It was my pleasure and honour to present the 3 sessions below in both Lahore and Karachi this week at the Pakistan Developer Conference '06.
Being my first visit to the country, I was surprised not only by the passion and thirst for learning but also the great questions each session generated.
Session 1: Bridging the Gap between Development and Production
Integration and test are perhaps the most painful phases of the solution lifecycle for an Architect. Its the crunch point where application meets infrastructure; data centre constraints are first encountered and security policies are applied. Its also the phase where significant time and cost overrun often occurs. Taking an Infrastructure Architects perspective, this session will show how treating infrastructure with the same discipline as development results in a smoother transition from coding to deployment. We will see how today's tools are starting to bridge the gap between development and infrastructure, and look at what the future will bring.
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Session 2: Model Based Management and the Microsoft Dynamic Systems Initiative (DSI)
When starting a new project, Solution Architects agree a set of functional requirements with the business. These requirements are often used as the solution success criteria; delivering 100% of the functional requirements = complete success. And herein lays the problem. Without the successful deployment and operational management, the solution is next to useless. Analysts estimate on average 70% of the lifetime solution cost occurs in the deployment and operating phase, so why aren’t a set of non-functional requirements (e.g. manageability, availability and security) agreed with the functional requirements? The Microsoft Dynamic Systems Initiative will provide the tools which enable Architects to design-in management, security and more. This session will explain the DSI vision, look at model-based management and show you how you can build some of these concepts into your solutions today.
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Session 3: Service Oriented Infrastructure, a new way of thinking
Most companies have grown their infrastructure organically; a new application here, a new service there. The result is a set of stove pipes, infrastructures within infrastructures, each with its own user directory, security policies, and operations teams. This makes identity management, end-to-end security and portfolio management difficult and costly. Many companies are looking at consolidation and virtualisation as the magic combination which will solve these problems, but these alone are not enough. You need to apply Service Orientated thinking to the enterprise infrastructure. In this session we look at what a Service Oriented Infrastructure might look like, the benefits it might bring and the challenges you'll face getting there.
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Enjoy, and please comment if you have questions or simply disagree with some of the ideas.
Kevin
