Azure Thoughts, EAI Challenges

As you already probably know Visual Studio 2008 is heading our way. One of things you can do is build WCF services. This year I followed some sessions about WCF during VS Live in San Francisco. After those sessions I bought a book Windows Communication Foundation Unleashed and hoped to read it and start working and learning WCF. But no I did not come around to doing just that. Coming week before I go to Microsoft SOA and Business Process Conference I finally have time to start reading and doing some WCF coding. I have a VS2008 Beta running on Windows 2003 Server R2 fully patched available on a Microsoft VPC 2007. All software I got through my company MSDN subscription. My WCF Book Library now consists of five books including the one I just mentioned. The other four books are: O’Reilly - Bustamante – Learning WCF - 2007 O’Reilly – Lowly – Programming WCF Services -2007 Microsoft Press – Smith - Inside Windows Communication Foundation – 2007 SAMS – McMurty - Microsoft Windows Commun...

Yesterday I attended the third LEAP master class. I was a bit tired, because the evening before I went to a RUSH concert in Rotterdam. It’s very good, but loud performance by these old geezers. Ok back to LEAP stuff; this master class was all about infrastructure. Documentation material and so, you can find in my previous post . It started off with a presentation from Martin Sih, a Technology Solution Specialist from Microsoft. His talked about two things in general: How do I built Infrastructure and do I manage it. To build Infrastructure he went into topics like Infrastructure Optimization, Architectural Guidance (WSSRA), Virtualization (yes Microsoft is building its own VMWare ESX kind of product) and high availability. To manage it all he talked about Dynamic Systems Initiative, Infrastructure management (Complete new System Center software Operations Manager, Configuration Manager, Data Protection Manager, Virtual Machine Manager), Technology, People & Process (MOF, ITIL). Af...

Yesterday evening witnessed one of the best performances of Dream Theater. If I had to summarize the show in one word it would be amazing. Now back to reality, LEAP master class 3 is coming up next Thursday I there is allot of reading to be done for preparation. The first session was focused on the (de)coupling of information systems something Microsoft calls “Connected Systems”, which is in there view the practical realization and implementation of a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), see previous post . The second session was about provisioning enterprise information and services to the end user. Now the focus is on building the infrastructure needed to support all of this. This article presents a solid overview of the essence and importance of infrastructure architecture. Micosoft view of infrastructure architecture is to realize a platform that allows controllability, combined with a low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and high level of security. This is what Microsoft describes a...

Right now I am listening to the new Alter Bridge album blackbird. While listening I am reviewing a whitepaper created by our architect team (I’m one of them) at Inter Access about SOA. In a previous post I mentioned that we are busy creating a SOA Framework. In this whitepaper we start with what we think SOA is by means of a definition. This definition will be explained in the paper and SOA principles and characteristics are outlined. A principle is a working entity, which is expressed as characteristic through design and realization. This is what we see as a principle so SOA characteristics like layering, autonomous, service based authority, vendor independent, versioning, auditablility, standard compliant and legacy friendly. These are some of characteristics we think apply to SOA and come forth from principles used during design of SOA and can be noticed when SOA is realized. When reviewing each characteristic I stopped at the last one in the paper: legacy friendly. SOA is legacy...

After surviving the ‘Oktoberfest’ in Munich I yesterday attended the second master class of LEAP, see previous post . I was not really excited about this master class, since I not very keen on user interface or experience. After the master class was finished I had a different feeling, I was actually excited having gained more insight in user experience. The master class was around Enterprise Information Provisioning. What is the best way to provide information through services to its users; what is the best way users can interact with information. Well, Microsoft offers different platforms for ‘experiencing’ (presenting, consuming, acting upon) enterprise services and information. These platforms are: Windows platform Mobile platform Office platform Web platform. Nico Copier a Microsoft Technology Architect held a presentation about User Experience. He first went into the layers of SOA and where to place user experience technology like smart clients , sharepoint , silverlight and w...

In my last post I mentioned Software and Services as a new initiative this year from Microsoft. It is a vision outlined by Microsoft's Chief Architect, Ray Ozzie during his keynote at MIX07. In the coming issue of Microsoft Architect Journal issue 13 an interview is placed, which elaborates on his vision around Software and services. The world slowly transforms from software to services, but both will be there, where software in this context is within domain (on premise) and controlled as a service is outside domain (in the cloud) not controlled, but configured and with SLA's. There will be hybrid applications, both as software and service. Microsoft will shift to this with their products were it can be licensed and controlled on premise or out of the cloud enhanced as a service from a partner of as is service from Microsoft. So Microsoft will provide both Software Platform & Services Platform. Providing software in the cloud (internet) as service is similar as Software ...

This week I had my first master class with the LEAP 2008 Program (see my previous posts ). Subject was (de)coupling of enterprise systems. For preparation of this master class we had to read a couple of things, which I mentioned also in my previous post . First we had a presentation from Dik Bijl concerning LEAP introduction, goals, means and vision/mission/strategy from Microsoft for the coming years. LEAP program is around topics from ‘back to front’: Restructure back office (Master class 1) Access to information and services in the back office (Master class 2) Provide scalable and reliable infrastructure for these services (Master class 3) Secure access to information and services (Master class 4) Support people in their jobs: anywhere & collaborate (Master class 5) In short Microsoft vision is a global village and virtual enterprise, where people and information are its prime assets. Here there mission is to enable people and business throughout the world to realize their full ...

Number of SOA literature is growing and this also accounts for my own personal library of computer books. I have added yet another book called ‘SOA Principles of Service Design’ by Thomas Erl. He is according to his own site a top selling SOA author and specialized in giving training and strategic consulting services. Taken from his site is the following about his books: His first SOA book "Service-Oriented Architecture: A Field Guide to Integrating XML and Web Services" is a strategic reference guide for creating integrated environments with contemporary technologies within the context of SOA and service-orientation. Released in 2004, this was one of the very first SOA books ever written. It was formally endorsed by senior members of IBM and Microsoft and with over 25,000 copies in print, this book has become the best-selling SOA book to date. His second SOA book is entitled "Service-Oriented Architecture: Concepts, Technology, and Design" and is the first publish...

Today I have registered for Microsoft SOA and Business Process Conference being held October 29 – November 2 this year in Redmond. I am looking forward to it. There are a number of tracks again like tools (BizTalk), Solution Architecture, Infrastructure Architecture and Business value (read here ). It is intendend for customers and partners who can learn about Microsoft’s current and long-term strategy for SOA & Business Process. If you want to attend you can register here . Hope to see some of you there. Technorati: SOA & BPM Conference

This week I started working again after a nice holiday in Spain and France (see picture, where me and my colleague Joost are behind a laptop, still working!!!). I have begun on a new assignment (project) for a health insurance company. It involves evaluating BizTalk environment they set up together with solutions that were developed. Besides this I will lead a research project to see if the Microsoft ESB can be fitted in their SOA architecture that is evolving. Next to these activities I also will guide/coach information analysts, programmers on BizTalk and its possible role inside SOA. All-in-all a nice job and another opportunity to play an active architect role. During my holiday I have been thinking about how to divide BizTalk in a number of specific areas. I believe that before one will start developing solutions in BizTalk for an organization. The product should be evaluated for its use inside an enterprise and what its business value will be. If that is the case then one should...

Well almost a year of blogging. Must say it is a very joyful effort to share knowledge, opinions and so on. This will be the last post for now, because I am going on holiday for a couple of weeks to Spain and France. Will be back begin September and start posting again on this blog and a new one in Dutch. Have a nice holiday!

My company inter access is working hard on a SOA framework. I mentioned this in one of previous posts . We have found a more or less good defintion for SOA, which is (freely translated): A Service Oriented Architecture is a structural style to establish information needs of a organisation based on services Took a while for us architects to come to this one, but it takes usually a lot of time to get a definition in sync with many different views of people on in this case SOA.We are now focusing on principles and characteristics. These characteristics are in a nutshell loosely coupled services, which have explicit boundaries, are autonomous and meta-data driven. Services are standard based, which are widely adopted like HTTP, XML, SOAP and communicate between themselves and consumers through contracts on basis of schema’s. From characteristics we want to formulate principles of SOA and focus next on identifying functionalities/concepts like for instance Business Activity Monitoring (BAM)...