tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22689984981149468212024-03-02T08:50:21.234+01:00Mastering ArchitectureMy thoughts and experiences on Architecture in general. Architecture in the sense of a technique to structure and envision long term strategies.Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.comBlogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-80145229854751542062012-12-19T10:45:00.000+01:002012-12-19T10:45:19.682+01:00DiscontinuedThis Blog will be discontinued shortly.Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-72512476217594510912012-01-16T11:18:00.000+01:002012-01-16T11:18:43.437+01:00Ace and Architect ?As of January 1st 2012 I have left the Oracle Ace Program.<br />
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I will always be proud of having been part of such an impressive group, and I will surely miss being an Ace Director! Let me try to explain this apparent contradiction.<br />
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First of all, I have never been a very technically oriented guy. Nevertheless, I was very lucky to be involved in doing the first BPEL implementation in The Netherlands, back in 2005. That opened up a lot of doors (mainly because we had a lot of issues to fix and needed a lot of support :P). Having a succesful implementation and a drive to spread the vision of service orientation led to an invitation to the Ace Program by Clemens Utschig, with massive support from Jürgen Kress (thank you both!). Being a part of the Ace Community has been very rewarding for me. I have met so many good people in the program, have had very interesting discussions, certainly learned a lot, but above all: got many new friends.<br />
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Over the last 2 years I have felt more and more guilty of not living up to expectations. The course of my career changed when I started my own company (MShift) in 2009, as an independent architect. Ever since that time I have been active doing Enterprise & Business Architecture. My involvement with technology declined even further. It meant I was no longer staying abreast of all the new developments around SOA Suite etc, not doing any presentations for the community, nor participating in the forums. I was participating more on OTN ArchBeat (thanks Bob!). All in all, it feels like I am no longer adding to the community.<br />
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There's another factor involved, though. I could have stayed Ace just for the fun of it, and for being able to travel to San Francisco every year to meet my fellow Ace Directors. That in itself was tempting, but ... being an independent architect becomes harder when you are affiliated in any way with a vendor. In my case, being an Oracle Ace Director often raises eyebrows on my independency and integrity. People who know me will know that has never been (and never will be) an issue. Regardless, it is more and more often that I find it to be working against me. Commercially it is better for me to become a real independent architect.<br />
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I have been thinking about this for a long time, and when we were asked to reevaluate our own position I decided to do what I felt was right: to leave the program. So there it is, in a nutshell. I have become an Ace Alumnus.<br />
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Some last words: I would like to use the opportunity to thank Oracle, the Ace Program (especially Vikki Lira and Lillian Buziak) for all their good care, friendliness, input, support, knowledge and a lot of fun. I have no doubt the Ace Program will keep on being succesful and I will try to keep in touch as much as I can.Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-31455604753167974082011-10-19T15:43:00.001+02:002011-12-10T00:27:56.874+01:00Consensus, Leadership and AgilityMany organisations in The Netherlands are culturally consensus based, which means there's often no clear leadership, management is often seen as purely facilitating and everybody more or less goes his or her own way. It's basically the way we (the Dutch) are. <br />
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Leadership is resisted. The boss says 'Let's do this my way', and there's bound to be a lively discussion about 'better' ways to do it. Everybody (boss included) accepts this as normal behaviour. <br />
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One of the hard parts of applying architecture in such a culture is to get everybody following the strategy as it is set out in the Enterprise Architecture. How are you going to do that if leadership is resisted? What happens? A lot of architectural implementations fail due to resistance from projects.<br />
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The introduction of Agile development has increased this problem. An often heard complaint is that too much upfront architecture is a form of over-specification, which is waste in agile terms. That's true, but the argument is too often used to totally ignore architecture and just focus on the user stories for this sprint. This can result in well working applications, which do not quite fit in the strategic direction of the company. Talking about waste ...<br />
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I'm not quite sure where the solution to this problem is. One way is to define architecture in such a way that there's something in it for everybody, not just for 'the business' or 'the architect'. Another way is to evangelize, to become a thought leader within the company. Not to push the architecture through, but to convince, stimulate and enthuse all participants.Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-79537981244274181972011-09-26T14:26:00.001+02:002011-09-26T14:27:51.777+02:00Normative Restriction of Design FreedomI've been working on creating an environment to document an architecture. The customer I'm working on at the moment, has a lot of documentation, but it's all spread over powerpoint presentations, word documents, enterprise architect models, archimate models, visio diagrams, excel spreadsheets and wiki pages. You can imagine it's a tough job to find all the information you need to make choices. So, I have suggested to rationalize all these documents into a Wiki, which will then be the '<i>Single Point of Truth</i>' concerning the company's architecture. <br />
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That's easier said then done. The most important question here is <b>what to document</b>. Document too much and you'll never get anything done, document not enough and people will not know what to do or how to do it. I looked at all (well, not all, but a lot) the architecture metamodels around to see which one of them would give me the structure I needed. Unfortunately, most architectural models ignore concepts like business goals, principles and construction regulations. To me that's quite strange, as I find that these are essential parts of any architecture. <br />
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About two weeks ago a <a href="http://www.naf.nl/nl/werkgroepen/architecture_principles.html">NAF workgroup</a> (Dutch Architecture Forum) presented its results. A book on <a href="http://www.springer.com/business+%26+management/business+information+systems/book/978-3-642-20278-0">Architecture Principles</a>. In a very lively presentation the authors Danny Greefhorst (ArchiXL) and Erik Proper (Tudor) presented their book, accompanied by two organizations who participated in the research. I'm not going to discuss the book here, as I'm still in the process of reading it, but it did trigger me to re-think the work I had done for documenting architectures.<br />
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One of the essential conclusions of the book (and hence the presentation) is, and I quote: <blockquote><i>The meaning of enterprise architecture is that it provides a normative restriction of design freedom toward transformation projects and programs</i></blockquote>This is a very interesting concept. The more I thought about it, the more I think it is a concept that I could use in my quest for the optimum architecture documentation metamodel. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE1nbbnM_JsdtHvBNXgURyWIXWA3W3_Tr2O5n6F_AyuYk9024Dza3NTiplymeUZvQ4TJ7xHm1m95fP5wuKDY_QI8bVdTkwapEuFU5H7UI8Sw3_VS0wqv9MUW6Q0SxY4pyqfj7IL00OGg2n/s1600/normative+restrictions.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="252" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE1nbbnM_JsdtHvBNXgURyWIXWA3W3_Tr2O5n6F_AyuYk9024Dza3NTiplymeUZvQ4TJ7xHm1m95fP5wuKDY_QI8bVdTkwapEuFU5H7UI8Sw3_VS0wqv9MUW6Q0SxY4pyqfj7IL00OGg2n/s320/normative+restrictions.jpg" /></a></div>Luckily I was able to discuss both my quest as well as the book during an <a href="http://www.it-eye.nl/category/activiteiten/">IT-eye Open Space</a>. After more than hour of (sometimes) heated discussion we came up with the model you see here on the right hand side. In that model you will find the 3 basic artifacts I think every architecture needs:<br />
1. Business Goals - what needs to be achieved in the next 5 years<br />
2. Principles - what are the (business, information, technical, etc) principles that guide any change within the organization? <br />
3. Construction regulations - what do we have to comply with when constructing artifacts (like processes, datastructures, business units, software,etc).<br />
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I have added the 'Generic Components' as well, as every organization has reusable artifacts (reuse is not limited to software!). The fun part of this model is, that you can look upon each and every relationship that's drawn in it as being of the type <i><b>'Normative Restriction of Design Freedom'</b></i>. Business Goals, usually the highest level, is (often severely) restricted by the existing environment. Change comes harder if you have to replace existing constructs. Business Goals themselves restrict Principles. It won't do to have principles that go outside the set goals. <br />
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So now I have a potential metamodel which I'm already applying at my customer. It will probably need some more finetuning, especially taking in account specific characteristics of Wiki functionality.Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-64803301171077857032011-08-22T09:08:00.000+02:002011-08-22T09:08:58.069+02:00What Happpened to the Designers ?A couple of years ago a lot of job names in The Netherlands changed. One day it seems, it was no longer acceptable to call the lady who cleans your house 'cleaner' but 'interior caretaker'. A farmhand became an 'agrarian assistant'. I really don't know why. At the time it looked like it was aimed to change the perception of less-liked jobs. Maybe to increase interest?<br />
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These days, everybody is an architect. Process Architect, Software Architect, Information Architect, Infrastructure Architect .....<br />
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I experience a devaluation here. I see lots of 'architects' designing applications (making process models, logical data models and use case models, etc), abusing the PSA (for those without IT background: Project Start Architecture) for the job. Even worse: a lot of people and organizations think that's what architecture is all about.<br />
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Depending of the level of architecture, an architect should set out the framework, the guidelines for the solution, not the lowest details of the solution itself. He (She included) should focus on the consistency of the total solution for the enterprise, making sure that no effort goes to waste, but delivers to the long term goals of the organisation.<br />
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That also means you don't need a whole army of architects. Just a few (depending on the size of your organisation), assisted by a minor army of designers, would do the job!Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-63457234564525556092011-08-17T10:05:00.000+02:002011-08-17T10:05:33.407+02:00What or Who's Driving Architecture ?All too often I'm hired by the IT Department. First thing I usually have to do then is argue my way into the 'business side' of the company that hired me. After all, Architecture should be a business issue, not to condone IT strategy. Usually IT management grudgingly agrees. <br />
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But, when architecture is initiated by IT management, your work is a lot harder. I find it is really one of the hardest part in doing architecture: business often doesn't really care, and IT cannot sell the idea of architecture. You will have to overcome the suspicion of the business. That will take some doing, as nobody is really waiting for you. Make sure you're not on a mission to sell the IT strategy to a business that is a) not interested and b) doing a whole lot of other - more interesting - stuff. <br />
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So you really need to make clear to the business that what you're trying to achieve is aimed at achieving (long term) business goals. At the same time you need to stay on good terms with IT management, as they're picking up the bill for your hours. Another kind of trade-off than we're usually used to. The hard - but fun - part lies then in finding the balance between business and IT goals. <br />
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Sometimes you're in luck. Business is so pressured into change that it will welcome anyone who can assist them in realizing that change. But don't get used to it....Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-70923792450967971332010-09-07T13:49:00.000+02:002010-09-07T13:49:25.157+02:00Why Enterprise Architecture Doesn't WorkI really think Enterprise Architecture does not work. First of all, I have never seen a working example. All Enterprise Architecture Departments I know (a lot!) are very good at generating enormous amounts of paper, but generally not so good on achieving results. The added value of the architecture function is marginal.<br />
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Let me give you one example, at a large bank in the Netherlands, where the EA team consists of about 40 (sic!) architects. Just a few months ago they presented the latest version of the Enterprise Architecture to the management that's supposed to be responsible for implementing it. The presentation consisted of over 100 slides, the architecture documents ranged up to 400 pages. Guess what? The majority of the management dropped the handouts (classified material) in the paper bins when they got back at the office. Back to business.<br />
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There are several reasons why I think EA does not work:<br />
<ul><li>architecture is a means to an end. Architecture provides steering and control information, but is not in control!</li>
<li>enterprise architecture generally takes up too much time. Companies are in need of fast turnarounds, quick solutions. No time to spend 9 to 12 months creating a baseline architecture.</li>
<li>trying to fit an entire organization (depending on size ofc) within one single framework is often too much asked. It is possible to define one for smaller companies (say up to 1000 employees), but are we still talking about enterprise architecture then?</li>
<li>enterprise wide scope of activities are usually doomed to fail, due to scope, size and consequences, but often due to distance between daily operations and the project itself</li>
<li>EA often becomes a goal, instead of a means, especially when the teams get over 3 architects</li>
</ul><br />
I really think we - as architects - should be a bit more humble. We are a supporting function for the business, helping them decide what course to take and how to implement that course. Giving guidance on what works best, in practice, not on paper. Aiming for solutions that we can implement this year, not within the next five years. <br />
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I prefer to use what I call JITJEA: Just In Time, Just Enough Architecture. Yea, very original, I know. Call it Agile Architecture, where you spend very little time on the big picture, and only work out the parts you are going to need in the next couple of months. Combine this with the notion of emerging architectures, where you - as the lead architect - function as a catalyst to let the architecture emerge, and you have a recipe for an active, innovative, involved and loyal community, organization-wide! They will carry the torch where you can't or shouldn't. The architecture that emerges will be supported by many more people then you ever could've hired to staff your enterprise architecture group.Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-11925849329373861512010-05-04T08:36:00.001+02:002010-05-04T08:37:17.167+02:00Governance Causes SOA Projects to Fail?I got spammed with a mail about a Methodology for SOA that contained a very intriguing thought:<br />
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<blockquote>.. it is not poor governance that causes SOA failures but rather governance itself is a single point of failure and a pessimistic organizational structure that causes SOA to fail.</blockquote><br />
It reminded me about a presentation I attended at the LAC 2009 conference, by Frank Schalkwijk (Atos Origin), on Emerging Architectures. He argues that it's better to <b>'engage'</b> our specialists than to <b>'govern'</b> them. That way an architecture can 'emerge' with a lot more support in your organization. Hmmm.Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-36878247381923682102010-05-04T08:23:00.001+02:002010-07-01T10:14:31.840+02:00Architecture and AgilityLast night I had an inspiring dinner with one of my old colleagues, <a href="http://rdoelen.blogspot.com/">Ronald Doelen</a>. We both see more and more companies changing their project methodology from waterfall to agile. We're both very enthusiastic about that, even though there are some hurdles to take, like architecture for example.<br />
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All and good to go Agile, but if you're stuck in an analysis-paralysis situation with your architecture, you will not reap the benefits that Agile brings. You might get away with ignoring the architecting issue - at least for the short term - but it will catch up with you in due course.<br />
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So, the answer: Agile Architecture. That got a nice ring to it, but what and how? It all depends on how you look upon architecture and the role of the architect in the company. At the end of our meal - not quite as good as our discussion, tbh - we came up with a number of statements that we'll take with us to work on in the near future. Let me share a few of our thoughts:<br />
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The role of the architect in your organization is often determined by the culture of your organization. The architectural style (ivory tower, magician, counsellor, <a href="http://martinfowler.com/ieeeSoftware/whoNeedsArchitect.pdf">architectus reloadus</a>) determines how you need to adapt your agile projects to align with architecture. The more agile the architect, the less impact.<br />
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Architecture is nothing more (or less) than a (limited!) set of choices and the accompanying motivations. Often architects worry about making the best choice. In case you didn't know it yet: there IS NO BEST CHOICE! There's just choices, all with consequences. Use risk-analysis to determine short and long term implications of your choices and base your trade-offs on them. But limit the choices to those you really need NOW.<br />
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I'll spend some more time thinking about Agile architecture and especially how to align Enterprise Architecture with Agile projects. I still see some challenges, but will take about those later.Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-16118456890661946682010-03-22T15:06:00.000+01:002010-03-22T15:06:24.700+01:00Here Goes the SunA lot of people have been wondering lately what will happen to the different products from Sun. Will they be incorporated into the Oracle stack, or phazed out altogether. It is one of the questions I have had myself. According to the webcasts on the Sun acquisition it seemed that:<br />
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<li> GlassFish will continue as the Java EE reference implementation</li><br />
<li> GlassFish Server included in every Oracle WebLogic Server offering</li><br />
<li> Sun Java System Web Server will be part of the new Oracle Web Tier offering.</li><br />
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As the Glassfish ESB becomes more and more popular, one of my current customers was very interested in using the Glassfish ESB. Looking over the <a href="http://www.sun.com/software/javaenterprisesystem/javacaps/glassfish_esb.jsp">Glassfish website</a> we got the impression of a fully supported product.<br />
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Nothing surprised us more however, when we asked Oracle for a solution package of Glassfish ESB. We received .......... an offer to use Oracle SOA Suite. Further inquiries to Sun learned us that "<b>we're not allowed to offer Glassfish ESB solutions anymore</b>". <br />
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So it seems that the choices have become clear, at least within Oracle.Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-70652065077707676822010-02-15T14:27:00.002+01:002010-07-01T10:15:31.798+02:00Managing Data and System Integrity in an SOA environment. Are You Prepared?One thing that worries me a bit, is that you hardly find any discussion on data and system integrity in an SOA environment. At least, I don't see many. To me, data and system integrity is the most challenging issue we face today and the days to come. We will see more and more combinations of Services, SaaS, legacy apps, which will make a 'standard solution' to this problem even more relevant.<br />
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Lots of vendors I talk to tend to minimize the problems of integrity and robustness. They point at their infrastructure and say: well, our infrastructure is WS-Transaction compliant, you will not lose any messages. OK, that may be true, but will it fix failures? You can guess the next comment: with our high availability strategem, we can ensure a 99,99% availability, so you need not to worry.<br />
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Despite their reassurances, I still tend to worry: 99,99% availability is not 100%. Things can still (and will!) go wrong. <br />
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Let me try to explain the issue as I see it. A very simplistic example:<br />
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Service A calls Service B to execute a process. During execution of Service B it calls upon Service C to handle financial details.<br />
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Suppose Service B needs to be restored to a certain point in time because of an internal failure (does it really matter what caused the need for in-time recovery? I think it does ...). What does this mean for Service A, B and C? What kind of functionality do we need to have in place to make sure the entire system will not lose its integrity? How do I make sure that Service B 'catches up' with Service A and C? One might argue that due to the statelessness of a service, this shouldn't be a problem, but it is (besides the fact that there's loads of statefull services out there).<br />
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This used to be no problem in our legacy application environment. You just rolled-back the whole system and started all over again. However, our boundaries have become much smaller and larger at the same time. It is still a valid approach within a service boundary, but not in an SOA environment (which has no clear boundaries to begin with). Especially as you use services that might not be under your control (SaaS vendors, chainpartners, etc). <br />
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My worries come from the fact that most companies I visit, do not have a strategy to maintain this integrity. Mostly, they do not even acknowledge this problem, until they are confronted with it in real life. Suddenly it's become a major problem, because it is very hard to determine what to do, but there's a lot of pressure to fix it right this very minute!<br />
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What we need to keep in mind here, is that it is not just a technological problem. It is functional as well. How does the business wants to respond to failing (internal or external) components? <br />
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Luckily, having a good middleware infrastructure mitigates the problem somewhat, so it is possible to reduce the problem a lot, but especially in high-volume environments you really need to have a well thought and tried-out strategy in place. There's no falling back to manually fix things when you're processing thousands of transactions a minute.Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-7419851228354616572009-11-18T10:16:00.001+01:002010-07-01T10:16:05.315+02:00SOA MagazineI'm very proud to announce my first <a href="http://soamag.com/I33/1009-1.asp">publication in SOA Magazine</a>, on preventing failures in an SOA environment by implementing good governance. <br />
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It's not quite a standard article. I wrote it together with <a href="http://blogs.oracle.com/governance/">Dave Berry</a> but it really originated from a discussion we had on his/this blog and in real life as well. We ended up doing a fictitious interview with an architect. The architects' answers reflect our real-world experiences rather closely.<br />
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Enjoy, and let me know what you think of the article!Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-36421417239645148292009-10-26T15:08:00.002+01:002009-10-26T19:57:07.513+01:00SOA Manifesto revisitedThe publication of the <a href="http://soa-manifesto.org">SOA Manifesto</a> generates a lot of discussion. As my fellow ACE Director Hajo Normann states on his <a href="http://hajonormann.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/the-soa-manifesto-business-and-architecture-first/">blog:</a><br />
<blockquote><i>I wish for the SOA Manifesto to serve as a guiding foundation for many proposals and solutions in SOA space – similarly as the Agile Manifesto served beautifully well for many to start thinking Agile.</i><br />
</blockquote>I really hope that will become true. There's been so much discussion about SOA lately, and I still feel that there's still no consensus on what it really means. The SOA manifesto is but a first step in aligning SOA practitioners around the world. I think Thomas Erl and Anne Thomas Manes put it quite clearly during their 'exorcism of the evil SOA': it's the vendors' fault.<br />
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Initially, SOA has been hyped by just about all the vendors, in a way to push their middleware technology. Truth is: a lot of middleware technology is based on service orientation, but that does not mean it will give you SOA. SOA is a mindset, a paradigm you can use when building or integrating applications.<br />
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The manifesto itself is nice and compact, but will need additional refinement and explanation to make it really worthwile. I hope the working group for the SOA manifesto will be seen by many as experienced SOA practitionists if not SOA thought-leaders. That will broaden its acceptance.<br />
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If nothing else, it will facilitate the discussion around SOA. Hopefully we can bring it to an end soon. Thanks to the SOA Manifesto ....Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-24907634643460049102009-10-26T13:46:00.002+01:002009-10-26T13:59:38.742+01:00The Future of IT<span style="font-size: small;">This month I've visited both Oracle Open World as well as the SOA Symposium. The one hot item that links both conferences is ....... Cloud Computing. That seems to be the newest fad at the moment.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">I had several discussions with advocates and opponents to this idea.I've been thinking about Cloud computing a lot. So here's what I think about it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">I'm an advocate of SOA, as you all know. According to Gartner, we're climbing away from the 'Trough of Disillusionment', meaning SOA is rapidly becoming more mature and mainstream. I agree. Already we see SOA being used with EDA and CEP, which is a good thing too. A logical next step would be Cloud Computing. I see Cloud Computing as the logical next step for 'location transparancy'. It's a combination of location transparancy and SaaS, I guess. There will come a time when a consumer of a service doesn't care where the service is hosted. He will care about <b>who</b> will host it. Companies will look for best-of-breed service producers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">It reminded me a bit of my own history. When I started out as a COBOL programmer in 1984, my first task was to maintain an existing financial system that was built within the company. That's (almost) unheard of these days. NOBODY builds his own financial systems anymore. There are very good, complete and transparant financial systems (and even services) available in the market. Everybody wins, in my opinion. The customer gets real value for less money, the provider earns more money by selling his services to more consumers. The catch: it needs to be very, very, very secure. A service provider needs to make sure that the data and the service is protected, without lowering the service level. One outtage, or one leak can mean the end of the provider.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">A lot of companies will hold back. People want to 'see' where their money goes to. Having servers physically present, having a box with software makes them feel they got something for their money. Running software on a cloud doesn't give the same feeling. However, this will change. Companies will have to change. What if your competitor does his manufacturing using a cloud-based infrastructure for less than 30% of the costs, and you don't? You'll be out of business soon.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">So yes, I think it's going to happen. It will take a long time, but it will definitely happen. Of course we will see different types of clouds (public vs corporate), but I think this is good news for smaller companies that can't hardly afford IT personnel, let alone a server park. But it's also good news for the best-of-breed service providers, with the additional effect that services will have to become better and better at the same time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">But, getting to the point of this blogpost, what does this mean for the 'average IT-guy'? I'm foreseeing a shift in our line of business. IT personnel within a company will focus on orchestrating and integrating services from different vendors, and maybe - just maybe - maintain one or two left-over applications that are very specific for the enterprise. Custom made software will become outdated. Consultancy firms will specialize in either business/process consultancy and/or data integration (including warehouses) because that's all that will be left. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Only the larger service providers will have lots of IT staff, as it's their core business. What will be your place in that future?<br />
</span>Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-11796139486947856502009-10-24T20:59:00.001+02:002010-07-01T10:16:26.487+02:00SOA Manifesto presentedYesterday at the closing of the SOA Symposium in Rotterdam, the <a href="http://soa-manifesto.org">SOA Manifesto</a>was presented to the audience. The working groups have worked very hard to finish the Manifesto to be presented here. A - not complete picture (some people had to leave early) - of the working group:<br />
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<img src="http://www.vanalst.eu/soamanifesto.jpg" border="0" alt="" /><br />
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The whole manifest can be found on the <a href="http://soa-manifesto.org">SOA Manifesto</a>website.Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-52506759174075422422009-10-14T22:30:00.003+02:002009-10-14T22:53:47.680+02:00Open World Update #2 - What's New?We're into the third day of Oracle Open World. Time to have a look at a few of the changes in the product portfolio. As Thomas Kurian already said: over 2000 product changes. So I'm not going to cover all, but point out some that in my opinion will have an impact.<br /><br />Some of you will already have looked at Oracle SOA Suite 11gR1 and will be interested to know that 11gR1 PS1 (Patch Set 1) will be out shortly. In this patchset there will be a number of changes. One important thing to note is that PS1 is a new install, not a real patch. The patchsets coming after this one will be patches in the real sense of the world. This one just has too many consequences. One of the limitations that we have seen in 11g is the lack of domains. BPEL domains were a nice feature to be able to discern different deployemnts. For example you could have a domain per department or per tuning requirement, or even for OTAP purposes. With the introduction of SCA we have the SOA domain, but .... you can have only one: default. This is not going to be fixed in PS1 or even PS2, however PS2 will show the introduction of Composite folders where you can at least group different composites. Oracle Product Management is aware of the use cases of this feature and is currently looking into the possible revival of the domain. However, the repercussions of this feature are massive, if you stop to think about it. For now, we'll wait and see.<br /><br />So what does PS1 bring? For one: it will be possible to have a BPEL process participate in a pub/sub EDN event. I'm sure you can see the advantage of that. It's the 'marriage' of SOA and EDN starting to get shape. Another nice BPEL feature is Monitor Express, where you're have BAM dashboards out of the box for a specific process or process step. <br /><br />Another feature that has come back is the web-based rule designer and DVM (Domain Value Map) editor. With the MDS available for all configuration items this is just one of the first steps in opening up the MDS for runtime editing. I can't wait for the rest to come!<br /><br />PS1 also includes some preview functionality that is to come in PS2. I really like the Spring component which enables you to include sping context into an SCA composite. The best part: it works two ways, inbound and outbound. <br /><br />On to BPM. At this time, BPM is 'lagging behind'. Product management ensures us that after the 11g release of BPM early next year, BPM will adjust its schedule to conform with all the other 11g components. That's good news. What will 11g BPM bring us? Well, we will finally have a Unified Process Engine that's capable of running BPEL, BPMN, Human workflow and business rules. As BPM is a separate layer on top of the SOA Suite infrastructure, it will NOT impact any BPEL instances, even though the UPE is unified. With the introduction of BPM 11g, BPEL can leverage BPM as well.<br /><br />In my opinion - and I guess it's Oracle's opinion as well - BPM is going to stand much clsoer to the business user. So I expect BPEL to become more integration focused whereas BPM will be more process/workflow focussed. <br /><br />So far I've only scratched the surface of all the changes that I've noticed or told about. Before I end however, there's two last things I'd like to present to you. The first one is BPEL Roundtrip. To be honest, this was never one of my favourites. In the new setup it will be possible to roundtrip from BPA to either BPEL or BPMN, which opens up new opportunities. <br /><br />Always good to go out with a bang, so I've saved the best for last. With the introduction of BPM 11g comes the Process Composer. This is an web-based tool aimed at the business users, where they are able to modify any process before it's deployed. Based on available rules, services and process activities, they can modify the process to their needs. This will make imtroduction of new products (based on a default process) an undertaking that can be handled purely by the business, without the need for IT. <br /><br />The Process Composer initially will have limited functionality (only to be used BEFORE deployment) but will get additional features like runtime editing etc soon thereafter. Way to go guys!Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-71763162682324686432009-10-12T19:37:00.004+02:002009-10-12T19:44:57.324+02:00Open World Update #1 - Boys and their ToysOracle Open World 2009 was opened last night by a presentation from Scott McNealey, the - still - current CEO of SUN. As always, Scott has a free style of presenting, laced with a lot of humour. I got a sad feeling from him, as these are his last days as SUN CEO. One time he mentioned: this will probably the last time for a while that I'm able to present for such a large crowd. However, there was also a lot of pride in what was achieved during his 26 years at Sun. <br /><br />As was to be expected, Larry Ellison entered the stage as well, to fend off the IBM attack. Boy, is it going to be a clash of titans. Oracle has really blown away IBM's world record TPC-C benchmark. And how! The new Sun Exadata Database machine, coupled with the new T5100 Flashfire is not only 20% faster, but - more impressively - has 16x better response times, while using a fraction of the energy (Green is HOT!): 300 watts versus 40.000 watts!<br /><br />But really, it felt like the boys were loose, running in the yard playing with their toys. It sets a tone of what to expect in the next few months. IBM played it hard and got clobbered in the first round. Not the end of the war though!Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-83991844145666033172009-09-22T12:10:00.004+02:002010-07-01T10:16:45.173+02:00Architecture: Burden or Blessing?I'm a big fan of architecture. I really think it makes a big difference whether or not you have an architecture in place to build upon. However, I get into discussions with program- and projectmanagers, who think that architecture is nothing more than a burden for the project. Often I try to explain to them what the benefit is from architecture, even teaching them that architecture and programmanagement have the same goals: realizing business goals (by implementing software). <br />
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What does seem to help, is to approach it from a different perspective: what if .... you do not use architecture to guide your development? Lessons learned from the past show us that this will lead to:<br />
* applications with loads of peer-to-peer connections (building a convoluted network of interapplication dependencies)<br />
* unpredictability of IT projects due to the coupled nature of the application landscape. One never knows which application will fall over when a change is applied.<br />
* costly projects due to the unpredictability. Project risks increase, costly measures (extreme testing) have to be implemented. Changes will take longer and longer at higher cost.<br />
* diverse landscape of different applications, tools, languages, hardware etc. <br />
* increased IT costs due to maintaining this diverse landscape and keeping knowledge up-to-date.<br />
* overlapping functionality, multiple implementations of the same business functionality (like customer registration etc)<br />
* loss of insight into the entire IT landscape.<br />
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Need I go on? I daresay that architecture can tackle all these issues and deliver a clean and feasible solution. However, it does mean for (some) architects that they will have to come down from their ivory tower and participate in building the new application landscape. They have to be the missionaries to spread the word ....Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-56805978894739285152009-08-11T11:00:00.004+02:002009-08-11T11:15:06.073+02:00To 11g or not to 11gI know, it's cheap to paraphrase a well-known writer. However, it doesn't make the question less valid. Usually the migration to a new major release of a software product is quite an undertaking. This is certainly true for Oracle SOA Suite 11g. That said, there are more than enough reasons to go for 11g, as it delivers a whole lot of new functionality that you might need. That new functionality is not the subject of this post, but you can find any information you need on <a href="http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/middleware/htdocs/111110_fmw.html">OTN</a>.<br /><br />What I expect to see happening however, is a limited amount of back-porting of 11g functionality into the current release (going for 10.1.3.4 or even 10.1.3.5). So, depending on your needs it is imperative to have a good look at your current and future situation, to determine what will be the right strategy for you to take. Don't hesitate to contact me if you have specific questions about the way forward to 11g.Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-41353232683328447772009-08-11T10:53:00.009+02:002010-07-01T10:17:37.021+02:00Podcast on SOA GovernanceA while ago I was at Oracle HQ talking to Dave Berry, product team manager of Oracle Fusion Middleware, about governance. We started out a discussion on our blogs and we felt it would be a nice idea to convert our discussion into an article. <br />
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Somehow Bob Rhubart, manager of the Architect Community within Oracle, got wind of our discussion and invited us to give our take on Governance in general. The result is two podcasts on Governance:<br />
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* <a href="http://streaming.oracle.com/ebn/podcasts/A2A/media/8055404_berry_vanalst_072209.mp3">OTN Arch2Arch Podcast: SOA Governance: It's Cultural</a><br />
* <a href="http://streaming.oracle.com/ebn/podcasts/A2A/media/8040445_berry_vanalst_071509.mp3">OTN Arch2Arch Podcast: SOA Governance Perspectives</a>.<br />
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Let me know what you think of it!Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-82542998796529500452009-07-14T09:33:00.003+02:002009-07-14T09:35:23.264+02:00HolidaysThis is my last day before I take a well-deserved 3-week holiday. Meaning I won't be posting any thoughts or comments in the next 3-4 weeks. Probably won't have much access to the Internet and besides, who cares about my holiday pics anyway?<br /><br />So, see you all in August!Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-4182003523874238242009-07-02T11:59:00.004+02:002009-07-02T12:01:36.069+02:00Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g launched. Did you miss it ?Yesterday Oracle launched the long-awaited 11g release of Fusion Middleware. Perhaps you missed it? Well, nothing lost! You can go to <a href="http://event.on24.com/event/15/02/99/rt/index.html?eventid=150299&sessionid=1&partnerref=13&key=409AAB2E4D0C341FD02DC012B04173EB&eventuserid=26261016">OTN</a> and see a replay of the launch. You'll also find all the downloads and additional information that will help you get started!<br /><br />Go for it! It's definitely worthwhile!Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-78778071582068342722009-06-30T14:34:00.002+02:002009-06-30T14:44:58.377+02:00Process Engines vs State EnginesProcess Engines, usually BPEL engines or Workflow engines, execute proces-steps based on a predefined process. This is a sound practice, however not for long-running processes. <br /><br />Long-running processes have the nasty habit to change over time. This will affect all active and running processes. Why? Because the process engines usually store the process state and corresponding data in a persistence store. The effect of a change in the process requires you to migrate all those saved instances, unless you are able to leave them running the old version of the process.<br /><br />A different approach is a State engine, where the next step in the process is not determined by the predefined steps in the process, but on the current state of the subject and the event that has been received. This leads to more decoupling between process and services. However, so far I haven't seen any Process engine that works like this. <br /><br />In theory there's not much difference between the two approaches. You could state that a process engine uses implicit states as defined in the process, whereas a state engine uses explicit states. The end result could/should be exactly the same. A state engine would give some more flexibility, but also needs more functionality to be able to have an overview and control of the process. <br /><br />Anyone knows of any tool that works like a state engine? I'd really like to know.Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-17990623478036278332009-06-22T23:20:00.003+02:002010-07-01T10:18:51.219+02:00ODTUG Update: SOA SymposiumYesterday at 8 pm we started the SOA Symposium at ODTUG (yes, Sunday and Father's Day to boot). ODTUG is well known for its technological content, but as SOA becomes more and more mainstream, SOA will become a integral part of ODTUG.<br /><br />The symposium was organized by three Dutch Oracle Ace Directors: <a href="http://www.approach-alliance.nl/index.php?option=com_jd-wp">Lonneke Dikmans</a>, <a href="http://technology.amis.nl/blog/">Lucas Jellema</a> and myself. The setup we choose was a little different then one would expect from a symposium. From the start, we aimed to get a very interactive symposium where the goal is to meet other SOA adepts and to exchange experiences. We managed to achieve this by doing just 3 presentations (to create a mindset) followed by two workshops and a panel discussion. <br /><br />The day was divided in two parts. In the morning we approached SOA from a business point of view, in the afternoon we discussed technology. The average knowledge level and experience of the participants was rather high, which made discussions very very interesting. It was good to see that there were a lot of Oracle Ace Directors present. <br /><br />We've made several very interesting conclusions which will be put on the <a href="http://wiki.oracle.com/page/SOA+and+BPM+approaches">Oracle Wiki</a>.Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268998498114946821.post-50172396496690609462009-06-20T01:13:00.004+02:002009-06-20T01:22:20.354+02:00ACE Briefing @ Oracle HQ<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtbuHIXBPLMvXKXO_XCqWFtOk_AZiUgr9dplfdBMDouzBSSl0WVgP04A-vaL9lfzFIPZsWY3Ln8P-C5R3i7a0ka7-37m_jPARBCkglfq6ZINlLwGcLN3Vvh5-gD_pXS4_slrTKixHJ_R0k/s1600-h/oracle-hq.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349182262304596530" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtbuHIXBPLMvXKXO_XCqWFtOk_AZiUgr9dplfdBMDouzBSSl0WVgP04A-vaL9lfzFIPZsWY3Ln8P-C5R3i7a0ka7-37m_jPARBCkglfq6ZINlLwGcLN3Vvh5-gD_pXS4_slrTKixHJ_R0k/s200/oracle-hq.png" border="0" /></a><br />Today we have a briefing of all ACE and ACEDs (Ace Directors). Unfortunately we are not yet allowed to disclose anything that's been said.<br /><br />Interesting? ABSOLUTELY. It will not surprise anyone that we've seen and heard an awful lot about the soon to be released 11g versions. All I can see for now is to stay tuned!<br /><br />If you are a serious Oracle professional, the upcoming launch of 11g is something you should be part of. Don't miss out and <a href="http://www.oracle.com/go/?&Src=6749911&Act=209&pcode=WWMK08127201MPP210">register here</a>. I think you will be as impressed as all the Ace's and Ace Directors present today.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOuDV8TRrkVQ71BHcwlEoUTWYPY8XD9aoippSsDcVrv48aUKb3QKyfnrgKHA5xTDX02ANUtFbRmq7YNBQSnjEHbt0rSp55WHFCwjRYOL0ioAqI4IanMxvqAOlYATlc9eqWaGu0PHH3rQ9p/s1600-h/group.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349181981027413186" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOuDV8TRrkVQ71BHcwlEoUTWYPY8XD9aoippSsDcVrv48aUKb3QKyfnrgKHA5xTDX02ANUtFbRmq7YNBQSnjEHbt0rSp55WHFCwjRYOL0ioAqI4IanMxvqAOlYATlc9eqWaGu0PHH3rQ9p/s200/group.png" border="0" /></a><br /><br />For those who are attending ODTUG as well, be sure to visit the keynote by Steve Miranda. It's rumoured that we'll see some interesting demo's there around Oracle Fusion Apps.Mike van Alsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16510991050510359389noreply@blogger.com0