Web and Enterprise 2.0

Yesterday LEAP 2008 Master classes in Holland ended. Next stop will be Redmond in January 2008. I liked this last master class around the knowledge worker, new way of work and collaboration. I heard some new terminology like enterprise 2.0. So I wondered what that is. So I used a web 2.0 technology like wiki, in this case Wikipedia to look it up. So I found this:

Enterprise 2.0 is a new enterprising environment which can be differentiated from traditional Enterprise (say, enterprise 1.0). The new enterprising environment use social software in "enterprise" (business) contexts. It includes social and networked modifications to company intranets and other classic software platforms used by large companies to organize their communication. In contrast to traditional enterprise software, which imposes structure prior to use, this generation of software tends to encourage use prior to providing structure.

Aha social software to let people like you and me interact and share data with each other and others. Examples are YouTube and MySpace; both I know but do not use. I found this info also in Wikipedia, but I don’t think this kind of software will be used inside the enterprise. I had to think more in context with the enterprise and social software in this case would be software like LinkedIn and Plaxo, both I do use. Instead of having a large of collection of business cards I now have a large virtual one where I have contact detail, profiles, etcetera of people I know (business partners, colleagues and friends).

Next question that comes to mind is how does this enterprise 2.0 related to web 2.0 other than technology like wiki’s, web services, blogging, torrents, syndication and tagging. I found a article on the web by Tim O’Reilly (guy actually brought this term up in 2004), which explains Web 2.0. So knowing what web 2.0 and enterprise 2.0 is could give me understanding how they relate.

Enterprise 2.0 is a term for technologies and business practices that liberate the workforce from constraints of legacy communication and productivity tools like email. Enterprise 2.0 makes accessible the collective intelligence of many, translating to a huge competitive advantage in the form of increased innovation, productivity and agility. And Web 2.0 just fits in nicely.


















It is not just technology as you can notice. Other aspects in enterprise 2.0 are for instance around how enterprise is organized and how work relations are (boss/employer).

I think having not yet enough knowledge or in depth understanding of enterprise 2.0 and web 2.0 that:

Web 2.0 is the technology part of enterprise 2.0

That said web 2.0 does also appear in SOA as a rich consumer. Rich Internet based SOA front-ends offer a better user experience (also a topic in one of the LEAP master classes) than static HTML pages (Web 1.0).

For me yesterday’s master class was a eye opener and now I have a more clearer pictures of web 2.0 in enterprise today and tomorrow. Also I see an important role for web 2.0 as consumer of services in a SOA, which I also concluded after reading the book The New Language of Business: SOA and Web 2.0 by Sandy Carter.

Technorati: SOAEnterprise 2.0Web 2.0LEAP 2008

SOA with BizTalk

Well as you all will know is that basic components in a SOA are services that provide a service. Other components in my humble view are orchestration (composition of services) and a communication infrastructure to provide in messaging between services. Optional components like Business Activity Monitoring, Business Intelligence, Business Rule Evaluators or Security and so can provide in more desirable or needed functionality given specific situations.





















Services are building blocks of a SOA and provide a specific predetermined function that adheres to open standards like WS-*, which dictates what service requirements are in case of interoperability, protocol and message format.

Orchestration is a composition of services to create a new set of functionality. This is not just a gathering of two or more services, but adding logic to for instance validate if services can be called to do work. Processes are in fact orchestrations and are not the same as service composition. Services communicate with each other through messages. So there has to be an infrastructure to provide for reliable and timely delivery of these messages.

Inside communication infrastructure routing and transformation are important identifiable components. Routing adds functionality to communication infrastructure, whereas messages can be delivered to proper service, version and/or implementation of a service. Routing can take place on content through body info of the message or by message through header info of the message. Transformation component can add functionality by means of translation of one message structure to another.

Looking at the next level from communication infrastructure is orchestration, which bears components like services of course and workflow for instance. Human workflow is interaction with end-user of a process. Workflow its self is a compilation of a set of activities.

















Looking at this general story of SOA components one can map them to the Microsoft Software stack. BizTalk provides components like communication infrastructure, where one can route and transform messages. Orchestrations can be designed and implemented inside Visual Studio, where they can be compiled to assemblies which can be hosted inside BizTalk Server. Human Workflow will be provided through .NET 3.0 Workflow Foundation and can be developed yet again in Visual Studio and hosted inside Internet Information Server (IIS), or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS). BAM, BRE are also components that can be acquired through BizTalk Server Product and Security can be setup through Windows Operating System, System Center (Monitoring, etcetera). So role of BizTalk Server in a Microsoft based SOA is huge, since it can provide a lot of components to create a SOA.

technorati: SOABizTalk 2006

Last Master class Leap : Knowledge Worker

This week the last LEAP master class in Holland, before all LEAP attendees will go to Microsoft campus in Redmond for the final master classes. Coming master class is about the knowledge worker, hot topic.

People Ready Business

From day one Microsoft has put the user, the people at the center of IT. More specifically software is supposed to support people in garner insight, make decisions, close deals, invent new products or services and find new efficiencies. It is people, not systems that do these things within companies. Information around Microsoft’s vision can be found at their site and in this whitepaper.

New World of Work

Microsoft translates upcoming trends that influence the way we conduct our work – the vision part – into software strategies that help people cope with these trends – the strategy part. In the new world of work two subjects will become apparent: Enterprise Information Management and Unified Communication.

Related subjects like collaboration, enterprise content management and Office Business Applications will be discussed as well during this master class.
Hopefully it will be as interesting as all the previous classes.

Technorati: LEAP 2008
Knowledge Worker People Ready Business New World of Work

Buzz Words

Two weeks ago the Microsoft SOA and BP Conference took place in Redmond. During this Conference a lot of buzz words and concepts were spread around. A couple of speakers from this Conference have done an interview one can find at channel 9, where they explain a couple of these words and concepts like SOA, Software as a service, Sofware + services, Enterprise Service Bus, Internet Service Bus, BizTalk Services are explained.

Technorati: SOA SaaS Software and services Internet Service Bus BizTalk Services

New Visual Studio Mangazine Site Online

I have been a subscriber for a long time now for Visual Studio Magazine, even when they were Visual Basic Programmers Journal. In March I visited VSLive in San Francisco, where I had the pleasure to meet Patrick Meader the Editor in Chief. The Magazine is all around Visual Studio .NET and related technologies. So if you have not heard of this magazine. Check it out or go to their site.

Technorati: Visual Studio Magazine VSLive

Everything you want to know about Microsoft OSLO and beyond

Today I got an email from Enterprise Architect Insight with yet another article around Microsoft’s OSLO. Since its announcement it has gotten a lot of attention and will have in the near future. So where can you find this information and buzz about OSLO. Well here is a list if you like to let you consume al this information:

Microsoft Directions PDF by Rob Helm;
Microsoft's Oslo: Putting SOA on the Map by John K. Waters;
Microsoft Oslo: now where have I heard this before? by Tim Anderson;
Microsoft Roadmap Leads to ‘OSLO’ by Stuart J.Johnston;
OSLO: Microsoft Get it but Hurry ! by Jean-Jacques Dubray;
Microsoft’s OSLO: What is the fuss all about? By Christian Weyer;
OSLO Announcement by Tim Rayburn;
Microsoft announces major SOA initiative and a whole new wave of innovation by Brian Loesgen;
Microsoft’s OSLO Vision: Windows Becomes A Platform for Heterogenous SOA by Charles babock.

Also take a look at Microsoft’s new SOA Portal, here you also will find info about OSLO. And there is probably even more opinions and views by different people around the globe about OSLO. There will be even more articles about subject now and tomorrow.

My opinion or view is this that since SOA is getting more and more attention and organizations are trying or willing to implement it, there is business in it (money). So a lot of software vendors will position or have positioned there product as a useful assets to establish a SOA by placing it as a component inside the architecture. Every software vendor in this space wants to gain a piece of this market and position there product as the best there is. Since Microsoft is a little behind with products towards SOA they have to move forward en bring technology inside their products like WCF to position the products better and gain a large chunk of the market. What does it mean for architects or professionals inside the integration and SOA space? Well learn and digest everything about new technologies (WCF, BizTalk Services, WF and .NET 3.5) and follow everything that is happening around OSLO initiative. So there is a challenge ahead for us.

Technorati: Microsoft OSLO SOA

Microsoft SOA and Business Process Conference 2007 Recap

I am home after a good week of conference in Redmond and some sightseeing. This year’s Microsoft and BP Conference was a good one with a focus on BizTalk, but more on SOA itself like Governance, Business & IT agility, Anti-Patterns and business cases. Conference kicked off with keynote session, where OSLO was announced. Since it was announced a lot of attention in blogosphere was noticeable. I attended a lot of session during the conference and here is an overview of them:

* Increasing Business & IT agility with SOA & Microsoft – Kris Horrocks (Microsoft)
* Flexible Governance Infrastructure – Frank Martinez (SOA Software)
* BizTalk Adapters for WCF: Deep Dive – Aaron Skonnard (Pluralsight)
* Best Practices for Creating Composite Activities – Matt Milner (Pluralsight)
* Service Virtualization with .NET & BizTalk Server – William Oellerman, Raul Camacho (Microsoft)
* How everyone should test their BizTalk based solutions – Darren Jefford (Microsoft)
* Connections in the Cloud: BizTalk Services & WCF – Justin Smith (Microsoft)* Robust Error Handling for BizTalk Solutions – Matt Meleski (ObjectSharp)* Building Worklow Powered Services in .NET 3.5 – Matt Winkler (Microsoft)
* Architecture of the Microsoft ESB Guidance – Marty Wasznicky (Microsoft)
* Identifying & avoiding common anti-patterns in your service oriented architecture solutions – John Callaway (Quicklearn)
* Modeling & Compositions – Steve Swartz, Clemens Vasters (Microsoft)
* Advanced Orchestration Concepts & Best Practices – Stephen W. Thomas
* Driving Successful SOA Platform Conversations with Microsoft Customer Engagement Solutions – Roman Ponte, Andrew Benson (Microsoft)(if one is a microsoft partner, SOA resources can be found through Microsoft Partner Program)
* Building Solutions with the Microsoft ESB Guidance - Marty Wasznicky (Microsoft)

As you see it is a total of 15 sessions followed and with a bulk of information to digest. So coming weeks I have a lot do to follow up on all the information like reading, experimenting and learning the ropes. By following some of the links provided one can read or download presentations and/or demos.

Technorati: Microsoft SOA and BPM Conference 2007 BizTalk Server Microsoft OSLO

Final day Microsoft SOA and BP Conference 2007

Last day here at the Microsoft SOA and BP Conference in Redmond I attended Modeling & Composition of Applications by Steve Swartz & Clemens Vasters. It was a cool session and there demo was great. It will be available later this year on their blogs (probably Clemens). They will also release a white paper about this topic. Next session BizTalk Advanced Orchestration Concepts and best practices Stephen W. Thomas. This session was almost the same as done on Tech-Ed 2007 and can be downloaded. Last session I attended was building solutions with the Microsoft ESB guidance by Marty Wasznicky. Objectives and takeaways were like why and what of an ESB, guidance capabilities, scatter-gather, exception management framework and custom handlers and policy driven invocation. A couple things were the same as session yesterday. It was a fun last day which I spend mostly with a Dutch partner in crime Wouter Crooy from Macaw.

Technorati: Microsoft SOA and BPM Conference 2007 SOA Microsoft ESB BizTalk 2006 R2

SOA Anti-Patterns

Final session of today is about identifying and avoiding common anti-patterns in your service oriented architecture solution. It is presented by John Callaway (Quicklearn).

Agenda

Anti-patterns defined
Common anti-patterns and solutions

Patterns

A pattern is something which is documented to a common problem that produces beneficial results, there everywhere and SO ones adhere to tenets of Service Orientation. The tenets are all to known by now everybody in world who knows Service Orientation (explicit, autonomous, policy, share schema and contract).

Core SO Patterns

Share reuse assets
Share representations of core entities and types
Consolidate function and data
Conform to standards
Separation of concerns between system aspects

Anti-Pattern

A pattern design that may appear to be beneficial, but ultimately is detrimental
Identify SO can be best de done by defining what are not best practices..and avoid them

Quote Michelangelo : When I look at a slab of marble I see the statue that was trapped inside.

Scenarios

A) Someone goes to conference and hears about SOA and tells his company. We already do SOA (anti-pattern defensive SOA), adopt to buzz word yadiyadayada…

Cause: miscommunication of what SOA means or governance is missing.
Solution: education, clear definition of what SOA is and mean for company, adapt to SOA governance to enforce definition.

B) Learn all about ESB, leads team to develop an ESB, layers of technology with little or reuse, proud of build ESB (Nice Shiny Nickel Anti-pattern)

Cause: implementing the latest technology,
Solution: Begin with the end in mind, identify goals in organization related to agility and implement the technologies

C) Next scenario like B but then SOA (Read Gartner, conference attendance) (Technology Alter Anti Pattern)

Cause: investment into technology to the exclusion of what matters most, since IT controls budget investment in technology du jour
Solution: split IT budget between operation and development, focus on IT support

D) IT department decide to implement IT without the business involved (People’s Republic of IT or Golf Course SOA)

Cause: best guess practices from previous projects...
Solution: Align business with IT

E) Peter thinks he builds the best software, everybody is doing his own thing and not communicate with others (Too Many Cooks in The SOA)

Cause functionally identical services are developed
Solution: implements and enforce service governance, refractor reuse stop using bottom-up approach

F) Company is doing defining a process map and then create SOA, no reuse or process are working and then finally finished it is not solve anything (Top-down SOA anti-pattern)

Cause: attempt to make existing service oriented process
Solution: create service architecture separately

G) Jack builds service nobody is using (Nobody home anti-pattern)

Cause: building services no one or almost no one needs
Solution: Align IT and business, create registry of services, monitor services being use, implement policy that remove service that are not being used

H) Do it yourself kinda thing not use standards, create your own, not using WCF ect… (DIY Transport anti-pattern)

And so the scenarios go on and on (Splitting Hair Anti-Pattern, A Million Service All In a Row Anti-Pattern, Point-to-Point SOA Anti-Pattern, Uber Service Anti-Pattern, Loosey Goosey Anti-Pattern) about how SOA’s should not be started or set up. Basically this session comes down to do not start with building a SOA just for the sake of it or go on your own or as a unit without the business involved (ALIGN BUSINESS WITH IT!!!!). Use common sense and think before acting. There are a lot of articles, books and blogs out in there that will tell you this also. Some background about SOA Anti-patterns can be found in an article by Steve Jones.

Technorati: Microsoft SOA and BPM Conference 2007 SOA SOA Anti-Patterns

Microsoft ESB

One of the last talks today at Microsoft SOA and BP Conference I attended is one from Marty Waszinicky about the architecture of the Microsoft ESB. Session objectives and takeaways are

• Why what of an ESB (SOA Terminology)
• Microsoft ESB guidance capabilities (messaging infrastructure, End point management, Operational Support, Invocation patterns)
• Governed service platform with ESB guidance and SOA Governance vendors
• Installing the ESB guidance (Demo)
• Running the samples (Demo)
• Using the ESB Management Portal
• What’s NEXT

Version one of Microsoft ESB will come soon (final version).

Technorati: Microsoft ESB BizTalk 2006 R2

Building Workflow Powered Services

This afternoon I attended the ‘Building Workflow Powered Services in .NET 3.5’ talk by Matt Winkler. He talked about WF,WCF combination, why combining them, the architecture Workflow Services, when/how to do combinations, implicit/explicit context management, and messaging patterns and application protocols implemented workflow services. There is a video on channel 9 where a demo of combining WF and WCF can be found. There is also one building WCF Services with WF

Technorati: WCF WF Workflow Services Matt Winkler

Robust Error Handling in BizTalk Server Solutions

Third day of Microsoft SOA and BP Conference stared off for me with a session about robust error handling for BizTalk Server solutions by Matt Meleski. He did a general discussion first before he started some demos around error handling relying on Message Box and BizTalk framework or failed message routing to file share or SharePoint. These first demos involved error handling in BizTalk server solutions were errors could occur in places like receive location, receive pipeline, messaging failures, maps, send pipeline, send adapter. Errors were handled by using MOM or failed message routing.

















Last demo he did were around errors occurring inside an orchestration and handled through compensation or scopes. Why should there be error handling inside a BizTalk Server solution, because it is something that cannot be ignored and should be planned up front. There are some resources out there in the world to achieve robust error handling like tools, books, sites and blogs.

Technorati: BizTalk Server 2006