Tech Strategy on Beckshome.com: Thomas Beck's Blog

The SOA Chasm

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

During a discussion the other day, I found myself repeatedly asking the question of how many organizations could make the leap from an organization dabbling in services (SOA believers) to an organization living SOA and benefiting from services (SOA achievers). I kept referring to the SOA chasm, this nearly insurmountable gap that needs to be crossed to move from an SOA believer to an SOA achiever. The image below is my visualization of this gap.

Microsoft Publication: SOA in the Real World

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Tad Anderson posted about the release of an SOA-related e-book from Microsoft concerning Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). This is one area in which Microsoft has remained notably quiet compared with competing enterprise software vendors such as IBM and Sun. As Tad points out in his post, Microsoft has made some forays into SOA publications and they have been pretty readable.

Their most recent publication, SOA in the Real World (mirrored here), is one of the better pieces of SOA writing that I’ve encountered, vendor-specific or otherwise. It uses Microsoft technologies to illustrate certain principles but it manages to maintain a largely implementation-agnostic viewpoint. The e-book has multiple authors but it was edited together in a very seamless way, which is not always the easiest thing to pull off.

Software Process Customization and The Development Case

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

One of the most common misunderstandings or missteps in following a particular software process is to follow that process in a blind, one-size-fits all fashion. This is especially true if you are mandated organizationally to use a particular software process. Just as the founding fathers could not have foreseen the challenges of the modern world when authoring the Constitution, there is no way that the creators of a generic software process could understand the nuances of every particular project where their process would be used.

Mis-queue - How the Dow lost 200 Points in the Blink of an Eye

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

In the final installment of this March 1st trilogy, I’ll hit something really topical, the precipitous fall of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) two days ago on February 26th. For those of you just diligently minding your stakes in the market, you probably got wind that all the major indexes tanked pretty badly on the 26th. The Dow, however, tanked in a rather unnatural fashion that was quite different from the others.

SOA Governance

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

If you work in the IT world today, you have a greater chance of not finding a Starbucks on a randomly selected block in Manhattan than you do of not hearing the term “SOA” during your daily workday. It’s unfortunately not nearly as often that I hear or read something about SOA that sounds reasonable, practicable, and overcomes my otherwise skeptic view of all the hype that so often masquerades as SOA. The recent ITConverations Podcast with Todd Biske and Ed Vasquez from MomentumSI is just the sort of real-world advice that avoids the hype and gives a heavy dose of ground truth reality.

Software Engineering, Ethics and the FBI Virtual Case File System

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Technologists who spend their time working on line of business projects are typically exposed to subtle and not-so-subtle messages about business ethics. Most recently, the implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act has touched most of our lives in some way, shape, or form. At a bare minimum, it has heightened our awareness of how terribly wrong things can go when the trust afforded certain practices (accounting and reporting, in the case of SOX) proves to be misplaced.

Reusable Asset Specification (RAS) and the Reuse Process

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000

In my efforts to understand what drives software reuse or the lack thereof, I’ve been looking for formal reuse standards, processes, and practices. I’ve been examining technology agnostic materials as well as researching the approaches taken by each of the respective major camps – software factories for Microsoft and Model Driven Development (MDD) from the Java community. This post, in particular, is more concerned with technology agnostic materials.

Being a long time believer in Scott Ambler’s Enterprise Unified Process (EUP), the strategic reuse discipline contained in the EUP was the first place I turned for process guidance. The reuse discipline, like the rest of the EUP disciplines, is structured in the same fashion as any other RUP discipline, which makes learning pretty intuitive if you’re familiar with the RUP. The workflow of the strategic reuse discipline is illustrated in the image below. The workflow is pretty straightforward and the harvest, buy, build, evolve approach to the preparation of assets agrees with what I’ve observed in practice. If you’re interested in this process, you can check out a brief synopsis of the strategic reuse discipline or purchases Scott’s book on the EUP.

Attenuation and Other Great Ideas

Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

IT Conversations pushed out a great series of podcasts again last week. As always, good things seem to come in three. In this case, the three were IP telephony, transportation networks, and collaboration. The diverse range of technologies and topics covered in these three podcasts represent a microcosm of the IT Conversation offering; just reaffirming their commitment to appeal to an intellectual audience (myself excluded) with a broad set of interests.

SOA Practices

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Over the last several months, I’ve really been trying to get my arms around SOA and develop a meaningful opinion and knowledge base on this so often used, even more often abused, and ever-more-frequently maligned three letter acronym (TLA). Along the way, I’ve discovered a couple of great resources that have helped shape my thinking and hone my implementation skills on the topic:

Prentice Hall’s Service-Oriented Computing Series – Right now this series consists of just two books by Thomas Erl, “Service-Oriented Architecture: Concepts, Technology, and Design” and “Service-Oriented Architecture: A Field Guide to Integrating XML and Web Services”. These two books, however, are tantamount to the old and new testament; literally comprising the SOA bible. The series is also slated to be expanded into a more complete collection, along the lines of Addison-Wesley’s Martin Fowler and Kent Beck signature series.

Fowler and Schneier - Seperated at Birth?

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve posted my last entry. To get myself back in the groove of things, I thought that it might be nice to post something lighthearted and entertaining that your average tech weenie would enjoy. Now I don’t know if you follow the gurus of the technology world but my research has turned up a set of long lost brothers amongst the talking (or blogging) heads. Check out the two pictures below. The one on the left is Bruce Schneier, cryptography and computer security wunderkind and designer of several cryptographic algorithms, including Blowfish and Twofish. The one on the right is Martin Fowler, refactoring, pattern, and agile god.

Business Logic Reuse - What Color is Your Box?

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I enjoyed Harry Piereson’s well thought-out response to David Chappel’s entry on SOA and the Reality of Reuse. I couldn’t have said it better myself, though that won’t stop me from trying. The way I see it, David brings to light the fact that the emperor has no clothes and then Harry tells you why the emperor is naked. The focus on business context in Harry’s entry really caused me to think about why business logic reuse fails.

Microsoft Versus Open Source - Does Anybody Really Care About This?

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000

The article summary “Microsoft vs. Open Source: Who Will Win?” from the Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge magazine bubbled up on the del.icio.us most popular list this morning. Being that this is one of the “classic debates”, I felt compelled to give it a read. As one might expect of an economic publication from HBS, the material is relatively academic in nature. Some of the suggestions for folks in Redmond to remain competitive with the open source community sound great in theory but are unlikely to ever cut it outside the ivory towers. Price discrimination on Windows software is one repeated suggestion. At first glance, this appears very logical, since the marginal costs of distributing additional copies of Windows are near nil. However, this would lead to a very rapid deterioration in pricing structure leaving little or no pricing transparency. People are agreeable with paying $300 for an iPod because they know that everyone else is in the same boat. People hate contracting for packaged software and buying cars because they always feel like they are getting screwed by the salesman who uses some secret formula to determine the price of the goods. Is this a perception that would increase Microsoft’s ability to remain competitive? I highly doubt it.

Next Generation Coordination Mechnanisms - Harnessing the Power of Many

Sun, 27 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Just as I was doing a bit of mindmapping of ideas around Internet and societal convergence, my RSS reader buzzed with a new post from Dion Hinchcliffe on Social Computing and Internet Singularity. Dion didn’t go into great details; referring instead to ideas he had articulated in earlier posts. His posting was, however, enough to prompt me to pull together my thoughts, give them a bit more structure and then send them into the great wide world to begin a life of their own.

Agile Methods and Special Operations Units

Tue, 15 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I tried answering Tad Anderson’s comment within the bounds of my August 8th posting but eventually decided that this topic really warranted a posting of its own. My thoughts around using Extreme Programming and other Agile approaches to software development are pretty well formed. As an ex-soldier, military analogies seem to work particularly well for me:

On the high end, the truly capable XP team is small, lightweight, and meets the requirements Tad set forth in his post. In many ways, effective Agile teams parallel our military’s elite special forces (e.g. SEALs, Green Berets, Delta Force, etc).
In the middle, there are well-trained, capable teams that practice UP, ICONIX, and other iterative processes with varying degrees of agility. These teams may infuse certain XP practices into their process as they are needed. The individuals on these teams may have the mettle to be elite special forces. However, due to project requirements, team size, or other factors they are not “active operators”, in military parlance. These folks operate in a fashion analogous to our highly-skilled tactical units, such as the 82nd Airborne, 10th Mountain, and the like.
On the lower end (of the agility scale, that is) are teams that mirror our more traditional Army units: infantry, mechanized infantry, armor, artillery, etc. Their capabilities are more geared toward larger, more structured engagements. Backing these capabilities are detailed approaches and tactics, significantly greater support and infrastructure requirements, and longer lead times to get a team on the ground to effectively engage the problem.

So where does this leave us? To me, at least, it’s pretty clear that, on software projects, as in combat, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. I would no more likely try to tackle building an air traffic control system with XP than I would send in a special forces team to face off against a Soviet armored column. Analogously, I would neither call in the third armored division to handle a jungle-based guerilla insurgency nor try to use CMM level 5 processes to build a simple Web-based e-commerce application.

User-Generated Content

Thu, 27 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

For some time I’ve been giving thought to user-generated content on the Internet. In particular, I’ve been interested in audio and video content. A recent post by Dion Hinchcliffe drove me to put a bit more structure around my ideas and put pen to paper, figuratively speaking.

I’ve been following Dion’s blog for nearly a year now and his writing helped shape my thinking about Web 2.0. Although I strongly agree with his statement that user-generated content is one of the pillars of Web 2.0, it appears that we disagree somewhat with respect to the limits of its potential. I can honestly say that user-generated content on sites such as Amazon.com, Wikipedia, and del.icio.us has added tangible value to my online experience. In many ways, there is no way to even emulate these services in the world outside of the Web. I don’t think, however, that I will ever be able to make a similar assertion about video and YouTube, in its current incarnation.

Open Source Enterprise Applications - Lacking the Critical Mass

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I was revisiting an article I penned very optimistically several years ago about open source software collaboratives. Most notably, I mentioned the Avalanche Corporate Technology Cooperative and the Government Open Code Collaborative (GOCC). These were (I stress the “were”) seemingly ill-fated initiatives to share the source code to business applications in the commercial and public sectors, respectively.

Open Source Enterprise Applications.pdf (550.16 KB)

Checking on these initiatives two years hence, I discovered that there has been scarce an update to either one of these sites since I wrote the article. Looking back and reflecting on my thoughts and experiences over the past couple of years, I realize that these two initiatives were destined to fail and that the open source community is unlikely to produce quality, open source enterprise applications. Allow me to compare.