Matt Deacon's digestive blog : Architecture

Architect Insight Conference: Save the date!

Matt Deacon — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 20:04:00 GMT

Insight the two day Microsoft Conference dedicated to architecture that I've run for the past two years will take place again next year on the 28-29 April so save the date!

The theme this year is "The Future of IT" where we're looking out at next generation architectures. What's 'Oslo' all about? Well we're planning on giving as much early coverage on this as possible!

I'm putting the agenda together as we speak and will post the agenda first thing in the new year when we kick off registration:)!

Oh yes - location; we're coming to sunny Windsor this time around, Beaumont House - looks like a great venue!

Integration V interoperability

Matt Deacon — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:52:00 GMT

At a recent NCC workshop on we spent a while discussing what is meant in terms of Integration and Interoperability. Both heavily used terms in the industry but that actually are hard to define once you come down to it. The used Wikipedia definitions for “Joined up” and “Seamless” and as such suggested that:

Integration equivalent to “Joined Up”

Interoperability equivalent to “Seamless”

I’ve looked for these definitions on Wikipedia and must confess I couldn’t find them. Having said that I am not sure why they didn’t just look up Integration or Interoperability directly – that said the definitions leave you with wondering why there are two words at all?

Digital integration is the idea that data or information on any given electronic device can be read or manipulated by another device using a standard format.

Interoperability is the ability of two or more systems or components to exchange information and to use the information that has been exchanged (IEEE)

Wikipedia does go on to say that Interoperability is the capability of different programs to exchange data via a common set of business proceduresall of which doesn’t add much clarity.

They also include the ISO/IEC 2382-01 definition that adds ... in a manner that requires the user to have little or no knowledge of the unique characteristics of those units” which could lead back to the ‘seamless’ interpretation which to my mind is also a concern.

Personally, I don’t think any of these fully capture the essence of Integration and Interoperability and come to that matter, I use them so frequently that I am now not sure how I would define them myself!

Anyway, by the end of that part of the workshop I did end up with a mind map from what was discussed that I think provides quite a good coverage of the issues that integration interoperability encompass.

Thoughts welcomed!

Oh yes, and as for the rest of the workshop ... that’s more than enough for another blog but I need to do some more thinking on that first!

But if you’re interested take a look at the NCC EA-SE professionalism programme and join in the fun!

SecPAL v1.1 Now Available

Matt Deacon — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 12:45:00 GMT

For those of you at the last Architect Forum Jason Hogg has just announced an update to SecPAL on his blog.

Biztalk Services

Matt Deacon — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 11:57:00 GMT

Ok so you'll all tell me that you've tried this out already but I had to mention specially given I've spent the last week with 18 of the lead program managers and architects from the Microsoft Connected Systems Division. This stuff is certainly gaining centre stage at Microsoft!

For those of you in catch up mode Microsoft BizTalk Services includes the following services:

BizTalk Identity Services - provides authentication, access control and federated identity based on the WS-Trust specification.
BizTalk Relay Services - enables the bridging of physical networks.
BizTalk Internet Service Bus - provides a simple publish-and-subscribe message bus.
BizTalk Workflow Services - enables the graphical design of workflows using a hosted version of Windows Workflow Foundation

You can download the BizTalk Services SDK from www.BizTalk.net

Does Microsoft get Enterprise Architecture?

Matt Deacon — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 11:14:00 GMT

Good question ...

Well Mike Walker from Microsoft is charged with finding out and it should be an interesting journey one which I have always pushed for the need to work hand in hand with Industry.

I'm about to launch my own campaign on the enterprise too so it'll be interesting to see where we intersect!

According to Mike the Enterprise Architecture site on MSDN will start to provide articles, webcasts, blogs, and architecture guidance around the subject of Enterprise Architecture. About time:)!

Acropolis CTP 1 Released!

Matt Deacon — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 22:11:00 GMT

What's “Acropolis”? Well basically, it's a set of components and tools to help build client .NET applications and is part of the wave of “.NET Client Futures”. Check out the video - great voice over:)!

Software + Services Architect Forum

Matt Deacon — Wed, 30 May 2007 18:44:00 GMT

Slide decks are now (finally available) from the recent S+S Architect Forum we held at UK Microsoft Campus.

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/msdn/events/postevents.aspx

Early thoughts on SPA

Matt Deacon — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 05:46:00 GMT

I’m just back from SPA and still haven’t had time to really properly unpack my thoughts. However, my desire to get some thoughts off my chest seems to be preventing me from sleeping – so here I am at 2:44am (silly idiot) and apologies in advance for any gibberish that follows – comments as always are hoped for and cherished.

SPA is an intriguing conference/community especially from my perspective coming from a vendor! In some ways you find you are treated a little as an outsider, held at arm’s length and viewed with a little suspicion. But this is perhaps a little unfair as the people there are highly intelligent, motivated and truly excited by the industry they are in and their role within it. I love SPA, and one day I hope that they’ll love me too.

Highs: The people, the location, the weather: being at a Cambridge College on a lovely spring day almost made you think of returning to academia. However, this didn’t last long. The sessions were a mixed bag for me, but the workshop on “What motivates software practitioners?”and the think tank on “Why am I a PHP developer” and “A toolkit for enhancing learning” were all very valuable. However, it was the goldfish bowls that stole it for me! Not necessarily because of the content although that was revealing but more because of the format and the wide ranging debate that was the result.

Lows: Not many really although while the location was great in one way, it didn’t have the intimacy of the Robinson centre that SPA usually takes place in. Therefore, we have to thank the great weather as if there had been rain it would have been a different vibe. Poor sessions always detract and “Tackling the Encapsulation – Testability Trade-off” gave me zero and while the plenary “Monasticism for the married” was presented with great gusto and pace the content suggesting that agile developers are the good people and the business is the bad people was very poor and not a good viewpoint to take IMHO. The only saving grace was that at the end when questions were asked the speaker did say something along the lines of “Well maybe it’s my fault really as I really don’t know how to talk to the business” – a very true comment and far more insightful than his scripted conclusion that the “lion (business) will eat the antelope (agile) unless the antelope protects itself” and here he offered up a pencil drawing of a group of triceratops standing in a circle ... and we all know what happened to themJ.

Vibes: When I’m at SPA I really like to see if I can spot clues as to what the future might hold, so briefly here are my top tips for things that I reckon are going to get more airplay (so this is bound to be the kiss of death).

Firstly, the return of the function; functional languages were alluded to everywhere. No one spoke on them per say, but there was a low background sort of hum that makes me think that Smalltalk is not going to lie dormant for ever. Personally, I off to get a refresher from my friend Blair Mcgalshan on Dolphin. Anyone heard of seaside?

Second, was the need to learn from our past. Not that this is necessarily anything new about SPA but there is growing fervour that we are rewriting the wheel albeit in a new context. With IT hitting the age of 50 and BCS running a conference this summer to celebrate this, I think we’re one to a resurgence and revival in old values and skills but not in a negative fashion but revitalised and forward thinking. On talking to Immo from the BCS I’m delighted that Microsoft will now be proud sponsors and I’ve booked my place to attend.

Thirdly, and tied in to the thoughts above is that of education and the emerging skills gap. This was very prevalent in many of the sessions I attended. We’re not getting the people we want into IT and those that we get are not equipped for the job ahead.

Final thought that is also tied in to these thoughts above is the IT brain drain. Although not quantified there is some feeling of disillusionment with the IT industry and in some ways a feeling that many are locked in and unable to look to re-skill outside. However, there is awareness that unlike other skills IT is one of the few that will allow you to move horizontally while not forcing you to take a lower grade position. SPA is far from the standard cross section of IT and it maybe not surprising that a great many are attending open university courses in their spare time however, this is not the first time I have heard it spoken about which leads me to suggest that many are seeking other outlets and potential opportunities. Although some may be seeking a way out of the industry I also wonder about the loss of our talent overseas. Rob Machin from Endava mentioned that there is a four year waiting list to emigrate to Canada, he had no idea of the split across trades, but you can bet I am off to find out.

SPA is not a developer conference so beware. It's a thriving community and a great experience for all you IT thinkers out there and a gold mine to renew your book list for the next year:)!

Unbundling the bank

Matt Deacon — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 17:05:00 GMT

“Technology is the primary business driver in the banking industry” or so Craig Heimark said during his session at QCon today, not that the business is really aware, all they see is the changes in the competitive landscape. However, as he argues this change is driven (although enabled might be a better word to use) by the massive growth of communications challenging and forcing a reconfiguration from centralised vertical models to decentralised models made up of single value specialists.

The consequence is to create increased value to the consumer at the expense of margins; the higher the volumes the lower the margin. This leads to mass customisation and the eventual unbundling of services driven by consumer demand.

Not dissimilar, IMHO, to the service revolutions that we are predicting across other verticals and a breath of fresh air after my experience talking about the Software and Services at the recent "Implementing SOA in the Banking industry" conference I attended last month where their view was consolidation at all costs.

However, Craig has left the bank and is now building technology that will aid this disruption ... so the innovator leaves the corporation buy more on the innovation squeeze in my next blog.

SaaS: For dummies

Matt Deacon — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 02:26:00 GMT

SaaS is a continually evolving mix of existing and emerging technologies and business models and as I have suggested seems to be best described in terms of the following six characteristics (although I am sure there are more).

SaaS, at best should be viewed as a metaphor for the state of software delivery at a particular point in time (ie. now). The significance is that now, network communication can almost be assumed to be a given; markets are no longer constrained and in fact are floating in a layer above that of the physical world; this is no longer a global market, as this suggests a change in location; the market is no pan-global; the markets are now in the cloud.

SaaS is a fad; it is a metaphor that encapsulates the evolving software landscape of today. It is only a matter of time before the term SaaS will fade away into obscurity and be replaced by the more familiar term: Software. Only this time round the term software will not mean the same as it does today.

It’s much like music; we are in a period similar to Punk; a relatively short period in time, but a significant period in musical history. The result of which has seen the explosion of an incredible array of new musical forms. Some good and some not so good. Ok so as long as we ignore the whole of the eighties, new romantics and more recently pop idol we're looking good for an analogy here!

Welcome to the future of software as we will know it.

6. SaaS: Reach

Matt Deacon — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 02:25:00 GMT

The final and perhaps all encompassing characteristic of SaaS is described in terms of reach or rather the size of the new global markets into which these products instantly play. This is an obvious draw but with significant side effects. The fact that you are ‘instantly’ global can work in two ways; either, you are an instant success in which you need to be able to scale instantly, deal with cultural and locale issues such as language and business processes etc. or you are not and your growth is slower and more drawn out. Marketing is and has always been a significance in terms of the web and so you need to play the search engine game and work on image, profile and create a brand. All of which are difficult without the other issues facing a SaaS delivery model. The pressures come from all sides, “you’re damned if you’re an instant success and you’re damned if you’re not”.

However, the truth is the tail is out there. It’s not about small numbers and large returns; it’s about large numbers and small returns. Focusing on the key features and delivering on these; listening to the feedback and nurturing through the establishment of a community of users seem to be recipes for sustainable growth. The future markets are consumer driven and reputation based, at least during the early phases of on demand software.

5. SaaS: Community

Matt Deacon — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 20:03:00 GMT

Another common characteristic of SaaS at present is the emergence of the online SaaS developer communities that typically surround a particular application often extending the platform capabilities, providing integration solutions etc. These often arise out of the early adoption community and can prove extremely influential groups on the subsequent evolution and uptake of a SaaS application. A term that has been used to refer to this phenomenon is “outsourced innovation” or “open innovation” or the “rise of intermediaries” as Mikko Ahonen puts it. The most readily identifiable example being the Apex Platform from Saleforce.com but a fun site I was introduced to not long ago is the Mashery, that boasts being able to take your web service offering and build a strong and active developer community upon it!

4. SaaS: Management

Matt Deacon — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 18:06:00 GMT

SaaS applications are characteristically completely managed by the vendor. The implementation of management tasks and responsibilities is opaque to the subscriber and Service-level agreements (SLAs) govern the quality, availability, and support commitments that the provider makes to the subscriber. The key driver here being to reduce the costs incurred by IT within an organisation especially when concerned with non-differentiating services.

Management is a pervasive characteristic across all application and location characteristics but may differ in terms of individual management requirements. Typical non-functional management requirements of a SaaS application include:

· Provisioning – that covers installation of application ranging from a zero install as per a web application to a no hassle or no user install.

· Configuration and customisation of functions, features, look and feel etc.

· Billing – see SaaS licensing

· Monitoring – health of the application such as reliability, performance, security etc.

· Support – user support etc.

Perhaps not surprising is that many of the management issues are tertiary concerns for a start-up SaaS provider, especially those who adopt the web hosted model. Most time is spent concentrating on developing the value proposition itself. Much of the management information is gleaned through the production of adhoc reports from the hosting and database tiers.

It is interesting on one hand that billing is most often handled through this adhoc approach given that it is central to how the SaaS Provider handles its income. In reality while they are undoubtedly focused on generating their revenue stream in terms of business function the fundamental truth behind this is that many providers do not yet understand the dynamics of their market place and so to invest in a particular licensing model at such a volatile stage is viewed as a waste of investment and energy.

It does not take much to imagine that there will be a rise in SaaS providers in the areas of SaaS Licenising, Management and other non-functional components as the SaaS models evolve and further differentiate ... hmmm maybe I need to build something;)!

3. SaaS: Location

Matt Deacon — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 17:27:00 GMT

In terms of location a SaaS Application is most readily associated with that of an internet hosted web application (and hence hosting may have been a better description in hindsight). However, in reality this only represents one of many location (hosting) models that are available including these described below:

· Remote; where the SaaS Application is hosted within the vendors IT environment and accessed by the consumer remotely.

· On-premise; where the SaaS application is hosted within the customers own IT environment and accessed locally.

· Appliance; where the vendor supplies hardware/software as a "black box" that is installed in the customer’s own IT environment, this can also include virtualized environments.

· Virtualised; a variant of the appliance model whereby the application may be hosted on the users desktop, but is isolated or virtualised using technologies such as that provided by Softgrid for example.

Several inhibitors to SaaS adoption, such as multi-tenancy, security and reliability are currently driving the evolution of some of these models. However, with the likes of application virtualisation it is conceivable that this will be an enabler in its own right for the myriad of applications that do not fit instantly into the classic internet hosted web application model.

An interview at last;)

Matt Deacon — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 22:05:00 GMT

Got my first blog interview for partner perspectives the other day which was kinda fun ...