Tools of the Trade – What I use for my Development Work
Someone e-mailed me off-line and pointed out that I post UML diagrams on my blog fairly regularly. He wanted to know what tool I use for this. In the process, his e-mail reminded me that I had written a post back in March of 2009, where I said that an upcoming post would talk about this. Promises, promises!
Actually, now is a really good time to have this conversation because with the work I am doing on the Exchange Web Service code, I have just finished revamping my internal infrastructure to support the equipment and software I need to do the job. So this is going to be a two-part article. In this part, I’ll tell you about the software development components that I use. In the next part, I’ll tell you about the infrastructure components. The problem is that you need to understand some of the details of why, so I’m going to start with a little background.
Data Architecture – Getting Back to Basics
In a recent study by Forrester Research, they found that 74% of over 400 companies surveyed view data strategy as critical or very important, but only 17% of them had a mature data strategy in place.
When you consider that most enterprises are outsourcing a substantial part of their core business systems, it is frightening that they do not have a strategy in place. The result is that each of their vendors defines their own view of the data and the enterprise loses control of what happens with their application infrastructure.
In this article we will briefly look at what Data Strategy is, and then focus on how data architectural integrity can be maintained in the Enterprise Architecture process.
What is Enterprise Architecture?
A question that I am often asked by colleagues and friends alike is “What is an Enterprise Architect, anyway?” This article is the first in a series of articles that will explain the term “Enterprise Architecture,” why it is important, and how each of the disciplines that constitute Enterprise Architecture relate to each other. Most importantly, this article is going to talk about how Enterprise Architecture needs to govern the processes around software development.
No, Ms Manes, SOA is NOT dead
This morning my RSS feeds had an update from Ms Manes’ blog again. She points to an article by Dan Woods of Forbes.com and says of his article that she is “pleased to see that Dan read beyond the first paragraph, and he understands the core message of my post (i.e., ‘SOA has been disappointing and that services should be a key focus’)” …
I wonder if Ms Manes realizes that she advocated exactly the same thing that Mr Woods advocated and then went on to slam the idea? In her original post she argued that the focus should shift from SOA to building services, and yet here she is arguing that just building services will result in fragile, expensive systems. Ms Manes is just flat-out contradicting herself.
SOA… Dead???… Really???…
“SOA is Dead; Long Live Services,” proclaimed Amy Thomas Manes on January 5th, 2009.
When I read Ms Manes’ post, I felt like the person standing on the sidewalk in a movie. The camera is focused on me and someone (SOA) steps out into the street. From the side of the screen, off-camera, a bus comes careening past and the person that stepped into the street is hit and taken completely out of camera and I’m left standing with my jaw on my knees.
Research and Innovation and Enterprise Architecture
The thing that sets one business apart from another is the special added value that it brings to the table. It does something different. It has come up with an idea that no one else does quite the same way, or so the business believes. Even when someone else is doing exactly the same thing, the thing that differentiates the two is the way that they do it. This is the “special sauce” that makes a business special.
But how do companies go about finding that “special sauce?” And more importantly, what can they do to maintain it?
While I don’t believe for a second that all the special sauce in the world comes from technology, technology can often be at the very heart of making that special sauce, especially when we are talking about building customer relationships.
Technology can be a huge support in this area, and that’s where research and innovation come in. Using technology to build better business relationships is where the focus of technical growth is, and learning how to apply technology to do so is where research and innovation come in. [...]
Tags: Enterprise Architecture, EWS, Exchange EWS, Innovation, Research