JOURNAL 3
Harry Pierson
Architect, D&PE Architecture Strategy, Microsoft
Arvindra Sehmi
Architect, Developer and Platform Evangelism Group, Microsoft
July 2004
Foreword
Dear Architect,
While it is often difficult to reach agreement, one thing I think all architects can agree on is that our jobs are getting harder, not easier. We're facing an ever-increasing level of complexity with an ever-shrinking level of resources. Whether its new challenges, such as increased regulatory compliance, or old-fashion challenges, like feature creep and slashed budgets, the architect's job continues to become more difficult as well as more important every day.
Abstraction is the architect's key tool for dealing with complexity. We've seen the evolution of architectural abstractions techniques such as models and patterns; however, we have yet to realize much in the way of measurable value from them. Models and patterns are useful for communicating effectively with our peers, but so far they haven't helped drastically reduce the amount of resources it takes to build and operate a system. In order to continue to deal with increasing complexity, we need to get much more pragmatic about using abstraction to solve problems.
In this, the third issue of JOURNAL, we focus on raising the abstraction level. This focus ranges from general techniques for abstraction to the introduction of an industrialized manufacturing approach for software development. Along the way, we cover the use of patterns to describe business functions as well as identity and data management.
Regardless of our disagreements, the looming crisis of complexity threatens to severely impede the progress of software construction and the businesses that rely on that software. Going forward, JOURNAL will continue to deliver information from all aspects of the software architecture industry and to provide the guidance architects need.
Harry Pierson
Architect, D&PE Architecture Strategy,
Microsoft Corporation
Editorial
Dear Architect,
Welcome to the summer issue of JOURNAL. These last few months have been really exciting for architecture as a topic at Microsoft. The Microsoft Architecture Center has become established as a leading portal for architectural content and a springboard for thousands of our customers and partners to dive into excellent guidance on architecting and developing solutions on the Microsoft Windows platform.
This issue has an abundance of architectural gems written by respected architects from Microsoft and valued partners, and I'm confident that it has raised the level of content quality to a higher level.
We start with a paper by Don Awalt and Rick McUmber of RDA Corporation, also members of the Microsoft Architecture Advisory Board, who reveal many secrets of great architects. They tackle a very hard problem faced daily by Enterprise architects, namely, the challenge of high complexity in systems development, which is compounded by ever-changing needs of the business and pressure to adopt new technologies as they emerge. The key secret of great architects they reveal begins with a mastery of solution conceptualization and abstraction. The way in which the authors have dissected the problem and provided an exemplary walkthrough of the solution process is evidence itself of such mastery.
Jack Greenfield from Microsoft's Enterprise Frameworks and Tools division discusses in his article important new thinking on a critical business imperative troubling many organizations today—how to scale up software development? As currently practiced, software development is slow, expensive and error prone, and results in a multitude of well-known problems. Despite these shortcomings, the 'products' of software development obviously provide significant value to consumers, as shown by a long term trend of increasing demand. To address these shortcomings a case is made for a 'Software Factories' methodology to industrialize the development of software, which is described in detail in a forthcoming book of the same name by Jack Greenfield and Keith Short, from John Wiley and Sons.
Feedback from customers to Microsoft on the challenges of implementing SOA systems has been very consistent; issues in managing identities, aggregating data, managing services, and integrating business processes have been cited over and over again as major road blocks to realizing more efficient and agile organizations. Frederick Chong from the Architecture Strategy team in Microsoft writes a paper on one of these challenges, namely Identity and Access Management. He provides a succinct and comprehensive overview of what I&AM means using a simple framework consisting of three key areas: identity life cycle management, access management, and directory services.
Microsoft's Philip Teale and Robert Jarvis of SA Ltd. follow with the second part of their paper discussing business patterns, which are essentially architectural templates for business solutions. In this paper they describe how to develop business patterns based on business functions, data, and business components, and also show how these elements can be used to engineer software systems. A realistic but simplified example is used to show how to use standard techniques to develop descriptions of these elements required for a business pattern.
Next, Easwaran Nadhan and Jay-Louise Weldon, both from EDS, examine various data transfer strategies for the enterprise, which enable timely access to the right information and data sharing such that business processes can be effective across the enterprise. They describe eight options and analyze those using criteria, such as data latency requirements, transformation needs, data volume considerations, and constraints regarding the level of intrusion and effort that can be tolerated by an enterprise in order to realize the expected benefits.
The final paper is part two of Soumen Chatterjee's description of SOA messaging patterns. Traditionally messaging patterns have been applied to enterprise application integration solutions. Soumen uses these patterns to explain how SOA can be implemented. His insights are derived from the original work of Hohpe and Woolf's book on Enterprise Integration Patterns. However, Soumen shows us how the same messaging patterns described in the book can be applied equally effectively at the application architecture level, especially in SOA-based solutions, because they too are fundamentally message-oriented.
Please keep up-to-date on the Web at the Microsoft Architecture Center and, specifically, at the home for JOURNAL, where you'll be able to download the articles for your added convenience. And keep a look-out for announcements of a new JOURNAL subscription service coming soon.
As always, if you're interested in writing for JOURNAL, please send me a brief outline of your topic and your resume at asehmi@microsoft.com.
Now put your feet up and get reading!
Arvindra Sehmi
Architect, D&PE, Microsoft EMEA
Articles in This Issue
The Case for Software Factories
Business Patterns for Software Engineering Use, Part 2
Identity and Access Management
Messaging Patterns in Service-Oriented Architecture, Part 2
Secrets of Great Architects
A Strategic Approach to Data Transfer Methods
Download this issue here
Credits
Executive Editor & Program Manager
**Arvindra Sehmi
**Architect, Developer and Platform Evangelism Group, Microsoft EMEA
www.thearchitectexchange.com/asehmi
Managing Editor
**Graeme Malcolm
**Principal Technologist, Content Master Ltd
Editorial Board
**Christopher Baldwin
**Principal Consultant, Developer and Platform Evangelism Group, Microsoft EMEA
**Gianpaolo Carraro
**Architect, Developer and Platform Evangelism Group, Microsoft EMEA
**Simon Guest
**Program Manager, Developer and Platform Evangelism Group, Architecture Strategy, Microsoft Corporation
www.simonguest.com
**Wilfried Grommen
**General Manager, Business Strategy, Microsoft EMEA
**Richard Hughes
**Program Manager, Developer and Platform Evangelism Group, Architecture Strategy, Microsoft Corporation
**Neil Hutson
**Director of Windows Evangelism, Developer and Platform Evangelism Group, Microsoft Corporation
**Eugenio Pace
**Program Manager, Platform Architecture Group, Microsoft Corporation
**Harry Pierson
**Architect, Developer and Platform Evangelism Group, Architecture Strategy, Microsoft Corporation
devhawk.net
**Michael Platt
**Architect, Developer and Platform Evangelism Group, Microsoft Ltd
blogs.msdn.com/michael_platt
**Philip Teale
**Partner Strategy Manager, Enterprise Partner Group, Microsoft Ltd
Project Management
**Content Master Ltd
**www.contentmaster.com
Design Direction
**venturethree, London
**www.venturethree.com
Orb Solutions, London
Orchestration
**Katharine Pike
**WW Architect Programs Manager, Developer and Platform Evangelism Group, Architecture Strategy, Microsoft Corporation
Foreword Contributor
Harry Pierson
Architect, Developer and Platform Evangelism Group, Architecture Strategy, Microsoft Corporation
devhawk.net
This article was published in the Architecture Journal, a print and online publication produced by Microsoft. For more articles from this publication, please visit the Architecture Journal Web site.