The overall goal for the Australian Architecture Forum is to create a vendor and community neutral space in which architects - and budding architects - can engage in dialogue with subject matter experts from the community. With that in mind, the top-level objectives for the forum are that it should be:

Inclusive. The forum format and topics need to appeal to a broad range of solution architects. While we intend that practicing architects from the community will find it desirable to come along, we also believe it's equally important to reach out to the 'next generation' of architects - i.e. those in lead developer roles - to get them to participate in the discussion and learn about how solution architecture is practiced in the industry. Platform neutrality is essential.

Relevant. It's important that the forum incorporates topics that are relevant to the architecture challenges of today; in addition to technology topics, it'd be great to address the softer side of solution architecture. This might include issues such as organisational politics, project funding and management, intellectual property law, pragmatic approaches to architecture, working with project teams - amongst many other possible topics. ** see below for more on topics.

Interactive. Rather than show-up-throw-up 1:many presentations, we are aiming to encourage discussion and idea sharing amongst attendees. Our experience suggests that round-table discussion groups facilitate this well - and these types of interactions are seen by participants as much, much more valuable than traditional group presentation breakouts, and provide opportunities for networking. I mean, anyone can sit in a room listening to a presentation, or download a web-cast, but how many opportunities to you get to have a structured conversation with a subject matter expert AND a room full of your industry peers?

Accessible. In short, let's have as few barriers to participation as possible. This means keeping registration costs affordable (we're aiming at around $250 per person), and limiting the duration of the event to a single day (to avoid participants from out of town having to set aside multiple days to attend, as well as potentially avoiding the need for them to book accommodation etc).

Ongoing. This is really important. Rather than simply conducting a point-in-time conference, it'd be great to capture ideas, thoughts and best-practices from each moderated round-table, and then publish these on a publically accessible WIKI. The idea is that - over time, and over several of these events - the WIKI will gradually become a community resource of ideas and guidance on the pragmatic practice of architecture. We're initially aiming at running this event in Sydney and Melbourne. However, provided the recipe works well there's no reason why this same event can't be run in other places around Australia, giving everyone an opportunity to contribute to the community dialogue.

The format of the day is going to look something like this:

08.30-09.45	Breakfast Keynote
10.00-10.50	Breakout A1						Breakout B1
10.50-11.10	Morning Tea
11.10-12.00	RT1,1	RT2,1	RT3,1	RT4,1	RT5,1	RT6,1		RT7,1	RT8,1	RT9,1	RT10,1
12.10-13.00	RT1,2	RT2,2	RT3,2	RT4,2	RT5,2	RT6,2		RT7,2	RT8,2	RT9,2	RT10,2
13.00-14.00	Working Lunch
14.10-15.00	RT1,3	RT2,3	RT3,3	RT4,3	RT5,3	RT6,3		RT7,3	RT8,3	RT9,3	RT10,3
15.10-16.00	RT1,4	RT2,4	RT3,4	RT4,4	RT5,4	RT6,4		RT7,4	RT8,4	RT9,4	RT10,4
16.10-17.00	RT1,5	RT2,5	RT3,5	RT4,5	RT5,5	RT6,5		RT7,5	RT8,5	RT9,5	RT10,5
17.05-17.30	Closing/Summary

Each of those slots marked RT is an individual round-table session. We plan on allocating topics to slots, balancing the number of times a particular topic is run according to demand. For example, let's say that we had a topic that 50% of attendees in Sydney were interested in participating in: assuming we had 200 or so people at the forum, and we're limiting to 20 the number of individuals in a round table, we'd need to run this topic in five of the slots. Make sense?

Chuck has posted a list of possible topics for discussion. There are probably many more sub-topics in each of these broad areas that we could drill down into. If you have thoughts on what these might be, and what you'd be interested in seeing that's not in the list below - please drop either Chuck or myself a line via our blogs.

Here's the straw-person list:

Architectural Strategies for Portals.
Legal and Intellectual Property issues for Architects.
Project Management/Team dynamics
The Architecture of Middleware - SOA and ESB considerations.
SaaS - what is it, and what does it mean for architecting software?
Web vNext. Business AND Technology considerations
Business Intelligence Strategies
Virtualisation/Physical consolidation.
Data Architectures.
Modelling tools, Model driven development, methodologies, tools, factories.
... what have we missed?

Interested to hear from you if you've got ideas on how we should run this, additional topics to consider, or if you want to be involved as a Subject Matter Expert (and your organisation is willing to become a stakeholder in the event).

Web vNext ARCast, and... what is Web vNext again?

shlock — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 06:53:00 GMT

While I'm on the subject of ARCasts, Check out Ron's audio ARCast (part1, part2) of the Tech.Ed 2006 Web vNext Panel with Rowan Simpson (of tradme.co.nz fame), George Moore (GM of Windows Live), and Scott Guthrie (GM for .NET). Great discussion, captured in front of and featuring questions from the live audience at Tech.Ed.

So what is Web vNext again? What does it mean to you? Every day I hear about new startups - here and overseas - that are doing very interesting things online, and I've noticed there's a general buzz in the industry that is starting to feel very similar to the buzz that existed prior to things turning pear-shaped on the internet in the early noughties... Is this buzz symptomatic of Web vNext in action? I think it could be...

With this in mind, here are my thoughts on the key features of web(vn)** (or Web 2.0 or Web 3.0 or whatever):

** Actually, from now on instead of Web vNext I'm going to use web(vn)(c)(tm)(r). I'm willing to license this new composite (and undeniably sexy) acronym for a reasonable rate - ping me for terms :)

1) It's Not About Technology. The technology is an enabler, but I'm immediately suss if someone tells me that a site - just because it uses AJAX, or WPF, or RSS* or <insert latest hot internet technology here> - it's web(vn). The use of new technologies may be part of building a better User Experience for an offering, but in my opinion web(vn) is relatively independent of the actual technology used - i.e I think it's possible to deliver a web(vn) application via a good ol' fashioned HTML or Forms based application. Seriously.

2) The Business Model is Actually Important. I think that this was largely missing from the 'irrational exuberance" of the first generation Web surge. "Businesses" that had absolutely no prospect of EVER making any money still managed to receive (and chomp through) crazy amounts of VC or shareholder funding before crashing and burning in the Web 1.0 shakeout. In web(vn), in order to survive and/or attract funding, I think it's crucial to show that your ideas or offering can convert into a solid revenue stream. A good monetisation/revenue strategy (or strong prospects of one) is therefore a key component of web(vn).

3) Web(vn) Leverages the Law of Large Numbers. The long-tail is all about being able to sell "The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play" to the .001 percent of the browsing public that are interested in purchasing Ben Watson's excellent deconstruction of the late great Frank Zappa. Now, .001% doesn't seem like a lot, but if your total browsing population is around say a billion people that works out to be around 10,000 copies of the book. Now aggregate. Count every single 'unpopular' title ever published, and multiply that number by .001ish% of a billion. Pretty soon you are looking at some fairly respectable sales volumes. The key is being able to make these titles available for sale cheaply enough so that you can sell them for a profit. Traditional bookstores can't do this - since they are struggling with fairly hefty inventory/logistics costs. Online retailers who *don't* carry inventory, or who carry stock electronically (say as PDFs), can. Result - Amazon thrives by leveraging the long-tail, which is made possible by the number of consumers delivered to their door via the internet. This idea works all over the place - for instance, maybe I'm keen on paying fifty cents per episode for every "Bold n Moldy" episode ever shown. I don't want to buy DVDs - they cost too much, and in any event get scratched or lost, or my local DVD store doesn't carry them. I can't buy per-episode online, so I guess that means I'm a lost revenue opportunity to the network (CBS in this case). Look at what is happening with bittorrented shows on the internet - every single download represents a lost revenue opportunity to the owners of that IP. The law of large numbers means that it should be feasible for them to charge a few cents, or a few dollars, per episode. People WOULD pay for this service, in the knowledge that they are getting a quality version direct from the source, and aren't subject to any P2P sharing 'legal gray areas'. My wild guess is that they'd make more money by doing this than selling their content through traditional means (i.e. sell show to the network, network makes money from showing ads during the show, or by placing the show on pay-TV). Understanding how large numbers (and the long-tail effects thereof) relate to the success of your business is the third key web(vn) characteristic.

4) Don't forget to remove barriers to participation. So, maybe your business model (see point 2 above) is to leverage the long-tail (point 3) in whatever your offering market is. The long tail implies large numbers, which in turn implies gaining the mindshare of the community is important. How do you get this mindshare? One approach that has been shown to work time and again is to lower the barriers to entry for community participation, and hope that the participation goes viral. Flickr, eBay, MySpace, and GooTube are all great examples of this; each of these sites minimise barriers to entry that would have otherwise prevented members of the community (i.e. you and I) from posting and commenting on images and video, ranting via our blog, or selling things online. Each of these sites has been successful in garnering enough viral memes on the internet that they've become synonomous with a particular category of content sharing and/or forming connections between individuals. I'm willing to bet that there are an almost infinite number of opportunities to form communities for other types of content/activities on the internet. Having a model that recognises the importance of community participation is the fourth key characteristic of web(vn).

5) There is a long-tail for user-generated-content. And while we are on the subject, it's important to realise that one of the reasons community participation works so well is that there is a long-tail for community generated content. If I like leek twirling, chances are that someone, somewhere on the internet shares my weird passion and is willing to create and share content we both respond to. About 60% of the news I read is on blogs, precisely because I'm in the long-tail for content that is relevant to me. To put this another way, my preference is to go out and find content myself for stuff I'm interested in, rather than wait for the traditional media-push-model to randomly spit something out that I find relevant. So, understanding how the long-tail applies to content and service offerings is the last key characteristic of web(vn).

To summarise - in my opinion and from what I've observed, web(vn) involves having strategies in place that address most of these characteristics. As consumers become increasingly internet-savvy (and the long tail gets longer) I fully expect that these will be some of the predominant driving factors behind new online business offerings and models.

So, have I missed anything?

CommSee architectural v-ARCast up on SkyScrapr

shlock — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 06:36:00 GMT

While Ron was visiting Australia in August, he spent a day chatting - on video - with the Commonwealth Bank's CommSee architecture team. I'm pleased to report that these conversations are now available online at SkyScrapr as an ARCast. It's well worth a look if you are interested in the design and architecture of CommSee; there's lots of in-depth discussion regarding CommSee's design drivers, as well as how they approached developing a pragmatic SOA within the bank for this project. Compelling viewing if you ever wondered how you'd design a smart client/SOA application that could serve tens of thousands of concurrent users :)

Next IASA Melbourne meeting (Thur Aug 31st) An Evening with Ron Jacobs

shlock — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 07:20:00 GMT

The next IASA Melbourne meeting is a combined event with the Victoria.NET Dev SIG (formerly VDNUG). We're taking the opportunity to get Ron down to Melbourne to redeliver one of his Tech.Ed sessions, which looks at architecture from the perspective of someone interested in taking the next steps in their IT career towards becoming an architect. Highly recommended, especially if you can't make it to Tech.Ed this year.

--snip--

So, what do architects do anyway?

To many people an architect is just a really advanced developer but is that what makes a good architect?

In this session we will consider the role of the architect in software development and the exact nature of the work that an architect does by answering three important questions:

What is the role of an architect?
What is software architecture?
And do I want to become an architect?

About Ron Jacobs

Ron Jacobs is an Architect Evangelist in Microsoft's Architecture Strategy Team based in Redmond, Washington. After a long career as a developer, program manager for various Microsoft products and product manager for patterns & practices Ron became host of the Channel9 show ARCast. A popular conference speaker Ron brings together solid architectural content and a sense of humour together to help you succeed in building architecturally sound and secure applications.

Details:

Date: Thursday 31 August

Time: 5.30pm (pizza served); 6pm (presentation starts)

Venue: Microsoft Theatre, Level 9, Como Office Tower, 644 Chapel St, South Yarra

RSVP: By return e-mail to info@victoriadotnet.com.au by COB on Tuesday 29 August

There is no charge for Members to attend this event, but space is strictly limited and pre-registration is essential.

This is a great opportunity to learn from a recognised architecture “guru” – don’t miss it!!

...and the mystery guest at on the Aus Tech.Ed Web vNext panel is...

shlock — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 06:16:00 GMT

None other than Ben Barren, Web vNext entrepreneur, and a frequent speaker and commentator on driving Web vNext in Oz. I went along to his (and John Allsop's) talk at the WebDirections seminar in Melbourne last week. It was a great session, and it's good to see that there is a thriving community in Australia driving local initiatives around the future of the web.

The addition of Ben means the panel, hosted by Ron Jacobs, will consist of

George Moore, GM for the Windows Live Dev Platform
Scott Guthrie, GM Microsoft Web Development
Ben Barren, Web vNext entrepreneur and founder of Gnoos and FeedCorp.

Should make for a verry interesting discussion. So - if you are at Tech.Ed, don't miss ARC208 - 10.00am, Thursday 24th!

(update - forgot to link the previous article on the panel. Also, don't forget to leave me a comment or contact me if you have a burning issue you want the panel to address)

Say! What a lot of phish there are!

shlock — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 13:38:00 GMT

With apologies to Theodor Geisel... Looks as if IE7's anti-phishing filter thinks MS Corp's Outlook Web Access entry point is suss...

But seriously, I'm copping 2-3 phish attempts a week in my junk mail folder, and I'm happy that IE7 now has this functionality built-in. Still, I can't wait until OWA supports CardSpace authentication. Speaking of CardSpace, don't forget to let me know if you are interested coming along to (or want more details on) the 1-day hands-on-lab in Melbourne on the 29th.

Web vNext panel discussion at Tech.Ed - questions, topics?

shlock — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 14:58:00 GMT

One of the sessions in the architecture tracks at Tech.Ed Aus and NZ is a panel discussion tackling the architectural implications of Web 2.0. Hosted by Ron Jacobs, the panels will run in New Zealand and Australia, with panelists George Moore (GM for the Windows Live Developer Platform), Scott Guthrie (MS Web Dev GM), Rowan Simpson (from TradeMe in NZ) and a further "Mystery Guest" (in the Australian panel).

Do you think that Web 2.0 *does* present architectural issues that we should be thinking about, or do you think it's a storm in a hype-cup? Do you think that Web 2.0 will force us to adjust our thinking about what an 'application' is? About what a 'service' is? About what an 'organisation' is? If there are new business models introduced by Web 2.0, does it follow that there should be new architectures as well, or is it a case of *ility business as usual?

There was a truly fascinating panel discussion on Web 2.0 at MIX06; It'll be interesting to see if we can advance this conversation into the architectural realm at Tech.Ed. I'm very interested in your opinion on this - if you'd like to propose some questions (or discussion topics) for the panel, please drop me a line.

...but is there life after Tech.Ed?

shlock — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 14:33:00 GMT

Of course there is! For a start, Nigel Watling (CardSpace Technology Evangelist from MS Corp) is down in Melbourne presenting a one-day hands-on developer lab on CardSpace on Tue August 29th. This is the same session that he's presenting in Sydney the previous day (see Anna's blog). If you are interested, then drop Chris Louloudakis or myself a line - spaces are limited, so it's pretty much a case of first-in, best dressed. Thanks very much to BMC Australia, who made this session possible by allowing us to use one of their labs for a day.

Also, Ron Jacobs is doing a mini-tour of Australia in the week following Tech.Ed - pencil in Canberra on Wed 30th, Melbourne Thur 31st, and Perth Fri 1st Sept. I'll post again once the logistics for community events in each of these locations are nailed down. For now mark these dates in your calendar if you want to see the force behind ARCast in person in your town, especially if you aren't going to be able to get to Tech.Ed this year.

Nigel = 1..n(busy) where n=mucho

shlock — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 06:50:00 GMT

I've been absolutely hammered over the last few weeks, which has meant I've kind of been neglecting my blog. One of the things that is keeping me up at night is Tech.Ed, where I'm coordinating the Architecture track.

For me, one of the best parts (apart from the socialising) of Tech.Ed. has always been that you can get up close and personal with the speakers at the event. From that perspective, we've got a truly awesome lineup of speakers in the architecture track this year, including (and in no particular order):

Ron Jacobs - ARCaster extraordinaire and all-round nice guy.
Nigel Watling - CardSpace evangelist and semi-frequent recipient of mail intended for me :)
Steve Milroy - VE Technical specialist, who'll be presenting a very, very cool session on geo-aware solution architectures.
Jim Webber - Web Services savant and celebrated author (thanks ThoughtWorks).
Ric Merrifield - The brains-trust behind Motion.
Martin Granell - whose grandmother is currently working as a defence contractor :) (thanks Readify).
Kevin Francis - InfoSys architect and MS architect MVP (thanks InfoSys)
Andrew Dingley and Jamie Turner - Object Consulting's Sydney-based Software Factory specialists.
Brenton Webster - Expat Aussie working for the Architectural Strategy team in Redmond
Stuart Johnson and Ed Gallimore - from the CBA team that built CommSee
... as well as me, Anna, Nils, Graham Elloit, David Watson and Tim Litton.

So, if you're coming to Tech.Ed (and I hope you are), make sure you come up to us and say "hi!". See you there!