Technology Architecture & Projects

14th Carnival of Enterprise Architecture Coming January 15, 2009

The 14th Carnival of Enterprise Architecture that I host through Blog Carnival is coming up on January 15, 2009, with submissions due by January 14, 2009. If you have an EA- or IT-related post that you'd like featured through the Carnival, you can submit the Permalink URL and related information here.

This is a very easy and effective way for EA and IT bloggers to get their messages across to a wider audience, and I hope that EA and IT bloggers will consider submitting their best pieces to the Carnival. Please note that you do not have to be the author of the material to submit it, as long as it: a) meets the guidelines below; and b) honors the author's copyright and fair use guidelines.

As always, here are a few pointers for article submissions to the carnival:

* Off-topic material, sales pitches (direct or disguised) for products & services, and content spam will be not be published. Prior to every carnival episode, I delete a number of pieces of obvious spam, vendor ads, and off-topic material prior to publication - and it's a complete pain in the rear, believe me. Please don't waste your time or mine and thanks in advance.

* Feel free to nominate blog posts of others for the Carnival, but make sure to identify the author!

* Material posted in previous editions of the Carnival will not be re-published, regardless of who submitted it and when it was originally submitted.

Again, the deadline for submissions is January 14, 2009, and the carnival will be published on January 15, 2009. I look forward to all worthy contributions!

The 14th Carnival of Enterprise Architecture that I host through Blog Carnival is coming up on January 15, 2009, with submissions due by January 14, 2009. If you have an EA- or IT-related post that you'd like featured through the Carnival, you can submit the Permalink URL and related information here.

This is a very easy and effective way for EA and IT bloggers to get their messages across to a wider audience, and I hope that EA and IT bloggers will consider submitting their best pieces to the Carnival. Please note that you do not have to be the author of the material to submit it, as long as it: a) meets the guidelines below; and b) honors the author's copyright and fair use guidelines.

As always, here are a few pointers for article submissions to the carnival:

* Off-topic material, sales pitches (direct or disguised) for products & services, and content spam will be not be published. Prior to every carnival episode, I delete a number of pieces of obvious spam, vendor ads, and off-topic material prior to publication - and it's a complete pain in the rear, believe me. Please don't waste your time or mine and thanks in advance.

* Feel free to nominate blog posts of others for the Carnival, but make sure to identify the author!

* Material posted in previous editions of the Carnival will not be re-published, regardless of who submitted it and when it was originally submitted.

Again, the deadline for submissions is January 14, 2009, and the carnival will be published on January 15, 2009. I look forward to all worthy contributions!

Reminder: Carnival of Enterprise Architecture #13 Coming December 2, 2008

A friendly reminder that the 13th Carnival of Enterprise Architecture that I host through Blog Carnival is coming up on December 2, 2008, with submissions due by December 1, 2008. If you have an EA- or IT-related post that you'd like featured through the Carnival, you can submit the Permalink URL and related information here.

This is a very easy and effective way for EA and IT bloggers to get their messages across to a wider audience, and I hope that EA and IT bloggers will consider submitting their best pieces to the Carnival.

A few pointers for article submissions to the carnival:

* Spam, which includes pitches for commercial software or services, content spam, and off-topic material will be not be published.

* Feel free to nominate blog posts of others for the Carnival, but make sure to identify the author!

* Material posted in previous editions of the Carnival will not be re-published.

Again, the deadline for submissions is December 1, 2008, and the carnival will be published on December 2, 2008. I look forward to your contributions!

A friendly reminder that the 13th Carnival of Enterprise Architecture that I host through Blog Carnival is coming up on December 2, 2008, with submissions due by December 1, 2008. If you have an EA- or IT-related post that you'd like featured through the Carnival, you can submit the Permalink URL and related information here.

This is a very easy and effective way for EA and IT bloggers to get their messages across to a wider audience, and I hope that EA and IT bloggers will consider submitting their best pieces to the Carnival.

A few pointers for article submissions to the carnival:

* Spam, which includes pitches for commercial software or services, content spam, and off-topic material will be not be published.

* Feel free to nominate blog posts of others for the Carnival, but make sure to identify the author!

* Material posted in previous editions of the Carnival will not be re-published.

Again, the deadline for submissions is December 1, 2008, and the carnival will be published on December 2, 2008. I look forward to your contributions!

Book Review: SOA Governance by Todd Biske

My colleague and friend Todd Biske recently authored SOA Governance - The Key to Successful SOA Adoption in Your Organization, which was published earlier in October by Packt Publishing. I offer a review of this work with the disclaimer that not only is Todd a friend, I was given a review copy of his book gratis by his publisher. I also recommend Todd's blog highly for his views and tips on SOA, governance, and architecture in general.

While the book provides some technical details regarding SOA implementation, it focuses more on SOA adoption from a business and techno-functional perspective - that is, how enterprise architects, project managers, IT management, and business analysts would comprehend and address SOA as opposed to developers. In explaining SOA and governance concepts, Todd chose to use the "business fable," or "story" style where real-world scenarios and dialog are added within chapters to make his points. This style is similar to that used by Patrick Lencioni in his works ("The Five Dysfunctions of a Team:  A Leadership Fable") and Timothy Johnson (" Race Through the Forest: A Project Management Fable "). This style of writing, while rarely seen discussing technical/tactical topics such as SOA, is highly effective if used properly, and Todd's stories superbly reinforces the material at numerous points.

The book is comprised of the following topics:

• The definition and concepts of governance (with extensions to IT governance), SOA, and linkage to project management and the business
• Avoiding "Just A Bunch of Services" (JBOS) - Enterprise SOA Governance
• Service Versioning
• Business Analysis Governance
• Design-time and Run-time SOA Governance
• Roadmap to establishing and running SOA governance in organizations
  

A key strength in this book are the many links of proper governance and SOA concepts to the everyday problems and issues faced by IT architects/managers, project managers, and business analysts. In particular, Todd deftly develops and explains the tensions that normally exist between architects (taking a holistic view of IT infrastructure and SOA) and project managers who are under time, cost, and risk constraints to get their projects in production as they were originally planned. Most SOA texts I read come from a purely technical and technology-based perspective, and don't discuss the impacts on the people using, building, or guiding SOA. Thus, Todd's take on these issues is a very welcome addition to the literature.

As with most books that I read, I do have a couple of quibbles. The main one is the book pays little to no attention to data architecture and governance, which are key components of most SOA implementations since its data that's getting moved around almost all services implementations. Some discussion about this linkage would have been beneficial. Another issue that is not addressed, but probably should be, is the role that vendors play in these processes, because in most large organizations, they are a significant factor in most phases of inception, development, and operations. Finally, while the figures and diagrams in the text are numerous and very helpful, it would help the text greatly if they were labeled/tagged as opposed to simply inserted into the text.

This book is a must-have for all IT managers, architects, PMs and business analysts dealing with SOA issues, be they implementation, governance, or both. I also highly recommend this book for those who are starting or facing IT governance issues in general, even if they aren't contemplating or building-out an SOA at present - the governance principles, techniques, and advice Todd gives apply to much more than SOA.

Carnival of Enterprise Architecture #12 - October 1, 2008

Welcome to the October 1, 2008 edition of Carnival of Enterprise Architecture.

Business Process Mangement

richm711 presents SingleWrench FTP Replacement Tool Review posted at CreatingDrew.

Enterprise Architecture

Craig Borysowich presents Developing & Presenting Architecture Strategies posted at Craig Borysowich.

Shahid N. Shah presents The value of architecture artifacts posted at The Federal Architect, saying, "This is a short discussion on the value of architecture artifacts -- the comments are the most useful part of the posting."

Mike Walker presents Architect Role Taxonomy posted at Mike Walker's Ramblings about Industry Architecture.

Mike Walker presents Zachman Updates posted at Mike Walker's Ramblings about Industry Architecture.

Mike Walker presents The Microsoft Certified Architect Board Member Unravels the Process posted at Mike Walker's Ramblings about Industry Architecture.

Mike Walker presents Creating a Enterprise Asset Roadmap Strategy posted at Mike Walker's Ramblings about Industry Architecture.

Mike Walker presents Can you Easily Compare EA Frameworks? posted at Mike Walker's Ramblings about Industry Architecture.

Alan Inglis presents Enterprise architecture in the strategy domain? posted at Chief Architect.

Alan Inglis presents Business architecture organization models posted at Chief Architect.

Alan Inglis presents Complex diagrams = bad architecture posted at Chief Architect.

Craig Borysowich presents Activity for Defining Conceptual Architectures posted at Craig Borysowich.

Robert McIlree presents Enterprise Architecture: A Joke, A Failure...or an Opportunity? posted at Technology Architecture & Projects.

Other

Desk Coder presents Changing One System to Fix a Flaw in Another - Desk Coder posted at Desk Coder.

SOA

Mike Walker presents Open Group SOA Ontology posted at Mike Walker's Ramblings about Industry Architecture.

System Architecture

Robert McIlree presents Why Always Having a "Plan B" Matters posted at Technology Architecture & Projects.

That concludes this edition.  Submit your blog article to the next edition of Carnival of Enterprise Architecture using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Carnival of Enterprise Architecture #10 Coming July 2, 2008

The 10th Carnival of Enterprise Architecture that I host through Blog Carnival is coming up on July 2, 2008, with submissions due by June 30, 2008. If you have an EA- or IT-related post that you'd like featured through the Carnival, you can submit the Permalink URL and related information here.

This is a very easy and effective way for EA and IT bloggers to get their messages across to a wider audience, and I hope that EA and IT bloggers will consider submitting their best pieces (or those of others that they particularly like) to the Carnival.

A few pointers for article submissions to the carnival:

* Off-topic material, pitches for products & services, and other content spam will be not be published. Prior to every carnival episode, I delete a number of pieces of obvious spam, vendor ads, and off-topic material prior to publication - it's a complete pain in the rear, believe me. Please don't waste your time or mine and thanks in advance.

* Feel free to nominate blog posts of others for the Carnival, but make sure to identify the author!

* Material posted in previous editions of the Carnival will not be re-published, regardless of who submitted it and when it was originally submitted.

Again, the deadline for submissions is June 30, 2008, and the carnival will be published on July 2, 2008. I look forward to your contributions!

Carnival of Enterprise Architecture #8 - September 27, 2007

The 8th Carnival of Enterprise Architecture that I host through Blog Carnival is coming up on September 27, 2007, with submissions due by September 26, 2007. If you have an EA- or IT-related post that you'd like featured through the Carnival, you can submit the Permalink URL and related information here.

This is a very easy and effective way for EA and IT bloggers to get their messages across to a wider audience, and I hope that EA and IT bloggers will consider submitting their best pieces (or those of others that they particularly like) to the Carnival.

A few pointers for article submissions to the carnival:

* Off-topic material, pitches for products & services, and content spam will be not be published. Every month, I delete between 5-10 pieces of obvious spam, vendor ads, and off-topic material prior to publication. Please don't waste your time or mine and thanks in advance.

* Feel free to nominate blog posts of others for the Carnival, but make sure to identify the author!

* Material posted in previous editions of the Carnival will not be re-published, regardless of who submitted it and when it was originally submitted.

Again, the deadline for submissions is September 26, 2007, and the carnival will be published on September 27, 2007. I look forward to your contributions!

Carnival of Enterprise Architecture #7 - August 21, 2007

Welcome to the August 21, 2007 edition of Carnival of Enterprise Architecture.

enterprise architecture

Pankaj Arora presents ROI from Enterprise Architecture posted at Architectural Thoughts.

Vinay Pai presents SaaS Making Inroads in the Consumer Space posted at Vinay Pai's Blog.

Alan Inglis presents Should IT include a business architecture function? posted at Chief Architect.

Alan Inglis presents Enterprise Architecture Management Styles posted at Chief Architect.

Alan Inglis presents Get out there! posted at Chief Architect.

Robert McIlree presents Interoperability, Change and Architecture posted at GotzeBlogged, saying, "John Gotze and Olov Östberg comment at length about enterprise architecture in government."

other

Madeleine Begun Kane presents Captured By CAPTCHA posted at Mad Kane's Humor Blog, saying, "CAPTCHA Humor"

Madeleine Begun Kane presents Victory In My Battle Against Feed Scraping Content Thief 4Comedy.com posted at Mad Kane's Humor Blog.

Ashish Gupta presents Data Mining Demystified - I posted at Ashish on technology and social media.

Raj Sheelvant presents IT Does Matter posted at IT Strategy, saying, "Challenging Nicholas Carr's view that IT does not matter"

Raj Sheelvant presents Making Enterprise Application SaaSy! posted at IT Strategy.

SOA

Michael presents Want SOA?  Got Data Governance? posted at Data Governance Blog, saying, "Data Governance is a necessary piece of SOA.  This article discusses the value of Data Governance to SOA."

system architecture

James Urquhart presents Agile Computing Catches Up to the Data Center posted at Service Level Automation in the Datacenter, saying, "With the coming evolution/revolution in the data center towards utility computing, automation and virtualization (server and otherwise), more and more organizations are facing the cultural shift from detailed planning of tightly controlled system architectures to goal-oriented automated systems.  The cultural upheaval this is causing is very similar to the pain (and gain) felt by developers moving from waterfall to agile methodologies.  What can we learn from their pain to ease the transition in the data center?"

Johan Idstam presents Developer Summit, Architecture and Business value. posted at Johan; thinking out loud..

Johan Idstam presents Information vs knowledge posted at Johan; thinking out loud..

R. Auch presents Colocation facility move posted at totalnetsolutions.net, saying, "System architecture, tips and hints for system setup, and other technical matters."

That concludes this edition.  Submit your blog article to the next edition of Carnival of Enterprise Architecture using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: carnival of enterprise architecture, blog carnival.

Carnival of Enterprise Architecture #6 Coming Soon

The fifth Carnival of Enterprise Architecture that I'm hosting through Blog Carnival is coming up on May 20, 2007, with submissions due by May 19, 2007. If you have an EA- or IT-related post that you'd like featured through the Carnival, you can submit the Permalink URL and related information here.

This is a very easy and effective way for EA and IT bloggers to get their messages across to a wider audience, and I hope that EA and IT bloggers will consider submitting their best pieces to the Carnival.

A few pointers for article submissions to the carnival:

* Spam, which includes pitches for commercial software or services, content spam, and off-topic material will be not be published.

* Feel free to nominate blog posts of others for the Carnival, but make sure to identify the author!

* Material posted in previous editions of the Carnival will not be re-published.

Again, the deadline for submissions is May 19, 2007, and the carnival will be published on May 20 2007. I look forward to your contributions!

The fifth Carnival of Enterprise Architecture that I'm hosting through Blog Carnival is coming up on May 20, 2007, with submissions due by May 19, 2007. If you have an EA- or IT-related post that you'd like featured through the Carnival, you can submit the Permalink URL and related information here.

This is a very easy and effective way for EA and IT bloggers to get their messages across to a wider audience, and I hope that EA and IT bloggers will consider submitting their best pieces to the Carnival.

A few pointers for article submissions to the carnival:

* Spam, which includes pitches for commercial software or services, content spam, and off-topic material will be not be published.

* Feel free to nominate blog posts of others for the Carnival, but make sure to identify the author!

* Material posted in previous editions of the Carnival will not be re-published.

Again, the deadline for submissions is May 19, 2007, and the carnival will be published on May 20 2007. I look forward to your contributions!

The Most Important Data of All

I found an interesting example of what data is the most important of all: time. How it's recorded, calculated, accounted for, etc. is vital to the health and well-being of any information system and the applications and people that depend on them.

It is often the most innocuous and innocent of bugs and flaws that causes, or has the potential to cause, great harm and loss. Our example today is the much vaunted F-22 Raptor fighter plane. This baby is so advanced, it blew older fighter jets out of the water in simulated war exercises. They also cost $125 million USD each. Not a cheap machine, by any measure.

Recently, 6 of these were en route to Japan from Hawaii with tanker escorts. All was fine until they crossed the International Date Line. As the Daily Tech article relates:

When the group of Raptors crossed over the IDL, multiple computer systems crashed on the planes. Everything from fuel subsystems, to navigation and partial communications were completely taken offline. Numerous attempts were made to "reboot" the systems to no avail.

Luckily for this group, the weather was clear and they had the tanker escort lead them in the limp all the way back to Hawaii. Had the weather been poor, or the units in a combat situation, the outcome would have been much more severe and perhaps grave.

The problem was traced back to a very small segment of the 1.5 million lines of Ada code that runs these planes. After identification, the problem was fixed, and all is expected to return to normal operations.

There are similar time issues on the business side of things. I know of numerous organizations that spend much time, money, and hand-wringing "fixing" systems (primarily legacy) twice a year when the time shifts from daylight savings to standard and back again. they think they have the problem solved at these 6-month intervals, but then something else happens during the next switch. This time around they can add the fact that DST happens earlier beginning in March. The smarter ones have adopted Universal Time Coordinates (UTC) as a date/time standard as legacy systems are replaced. UTC plus-or-minus an offset for timezones is the only reliable way of figuring out what time it is. And those values are more important than a lot of people believe.

Time data and operations should be basic blocking-and-tackling for every development group. When time issues get trivialized or overlooked, the "soft underbelly" of a system will be exposed sooner or later, and the consequences could be severe, even tragic.

And not to be left as afterthoughts or to very junior development staff.

Still Time Left to Submit Posts to the Carnival of EA #3

There's still time left (until February 17th) to contribute posts to the Carnival of Enterprise Architecture #3 that I'm hosting at Blog Carnival. Submission is easy, and BC and I take care of the rest.

Please note that spam and pitches for products or services devoid of any other content or off-topic will not be published.

You can submit your works here with my thanks in advance!