Mike Walker's Blog

So what is Industry Architecture?

I am often asked the question, what is Industry Architecture and why should I care? Well in very simple terms industry architecture is a way in which general technology architecture concepts are translated or applied to a specific industry to give that architecture the proper context. Alone technology is useless, it is just bits flowing over the wire. However with a business purpose it can provide value. Value can be tricky to define, it really depends on the goal you are trying to achieve, but for the sake of argument let’s say cost. The nice thing about industry architecture is that it can tie the concepts apply them to something tangible.
 
I am sure you have hearing a great deal about the new buzz acronyms such as SOA, ESB,  IdM, CCF, etc. So the question is, how does that relate to an industry such as financial services? Lots of concepts right, but at the end of the day us architects want to see what is the value of let’s say SOA and how can I re-architect / augment / create new systems. Each industry is different with different business drivers and forces. Thus, we want to make sure the architectures we discuss are relevant to your business needs.
 
In future blog postings and in the publication of whitepapers in the MSDN architecture center you will see me address these issues to make these concepts relevant to you in the financial services industry.

Signing On

Hello my name is Mike Walker. I recently joined Microsoft as the Financial Services Strategic Architect. I will be setting the architecture strategy for Microsoft corporation by evangelizing to architects. I have over a decade of experience in the information technology and have played various architect roles. By using Microsoft technology have had an opportunity to positively impact several diverse industries such as Banking, Insurance, Healthcare and Manufacturing. I have also have had exposure to several integration opportunities that leveraged Microsoft technologies with Mainframe and UNIX flavors.

I will focus on creating reference architectures around interesting financial services scenarios, driving innovation in industry standards organizations, engaging with customers and taking the industry learnings back to the products and influencing what we build.

[UPDATED 3-17-2009]

Role has changed to focusing across industries and looking at architectural styles such as SaaS, Web 2.0 and Enterprise Architecture.