While we at the IASA are very serious aboutt building the architecture profession in as many communities as possible, we cannot be everywhere at once. The IASA Global Meetings give us the opportunity to provide the value of an IASA meeting to architects all over the world.

Date: June 15, 2006
Time: 18:00 GMT/ 2pm US EST
Speaker: Scott Ambler
Subject:  Agile Architecture: Approaches for Project Teams and Enterprise Architecture Groups

This presentation overviews a collection of techniques for taking an agile approach to both project and enterprise architecture efforts.  The principles and practices of Agile Modeling (AM) can be applied by architects to streamline and improve their efforts.  The secret is to take a collaboration-based approach to architecture.  Agile architects roll up their sleeves and are active members of development teams and collaborate with developers to build software, transferring their architectural skills in the process.

We'll discuss how to take an agile approach to architectural modeling during a project, the need to prove an architecture with working code, how to model and document in an agile manner, how to take enterprise concerns into account on a project, and how to remain agile when promoting a common architecture across projects.

[1] http://www.iasahome.org/iasaweb/appmanager/home/chapterdetail

My good friends Aaron Tan Dani (Director, IASA Asia, [2]) and William Tay (Microsoft Regional Director Singapore, [3]) are speaking at the Enterprise Architecture Summit [1] taking place in Singapore, 17-20 July 2006. There are some unique topics scheduled, e.g. "Enterprise Architecture Security".

"...This event will address the fundamental principles and core themes involved in developing and sustaining an Enterprise Architecture (EA) practice, key EA elements and best practices in implementation and integration..."

[1] http://www.flip-side.biz/eEAC06flyer.htm
[2] http://www.iasahome.org
[3] http://www.softwaremaker.net/blog/[...]

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/germany/architecture/journal/default.mspx

Jeff Schneider [1] starts a discussion around the Web X.0:

• What are the technical barriers?
• What were the technical enablers?
• What new capability did this enable the user or business?

[1] http://schneider.blogspot.com/archives/2006_03_19_schneider_archive.html#114281466842835946

Browse and download the PPTs, Hands on Labs, Code and additional materials:

[1] https://content.mix06.com/content/sessions.aspx

Eine interessante architekturrelevante Betrachtung [1] des gehypten Begriffs Web 2.0 liefert Dion Hitchcliffe im SOA / Web Services Journal: "...Web 2.0 describes the next generation of the Web as an application platform where most of a user's software experience resides..."

[1] http://webservices.sys-con.com/read/164532.htm

Fred Chong, Microsoft Architecture Strategy Team, is writing a book on Software as a Service (SaaS).

Looking through the lens of an architect, architecting software as a service is an area sorely in need of better guidance.

[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/fred_chong/archive/2006/02/17/534633.aspx

Pattern Languages of Programs conference (PLoP, to be held in Portland Oregon, October 21-23, in conjunction with OOPSLA’06) is a place for pattern authors to have their pattern languages reviewed by fellow authors. This occurs in Writer's Workshops and the feedback allows the participants to improve their patterns to make them more useful and more publishable. The purpose of PloP is to promote development of pattern languages on all aspects of software, including design and programming, software architecture, user interface design, domain modeling, and software process. Domain-specific patterns are encouraged.

[1] http://hillside.net/plop/2006/

The Independent Software Architects Council of Malaysia proudly presents the Architecture Symposium 2006. This event is for the most influential strategic technology decision makers in Malaysia with approximately 400 leading architects and chief technology or information officers from leading innovative, local and global organizations in attendance.

If you are able to attend, I highly recommend you to join the keynote "Essential Architecture for Technopreneur" by Aaron Tan Dani, Co-Founder of ISAC-M and Regional Chairman of IASA, APAC Region. Aaron and I had a great time last year during my visit in Malaysia and I certainly hope to travel soon again over there.

ISAC-M, an affiliation of the IASA, is a non-profit organization representing a councerte4d effort on the part of both IT vendors and users to define, regulate and facilitate the advancement of software architecture as an industry in Malaysia.

[1] http://www.isac-m.org/events/symposium/rock.htm

The EnterpriseArchitecturalSpaceOrganizingTable in is a two-dimensional table that captures and organizes business artifacts according to the decisions that produce them. Business artifacts could include plans, notes, models, scripts, code, or other items that different roles in your enterprise use to make decisions and view the enterprise architecture in different ways.

The organizing table builds on earlier work of Zachman, Andersen Consulting, and test-driven development to produce a highly granular map of the enterprise space that is organized by viewpoints, roles, and interrogatives.

[1] http://patternshare.org/default.aspx/Home.EnterpriseArchitecturalSpaceOrganizingTable

CBDI provides consulting and educational services to enterprises in our specialized topic areas. We are actively developing SOA methodology, and our workshops and consulting services are the first place we comprehensively document our guidance in a structured manner.

  CBDI Educational Services in PDF (195KB)

The Microsoft Architect Insight Conference is being held in Newport, Gwent on the 22-23 March. The list of speakers is very impressive and IASA is on board again:

• Dr Ivar Jacobson
• Martin Fowler – Chief Scientist, Thoughtworks
• Andrew Herbert – Director, Microsoft UK Research Centre
• Paul Preiss – President, IASA (International Association of Software Architects)
• David Sprott – CEO & Principal Analyst, CBDI

The event is being held at the Celtic Manor. Registration before 24th Feb is £550 + VAT and after that is £695 + VAT, more details can be found here:

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/msdn/architecture/architectinsight/default.mspx

• SPA2006 conference, 26-29 March, UK. SPA2006 is run by the British Computer Society's Software Practice Advancement group. SPA explores a broad range of subjects from lead- edge technology, through pioneering software development and deployment practices, to innovative techniques for managing projects and the people that make up the project team.
  http://www.spaconference.org
  
  
• WICSA 5. The 5th IEEE/IFIP Working Conference on Software Architecture (WICSA) will be held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA on November 6-9, 2005.
  http://sunset.usc.edu/~softarch/wicsa5/conference_program.html
  
  
• The Software Architecture 2002 Conference will be held in Manchester, UK, on February 27-28, 2002. This conference is run by Eric Leach marketing.
  http://www.ericleach.com/sa2001/sa2slides.html
  
  
• DCI and Meta Group are holding the next Enterprise Architectures Conference in New Orleans, LA on March 5-7, 2002. This event is dedicated to Enterprise Architecture. It includes full-day pre- and post- conference workshops, general sessions with informative and thought-provoking keynote presentations, numerous technical and case study breakout sessions and several networking and vendor activities.  Register now with your priority code (CWMTL23 ) and save $200 off the regular 3-, 4- or 5-day conference price. 
  http://www.EAConference.com
  
  
• Enterprise Architecture Conference Europe 2002, 10-12 June 2002, London. This conference is run by an IT training company called IRM UK.
  http://www.irmuk.co.uk/eac2001

via Bredemeyer Consulting.

The Architecture Blueprints is intended for those involved in planning, designing, and implementing an enterprise-class infrastructure project, including consultants, system architects, and IT professionals who are responsible for the planning stages of application or infrastructure development and deployment. Windows Server System™ Reference Architecture (WSSRA) is a detailed reference architecture that yields valuable implementation guidance for meeting the requirements of an enterprise.

Nice and useful reading...

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutions/wssra/raguide/ArchitectureBlueprints/

The e-CIO organization is established based on the IT Civil Engineering approach (ITCE)  suggest by John Chi-Zong Wu, who has  developed the ITCE approach for many years to establish the ITCE framework and models, governance and design approach, and utilization. The Enterprise Services Architecture approach is proposed  based his experience as a professional engineer and enterprise architect in the past 25 years. 

[1] http://www.e-cio.org/

Microsoft's Architecture Journal is a quarterly magazine, providing a world-class forum for the publication of unique articles on how good architecture can help create great implementations. Microsoft's Architecture Journal is available as a printed subscription (you can order your own http://www.architectsconnection.de)

If you think you have what it takes to write for Issue #8 of the Architecture Journal send a paragraph abstract and a bio to archjrnl@microsoft.com. The cut off date for the next issue is Feb 24th.

After years of being disparaged by some in the software development community, the waterfall process is back with a vengeance. You've always known a good waterfall-based process is the right way to develop software projects. Come to the Waterfall 2006 conference [1] and see how a sequential development process can benefit your next project. Learn how slow, deliberate handoffs (with signatures!) between groups can slow the rate of change on any project so that development teams have more time to spend on anticipating user needs through big, upfront design.

Keynotes:

• Put Testing Where It Belongs--At the End by Brian Marick
• Extreme Programming Uninstalled - Keynote by Ron Jeffries
• Dead Fish Can't Swim But They Can Float Down a Waterfall by Tim Lister
• Super Model Driven Architecture: An Update From the OMG by Tyra Banks

[1] http://www.waterfall2006.com/   

Few more interesting blog postings on this topic:

[1] David Ing - "An Overly Long Guide to Being A Software Architect"
[2] Martin Fowler - "Who needs an Architect"  
[3] Arnon Rotem-Gal-Oz - "Architect Soft Skills" 
[4] Conversation with Luke Hohmann - "Becoming an Architect"

Interesting news: the Journal is renamed and will be known in the future as "The Architecture Journal" [1]. Simon Guest [1], Microsoft Architecture Strategy Team, is a new Editor, taking over the responsibility from Arvindra Sehmi, lead architect Microsoft EMEA, who originally founded this magazine back in January 2004 with a simple goal - to provide compelling, thought provoking and high quality articles to IT architects worldwide.

In the future the articles will be translated and published in 7 different languages. If you are interesting in participating send an email with your abstract to archjrnl@architecturejournal.net. Next issue will be published in February 2006. Here are the previous issues:

• Journal 5 (Jul 2005) ( English [pdf], Portuguese [pdf], Spanish [pdf] )
• Journal 4 (Jan 2005) ( Portuguese [pdf], Spanish [pdf] )
• Journal 3 (Jul 2004) ( Portuguese [pdf], Spanish [pdf] )
• Journal 2 (Apr 2004)
• Journal 1 (Jan 2004)

[1] http://www.architecturejournal.net
[2] https://blogs.msdn.com/smguest

ACM Queue editorial board member Ben Fried, previous managing director in Morgan Stanley’s IT department, has an interview [1] with Phil Smoot, a product unit manager in Microsoft’s MSN division:

"One of the oldest free Web e-mail services, Hotmail relies on more than 10,000 servers spread around the globe to process billions of e-mail transactions per day. What’s interesting is that despite this enormous amount of traffic, Hotmail relies on less than 100 system administrators to manage it all."

[1] http://www.acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=353

Srikanth Narasimhan, Cisco Systems, describes in his "Eight Architecture Lessons from History" [1] an analogy that pre-dates emergence of architecture concepts in any field. Here is an excerpt "Understanding IT architecture complexity":

According to an old legend, King Shirham of India wanted to reward his grand vizer Sissa Ben Dahir for inventing and presenting to him the game of chess. The desires of the clever vizier seemed very modest. "Majesty", he said kneeling in front of the king, "give me a grain of wheat to put on the first square of this chessboard, and two grains to put on the second square, and four grains to put on the third, and eight grains to put on the fourth. And so, oh King, doubling the number for each succeeding square, give me enough grains to cover all 64 squares of the board."

"You do not ask for much, oh my faithful servant," exclaimed the king, silently enjoying the thought that his liberal proposal of a gift to the inventor of the miraculous game would not cost him much of his treasure. "Your wish will certainly be granted". And he ordered a bag of wheat to be brought to the throne. But when the counting began, with 1 grain for the first square, 2 for the second, 4 for the third and so forth, the bag was emptied before the twentieth square was accounted for. Many bags of wheat were brought before the king but the number of grains needed for each succeeding square increased so rapidly that it soon became clear that with all the crop of India the king cold not fulfill his promise to Sisa Ben. To do so would have required 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains, an equivalent of world’s wheat production for the period of some two thousand years! 

There is a parallel to an IT architecture problem of the 21st century – business process integration. Throughout the past two decades, enterprises spent time in creating silos of internet applications. Now enterprises are faced with not only needing to create new applications but also face the daunting task of integrating the existing ones. Every time you invest in creating an IT application, it is very likely that the application needs to be integrated with the existing and new applications. If there are 200 existing applications in an enterprise then the number of possible connections among the 200 applications is n(n-1) i.e. 200*(200-1) = 39800 two way connections. Obviously the end result is not a pretty picture.

Lesson: Every time you add a new application to your enterprise portfolio, think of the n(n-1) scenario; sooner or later it can assume monstrous proportions and bite you!

[1] http://www.sei.cmu.edu/architecture/eight_lessons.pdf

Simon Guest, well-known for his InterOp articles, celebrates the relaunch of IASA website with his new article "Planes, Trains and Automobiles: Choosing Alternate Transports for Web Services". New IASA website offer much more than a fresh look&feel - tons of new content and features. Just check it out...

PS. Website is powered by BEA portal based on WebLogic application server.

[1] http://www.iasahome.org

Matt Deacon, the UK IASA Chapter [1] leader, is proud to announce that IASA is now an active contributor and media sponsor for SPA2006 [2], the annual conference of the Software Practice Advancement specialist group of the British Computer Society. SPA represents a vibrant and well established community in the UK and the IASA [3] will have a strong presence at the event which will include presentations from a number of IASA members.

[1] http://blogs.technet.com/matt_deacon/archive/2005/11/04/413653.aspx
[2] http://www.spaconference.org/spa2006/
[3] http://www.iasarchitects.org

ECMDA-FA [1] will take place from November 7-10th in Nuernberg, Germany. This conference is dedicated to furthering the state of knowledge and fostering the industrialization of the MDA methodology. Recommended track is "Layered Ontological Modelling for Web Service-oriented Model-Driven Architecture" [2] by Claus Pahl, Dublin City University.

[1] http://www.ecmda-fa.org/index.shtml
[2] http://www.ecmda-fa.org/abstracts.shtml#pahl

Glossar: Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) is an initiative proposed by the Object Management Group (OMG, www.omg.org) for platform-generic software development. It promotes the use of models in the specification, design, analysis, synthesis, deployment, and evolution of complex software systems.

Mario Cardinal interviews Paul T. Preiss, president and chairman of IASA and my dear friend, about software architecture, IASA and the certification programs for software architects. Here is the podcast version [1] of this interview.

[1] http://www.mariocardinal.com/download/0002_Blah_Blah_Architecture.WMA

Und was lernt man daraus? Reverse Engineering führt nicht unbedingt zum Ziel.

"... Archeologists were working in Italy. They dug down one meter and found strands of copper wire. After much research, they determined that during the time of Leonardo daVinci, the Italians already had a phone system.

Not to be outdone, another team of archeologists working in Greece dug two down two meters and found strands of glass. They concluded, after much extensive research and debate, that there was a fiber-optic communications system at the time of Aristotle.

A third team of archeologists working in Israel were digging as well, and at five meters they found neither copper wire nor glass strands. From this they concluded that, at the time of Joshua, the indigenous population had an extensive wireless network..."

Grady Booch, IASA Fellow, Handbook Notes

The Atlanta keynote "Model-Driven Business Process Platforms" [1] by David Frankel, Lead Standards Architect - Model Driven Systems, SAP Labs, has been posted at OMG.

[1] http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?omg/2005-09-01

OMG just announced the draft white paper [1] describing joint effort to develop a formal, model-driven, industry-independent, standards-based enterprise architecture development methodology; a framework for enterprise architectures; and an information sharing framework. This whitepaper provides a mapping between the TOGAF Architecture Development Method (ADM) and OMG's Model Driven Architecture (MDA). An earlier white paper [2] at provides the background and rationale to this project.

[1] http://doc.omg.org/omg/2005-08-01
[2] http://www.opengroup.org/cio/MDA-ADM

I used the time in Malaysia to speak a lot with Aaron Tan Dani (Architect Evangelist, Microsoft), Simon Seow (managing director of InfoSpec) and Lim Fun Jin (Microsoft Regional Director Malaysia, Technical Director of ISA Technologies). Those guys are co-founder of Independent Software Architects Council of Malaysia (ISAC-M) [1], a special interest group (SIG) of the Malaysian-National Computer Confederation (MNCC). They are doing such a amazing job over there. More than 200 IT architects and technical decision makers participated in the inaugural Summit. Membership in ISAC-M is strictly by invitation and the Council meets once every quarter.

I'd like to quote Aaron and spread the good news among you: "We are confident that our efforts in Malaysia will be even more effective with our official affiliation to the International Association of Software Architects (IASA)". We at IASA are happy to hear that. Welcome on board of IASA Asian Region! src="smilies/wink.gif">

[1] http://www.isac-m.org

We'd like to introduce the latest newsletter, newly title Perspectives of the IASA. This edition provides a detailed acount of the MDA and Software Factories as well as Systems Architecture. Also look for the details of the newest IASA working group which is defining the future of our profession. The newsletter is put together by an expert editorial staff made up of thought leaders and practicing architects and is authored by IASA members and speakers.

[1] Download (PDF) "Perspectives of IASA": http://www.iasarchitects.org/iasa/...
[2] Visit IASA Portal: http://www.iasarchitects.org/

Software architecture is getting a lot of attention and architecture for the Web is on the march again. Join IASA [1] at Wednesday, September 14 2005 in Palo Alto, CA, for SDForum [2] and discuss and learn best practices from web architects along with insights from industry thought leaders like Grady Booch (IBM, IASA Fellow), Pet Helland (Amazon), Adam Denning (Microsoft), Alok Bhanot (eBay) and many more...

[1] IASA
[2] SD Forum: Web Based Architectures

What do you get if you pull enterprise architectures, service-oriented architectures and semantics together? A Semantic Enterprise Architecture (SEA). Dave McComb [1] of Semantic Arts discusses semantics*, ontologies** and modeling.

[1] http://www.sqlsummit.com/Multi...  [mp3, 7:42]

Enterprise Architecture is the common "backbone" to which all parts of the enterprise are attached. Ron Jacobs [2], PM Paterns & Practices, Microsoft Corp., discusses enterprise architecture with Rob Menning at TechEd 2005 in Orlando.

[2] http://www.ronjacobs.com/podcast/...   [mp3, 25:41]

Glossary:

* Semantics could be defined as the relationships of characters or groups of characters to their meanings, independent of the manner of their interpretation and use. Contrast with syntax.
** An ontology is a specification of a conceptualization.