Mike The Architect

Presentations Uploaded

As followers of my blog know, I do many speaking engagements. Often times I get requests for those decks from the conference or event. Instead of sharing with a select few I thought I would share with everyone. You can find some of the major presentations under my Slideshare profile:

http://www.slideshare.net/mikejwalker

Here is a quick list of the presentations:

• Enterprise Architecture Toolkit Screenshots
• Improving on How Architectures are Described
• Enterprise Architecture Toolkit Scenarios
• Enterprise Architecture Toolkit Overview
• Enabling Lending Business Imperatives with Office
• Loan Origination Reference Architecture Deep Dive
• Office Developers Conference - Financial Services O...
• End to End Vertical OBA's
• Composite Applications and OBA Architecture
• Composite Applications Speaking Tour - Lap Around O...
• Composite Applications Speaking Tour – Keynote
• Office Business Applications in Financial Services
• Microsoft Insurance Solutions Keynote Presentation ...
• Enterprise Architecture Toolkit – English
• Financial Services Component Library

More to come…

Technorati Tags: Presentations,Enterprise Architecture,Composite Applications,OBA,Financial Services,EA,EATK

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Loan Origination Reference Architecture v.2.0 Source

Many have asked for source code to the Loan Origination Reference Architecture and now it's on CodePlex.

Source Code

http://www.codeplex.com/los/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=15173

Home Page

http://msdn.microsoft.com/architecture/orlos

Do Office Tools Still Play a Role in Architecture Design?

I thought I would write this potentially controversial post about how traditional productivity tools such as Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Visio) can still play a role in the architecting process.

Whether we like it or not the Office tooling is used throughout the architect community as a tool to describe architectures. This topic comes up quite a bit in my conversations with customers. I still find that the overwhelming majority of enterprises still use productivity tools for architecture design and descriptions. I recently did an informal survey at the Open group Practitioner conference in January. What I found from this informal survey was that 90% of enterprises use these tools day to day for architecture. I found similar results at Gartner EA summit and FSTC EA Forum the year before.

The Enterprise Architecture Toolkit (EATK) is set out to help in this area. It provides a series of templates and add-ins to the productivity tools to enhance the architecting process.

Changing the Way we Describe Architecture Designs

Today many enterprises use the Office tools for different purposes. There isn't a one size fit all. Shown below is how we see many enterprises using the productivity tools.

Traditionally architects have been forced to develop architectures in a restrictive and monolithic way. Meaning that the input mechanisms for architecture require a set of fairly sequential steps in which the information is derived. The question now is; are the existing tools we use for architecting, been outgrown or outdated for the tasks at hand. The answer here is no, the current tools are still used for mainstream development of architectures.

The underlining goal is to change the role of Word from simply a word processor to more of a User Interface (UI) for designing architectures. Applying structured UI concepts to Microsoft Word provide many benefits to the architecture document.

• Structured Content – Information can be better described in the document. The reason we want to do this is because of the challenges mentioned regarding how information doesn’t integrate well with process or future design activities. One example is the process of importing a model into an architecture document. Often times we import a picture that represents a model of a specific view point of an architecture. If we had an information model we could specific that the model imported is indeed the logical model, rather than a generic image file.
• Extensible – With a little more structure information has meaning and definition. This makes that information extensible to other processes downstream.
• Consumable – Abilities to consume external content is also possible with a more structured interface. As an example, if you choose to you could import external architecture information from other systems to automate you design efforts.

Why not a Model Driven Approach?

So the next question that is probably in most of your minds is, what about Model Driven Development (MDD)? Through these same surveys my findings found that MDD as an architectural practice is very difficult. There are a variety of reasons for this:

• Education - There is a substantial learning curve to learning an ontology, tools, notations, process, etc. Also, there is the issue of un-learning what you have been doing for so long.
• Tooling Maturity - There are a lot of great tools for modeling but these tools are still not as mainstream as they need to be. There are many tools that are proprietary in nature. There needs to be more standards support.
• Adoption - Usability and complexity comes into play here. I have seen revolts against a structured modeling tool because it wasn't as intuitive or easier to learn as other shape (not modeling) based tools.

Does this mean that we not go down the MDD approach? Of course not. We just have some challenges to overcome. To overcome these challenges we need to take a pragmatic and iterative approach.

Meaning, not all organizations are ready for the MDD approach right away. For these organizations they should take a "baby steps" towards MDD. The big bang approach has proven to be a painful and perilous route to take when trying to change how an organization develops.

If an organization is ready for a MDD approach, that's great and should do so. The role of documents changes again, right? Of course, now the document can be used as a report or can be used to describe the models at the meta level. The role may become smaller but still can play a role.

 

Tags: Enterprise Architecture

New Financial Components Released for Insurance and Capital Markets

   

 

Claims Processing Reference Architecture

Claims Processing Reference Architecture provides quality services in the field of Auto Insurance Claims Processing however these components can be leveraged for other forms of claims processing such as: Home, Medical, Mortgage, and other general claims processing services to work on behalf of clients for better advanced services. Today, global insurance industry is facing a challenge to provide cutting edge services and value added customer experience coupled with faster response time and easily adaptable services. Like with the other Financial Services architectures released, this reference architecture leverages the ACORD standard throughout. This insurance interoperability with both Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) and custom built applications in your enterprise.

 

Shown above is the flow and business process demonstrated in the reference architecture. There are multiple personas involved from third parties, agents and internal personal such as various underwriters.

All of this workflow is managed from Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and uses various technologies to implement.

Demo

 

Get the code and the binary installers: Claims Processing Reference Architecture

 

Capital Markets Structured Product Creation

This reference architecture addresses the space of structured product creation.  This is unique and complex process in capital markets. This is due largely to non standardization and isn't often like anything the bank is already trading. This presents a problem in that these types of deals are unlikely to be captured in a core trading system immediately.

Below is an illustration of the process captured from the creation of the product to selling and finally managing that product.

Demo

 

Get the code and the binary installers: Capital Markets Reference Architecture

 

Refreshed Installers Available

1. Broker Commissions Reference Architecture
2. Loan Origination Reference Architecture
3. Online Banking Reference Architecture

 

Get the code and the binary installers: Claims Processing Reference Architecture

 

Capital Markets Structured Product Creation

This reference architecture addresses the space of structured product creation.  This is unique and complex process in capital markets. This is due largely to non standardization and isn't often like anything the bank is already trading. This presents a problem in that these types of deals are unlikely to be captured in a core trading system immediately.

Below is an illustration of the process captured from the creation of the product to selling and finally managing that product.

Demo

 

Get the code and the binary installers: Capital Markets Reference Architecture

 

Refreshed Installers Available

1. Broker Commissions Reference Architecture
2. Loan Origination Reference Architecture
3. Online Banking Reference Architecture

 

Get the code and the binary installers: Claims Processing Reference Architecture

 

Capital Markets Structured Product Creation

This reference architecture addresses the space of structured product creation.  This is unique and complex process in capital markets. This is due largely to non standardization and isn't often like anything the bank is already trading. This presents a problem in that these types of deals are unlikely to be captured in a core trading system immediately.

Below is an illustration of the process captured from the creation of the product to selling and finally managing that product.

Demo

 

Get the code and the binary installers: Capital Markets Reference Architecture

 

Refreshed Installers Available

1. Broker Commissions Reference Architecture
2. Loan Origination Reference Architecture
3. Online Banking Reference Architecture

 

Get the code and the binary installers: Claims Processing Reference Architecture

 

Capital Markets Structured Product Creation

This reference architecture addresses the space of structured product creation.  This is unique and complex process in capital markets. This is due largely to non standardization and isn't often like anything the bank is already trading. This presents a problem in that these types of deals are unlikely to be captured in a core trading system immediately.

Below is an illustration of the process captured from the creation of the product to selling and finally managing that product.

Demo

 

Get the code and the binary installers: Capital Markets Reference Architecture

 

Refreshed Installers Available

1. Broker Commissions Reference Architecture
2. Loan Origination Reference Architecture
3. Online Banking Reference Architecture

Updates to the Financial Services Component Library

Hello everyone! More news on the Financial Services Component Library front.  I have developed a series of videos that give a solution overview. These are helpful for those that want to see these components in action before downloading.

There have also been updates to the source code and the MSI installers.

Links

See below for links to the projects:

• ACORD Software Factory (insurance messaging framework)
• Broker Commissions Reference Architecture
• Capital Markets
• Claims
• Insurance Rating
• Life Insurance Reference Architecture
• Loan Origination Reference Architecture
• Online Banking Reference Architecture

Videos

Videos of the components have been uploaded as well:

Broker Commissions

Video: Broker Commissions Reference Architecture

Life Insurance

Video: Life Insurance Reference Architecture

Online Banking

Video: Online Banking Reference Architecture

Life Insurance

Video: Life Insurance Reference Architecture

Online Banking

Video: Online Banking Reference Architecture

Life Insurance

Video: Life Insurance Reference Architecture

Online Banking

Video: Online Banking Reference Architecture

Life Insurance

Video: Life Insurance Reference Architecture

Online Banking

Video: Online Banking Reference Architecture

Presentation: Changing the Face of Banking Development

It's amazing how many e-mails I have received so far about sharing my presentation. So instead of sending to a few people I would like to share it with all of you. Keep in mind that with any presentation the deck is just a tool for communicating, I usually talk to a slide and not really follow bullet point. Also, with the publishing process the demos can't be seen, some of the animations broke and there is no voice over. This should give you a better feel for the presentation though.

| View | Upload your own

Financial Services Component Library Downloads

You may of seen my post announcing the Financial Services OBA Component Library. If you did you were most likely wondering when and where the code was going to be released. Due to a small issue on the code publishing side these were a little delayed. But don't fret, we have them uploaded now on CodePlex:

• Broker Commissions Reference Architecture
• Life Insurance Reference Architecture
• Loan Origination Reference Architecture
• Online Banking Reference Architecture

You will find several materials on the site including:

• Source Code
• Binaries Installers
• Installer Help Files

If you at the Financial Services Developer conference in New York we will be showing these architectures.

More coming reference architecture coming shortly!

Loan Origination Reference Architecture Version 2

I announced at the Office Developers Conference 2008 the release of the Loan Origination Reference Architecture version 2. Like the previous version, this reference architecture shows architects and developers how to bridge OBA technologies with transactional service oriented systems such as BizTalk.

The Loan Origination Reference Architecture shows how to build architectures that unify people, process and technology through familiar Office 2007 user interfaces. It includes an architecture framework for lending with an Office Business Application based scenario and BizTalk “MISMO” Accelerator for the loan origination process in banking. OBAs are an emerging class of business applications that connect existing line-of-business (LOB) systems with the people that use them every day through the familiar user interface of Microsoft Office, bridging the gap between how business process systems work, and how people work. OR-LOS will help customers simplify document management, increase integrated workflow, improve efficiency and ultimately lower time-to-market offering for faster turn-around and reduced cost.

Solutions that leverage the OR-LOS have the following benefits:

• Empowers Business Users to make informed lending decisions
• Using familiar Office tools for common business tasks (e.g., Outlook or Excel)
• Provided with a extensible lending platform that will reduce the development cycle
• Lending technology consolidation strategies can be derived
• Interoperable Lending Platform through BizTalk MISMO Accelerator
• Rich collaboration platform

 

Summary of Additions

• New Instant Messaging OCS Integration for Broker and Loan Processor collaboration
• A new set of five Excel based Mortgage Calculators
• More Content Management
• Real-World Patterns for ECM
• 2 New Business Intelligence Reports
• New 1003 FannieMae v.3.2 based InfoPath form
• InfoPath Quick Registration Enhancements including:
• Enhance Look and Feel
• Surfacing Workflow Steps
• MLS Integration using the RETS standard for an S+S example.
• Add Data Elements to conform to the industry standard 1003 Form
• New OpenXML Document Generation of Loan Documents Includes an example of generation of the Good Faith Estimate

 

Last month Gartner releases whitepaper entitled “Banks Must Redesign Their Lending Architecture”. The guidance is very similar to the guidance in the Loan Origination Reference Architecture.

Be sure to check it out.

 

 

 

 

 

Links for downloads of the source code will be made available soon.

Office Developers Conference 2008 Wrap-Up

What a great conference! Thanks to everyone that attended the conference and my sessions. I will be posting my deck very soon so all of you can see. Also, if you didn't get a chance to come to the Office Developers Conference to see Bill Gate's keynote, you can see the video here.

If you would like more information on the FedEx Outlook Plug-in you can find some great material on one of the guys that worked with FedEx on the project. Check out John Mullinax's Blog.

Financial Services OBA Component Library

At the Office Developers Conference this week I announced the release of the Financial Services OBA Component Library. The Financial Services OBA Component Library is a comprehensive set of OBA components that span across key areas in the Banking, Insurance and Capital Markets industries. The components are built in a composite way. This enables customers to assemble OBA components into existing or new business processes.

There are three things you need to know about the Financial Services OBA Component Library:

• First, these components are built as composite OBA components. This makes these components composable in a mash-ups fashion. Since the components are driven by industry scenarios they address discrete areas of functionality in financial services business processes.
  • An example of this is a web part that is a 360 portfolio view of a insurance customer(shown in the screenshot above). Since this component is built in a composite manner, this component can be exposed across many different technology implementations (thick or thin client) OR business implementations (can be used in various other scenarios using the component as is but changing the systems it integrates to).  The Silverlight component is exposed as a web part in MOSS, the information is retrieved from the Business Data Catalog and the process is enabled by WF.
• Second, these components fit into an end to end set of business capabilities and processes. The Loan Origination Reference Architecture is a result of mashing-up a set of components that demonstrates not only the value of OBA but how OBAs can transform the business process.
• Third, components are all built on industry standards which makes these interoperable not only at the protocol level but at the business process level. These components break down the classic interoperability barriers. OBAs show customers new integration patterns and new uses of LOB information.

What are the scenarios?

Banking

• Lending Reference Architecture
• Online Banking
• Broker Commissions

Insurance

• Insurance Claims Processing (Coming in March)
• Insurance Channel Sales (Coming in March)
• Life and Annuity Components

Capital Markets (Coming in March)

• Create Structured Products Scenario
• Excel OpenXML

 

The library will include approximately 90+ OBA Components for Financial Services. Below is a list of the technology components that comprises the component library.

      

What is included?

1. Site Templates
2. Master Pages
3. Silverlight Components
4. Web Parts
   1. BDC Web Parts
   2. Extending Enterprise Content Management Web Parts
5. Industry Standards based Infopath Forms
6. Document Generation Framework
7. Custom XML based OpenXML Documents (Excel/Word)
8. State Machine WF Workflows
9. Series of standards based integration BDC Entities
10. WS-* enabled ACORD Web Services Messages
11. Office Communications Server Components

 

Over the coming months you will see more content and additional Financial Services scenarios. Keep an eye out for these additional materials:

1. MSDN Articles and Architecture Guidance
2. Source code will be provided for free
3. How To Articles
4. Scenario based Hands On Labs
5. MSDN Virtual Lab
6. Content can be found on:
   1. Microsoft Connect - http://connect.microsoft.com
   2. Financial Services Architecture Center - http://msdn.microsoft.com/FinServArch
   3. My Blog (of course) - http://blogs.msdn.com/MikeWalker

When will it be released?

We will be rolling out guidance, source code and installable packages over the coming weeks. Keep an eye out on the MSDN Financial Services Architecture Portal.