Mike Walker's Blog

Architecture Journal – Service Orientation Today and Tomorrow

A good friend of mine Diego Dagum just published the latest Architecture Journal some time back. I am just now getting to reading it. It's a great issue and would recommend taking a look. Great work to all the authors!

To download the full pdf go to the http://www.architecturejournal.net or you can get updates on the Architecture Blog (RSS) at Microsoft 

Contents

Design Considerations for Software plus Services and Cloud Computing By Jason Hogg et al.  Design patterns for cloud-computing applications.

Model-Driven SOA with “Oslo” By César de la Torre Llorente  A shortcut from models to executable code through the next wave of Microsoft modeling technology.

An Enterprise Architecture Strategy for SOA By Hatay Tuna.  Key concepts, principals, and methods that architects can practically put to work immediately to help their organizations overcome these challenges and lead them through their SOA- implementation journey for better outcomes.

Enabling Business Capabilities with SOA By Chris Madrid and Blair Shaw  Methods and technologies to enable an SOA infrastructure to realize business capabilities, gaining increased visibility across the IT landscape.

Service Registry: A Key Piece for Enhancing Reuse in SOA By Juan Pablo García-González, Veronica Gacitúa-Décar, and Claus Pahl  A strategy for publishing and providing facilities to access services information.

How the Cloud Stretches the SOA Scope By Lakshmanan G and Manish Pande.  An emerging breed of distributed applications both on-premises and in the Cloud.

Event-Driven Architecture: SOA Through the Looking Glass By Udi Dahan.  Looking back on the inherent publish/subscribe nature of the business and how this solves thorny issues such as high availability and fault tolerance.

Is SOA Being Pushed Beyond Its Limits? By Grace Lewis.  Challenges for future service-oriented systems.  This Article is copyrighted by Carnegie Mellon University and is subject to the Software Engineering Institute’s Terms of Use found at http://www.sei.cmu.edu/.

Open Group SOA Governance Framework

The Open Group SOA Governance Framework provides context and definitions to enable organizations to understand and deploy SOA Governance. It describes SOA Governance; defines an SOA Governance Reference Model (the SGRM) and its constituent parts; and defines the SOA Governance Vitality Method (SGVM), which assists an organization in customizing the SGRM to realize its customized SOA Governance regimen.

 

This generic reference model for SOA governance is provided as a standard, to be used by companies to create (and constantly monitor and update) their own specific governance model and best practices. The SOA governance framework may be used in the context of another governance framework, such as COBIT or ITIL; the SOA working group did a mapping of COBIT to this framework as part of the framework development process, and plan to do more in the future in order to help organizations preserve their investment in COBIT/ITIL training and implementation.

The SOA Governance Framework will be available here for free download:

http://www.opengroup.org/bookstore/catalog/c093.htm

 

Technorati Tags: SOA,Goverance,Frameworks,Enterprise Architecture,Open Group

SOA Maturity Models

Over the past week another SOA maturity model emerges. The Open Group SOA Working group released a new maturity matrix (OSIMM) for the identification of where your IT organization is on the SOA continuum.

OSIMM is positioned to be a strategic planning tool that is used to assess where you are along the SOA continuum relative to a standard, vendor-neutral maturity model, and help create a roadmap for how to move on to the higher levels of maturity. At the heart of it is the OSIMM matrix, with maturity levels as columns progressing from left to right, and the different organizational dimensions being measured as rows: business view, governance and organization, methods, applications, architecture, information, and infrastructure and management.

Within each cell of the matrix there are indicators for that dimension and maturity level: for example, if you’re using object oriented modeling methods, that indicates that your methods are at level 2, whereas using service oriented modeling would move you up to level 4 or 5 in the methods dimension. Behind this matrix, OSIMM includes a full set of maturity indicators and attributes, plus assessment questions that organizations can use to determine where they are in terms of maturity: each dimension can be (and likely will be) at a different level of maturity.

While it is stated that the OSIMM is vendor neutral, keep in mind that this was created largely from Service Integrators (SI) and vendors. However, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing as long as there isn’t a conflict of interest to push/lock us into unnecessary services engagements. 

The OSIMM Technical Standard at no cost and all the materials are located:

http://www.opengroup.org/bookstore/catalog/c092.htm

 

Other Maturity Models

OSIMM isn’t the only game in town when it comes to maturity models. Below are some others used in the industry. As you will notice, these are all provided by SI’s or vendors. While there is good concepts and ideas in these they are not compiled in an open industry forum. This is a large disadvantage to customers as it hasn’t be vetted openly.

• Oracle Maturity Model
• Infosys Maturity Model

• Microsoft Maturity Model (SOAMM)

• IBM SOA Maturity Model (SIMM)

• Sonic and partners SOA Maturity Model

• The Open Source SOA Roadmap

• ZapThink's SOA Maturity Model / Roadmap

 

Technorati Tags: SOA,OSIMM,Maturity Models,Enterprise Architecture

Microsoft SOA & Business Process Conference 2009

The annual Microsoft SOA & Business Process Conference 2009 continues again this year with some really exciting features for three days dedicated to customer needs. The conference is the event for customers to receive detailed guidance on Service Oriented Architecture and Business Process Management. SOA & BPM span the enterprise, from developers building new services; to architects recommending IT standards; to business analysts designing processes; to business owners using IT to compete effectively and move their business forward.  The conference is designed to cover the relevant areas of concern to you.  

Online Registration

http://www.regonline.com/Checkin.asp?EventId=628664

Registration for the conference is $899.  Register by 12/1 to receive a discounted rate of $599.

Conference Highlights

• Keynotes delivered by Microsoft Executives
• Breakout and Chalk Talk Sessions, Case-Studies & Roundtables from partners and SOA customers
• Networking Reception on Tuesday, January 27 with Partners and Customers
• Partner Expo

 

Conference Tracks

            Track 1: SOA & BPM Best Practices

            Track 2:  Technology Offerings

 

Location

The conference will be held in Redmond, WA at the Microsoft Conference Center, January 27-30^th.

 

Technorati Tags: SOA

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New "Real World" SOA Site

Today was the launch of that the new "Real World SOA happens {here}” site. This is one of the first Silverlight 2.0 applications on Microsoft.com and probably anywhere for that matter. This new site extends the existing Microsoft SOA site (http://www.microsoft.com/soa) by providing real world guidance around the SOA space. You can come here to investigate what Microsoft customers have to say about how they have developed their solutions on the Microsoft stack. You will see real world approaches that deliver significant, tangible and measurable value to their businesses.

 

This is interesting to me because there isn't a whole lot of SOA vendors that create a first class experience for customer stories and learning's. Its good to see that we are to democratizing SOA.

There are 4 main areas you can explore:

1. Real World SOA - Mission statements and principles to Microsoft's approach to SOA
2. Events - Upcoming events and registration
3. Customer Stories - Stories and lessons learned
4. Partners - Key partners that extend the capabilities of the MS stack

All and all they did a great job!

Technorati Tags: SOA

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SOA Software Announces Expanded SOA Governance for Microsoft .NET Framework

SOA Software today released an expanded version of it's popular SOA governance suite for a series of Microsoft technologies. SOA Software has provided custom Windows Communication Foundation bindings and an extensible channel stack to provide additional governance capabilities to enterprises using the MSE for service virtualization. Security administrators can centrally define policies for services through SOA Software’s Policy ManagerTM leveraging automated governance approval processes. Once approved, the MSE can dynamically leverage the policy exposed via WS-MetadataExchange to ensure consistent policy enforcement at multiple levels of granularity.

SOA Software provides channels for audit, monitoring, SLA, faults/events, dynamic routing, message recording, and security including Kerberos, mutual auth SSL, username token, authorization (XACML), trust (SAML) and basic auth (LDAP). More channels are on their way; in some cases built by customers and partners using SOA Software’s published APIs.

“The certification of Governed Service Platforms advances the discipline of Integrated SOA Governance Automation,” said Frank Martinez, executive vice president of SOA Software. “Microsoft is deploying the MSE to provide customers with advanced service virtualization capabilities and along with SOA Software’s membership in the Business Process Alliance (BPA), this certification gives them the confidence that SOA Software’s products will preserve the fidelity of the governance models, structures and mechanisms supporting their enterprise SOA program.”

Customers will add SOA Software’s Integrated SOA Governance Automation solution to the .NET Framework and MSE in order to:

• Enable and coordinate enterprise-level Service Lifecycle management across the virtual services through automation and workflow tailored to fit an organization’s roles and policies.
• Leverage SOA software’s end-to-end policy support between clients and services to streamline the effort necessary to enable enterprise governance models.
• Make services they expose from applications running on .NET Framework visible to and compliant with enterprise policies defined, enforced and audited across other platforms; and make services they design and build using other platforms like SAP and open source environments visible to and compliant with enterprise policies defined, enforced and audited across their .NET Framework applications.
• Promote, ensure and formalize consistent alignment between demand from service consumers and the supply of services through Consumer Contract Provisioning.
• Leverage the strengths of Microsoft’s service enablement and adaptation capabilities with SOA Software’s closed loop governance model.

SOA Software’s platform-independent Integrated SOA Governance Automation solution promotes the use of best-practices throughout an enterprise SOA program regardless of where services and consumers are designed, built, deployed and operated. SOA Software’s Solutions offer deep integration with the Microsoft SOA and Business Process solutions including: .NET Framework, BizTalk Server, Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server.

“SOA Software aligns well with our strategy to help customers enable a high level of agility with a rich governance model through dynamic behaviors and centralized configuration,” said Burley Kawasaki, director of product management in the Connected Systems Division at Microsoft Corp. “Its Policy Manager provides robust service lifecycle and policy management capabilities that allow our customers to help maximize the security and performance of their virtual services.”

Microsoft customers take advantage of SOA Software for seamless, heterogeneous SOA Governance, Security and Management integration with their Microsoft applications to ensure interoperability across disparate partners and platforms.

SOA Software’s products deliver mission-critical SOA governance capabilities to customers using Microsoft .NET and BizTalk Server. They provide Closed-loop Governance, Uniform Policy Management, Heterogeneous Governance Automation, Dynamic Policy Enforcement and Implementation, and Trust Mediation and Bridging.

Technorati Tags: SOA,Governance

Open Group SOA Ontology

The Open Group has recently released a draft version of a SOA ontology. They have been developing a formal ontology for SOA for some time now. You can find the ontology described in OWL-DL also. This should give the ontology a more complete level of description.

Open Group explains the benefits as:

1. It defines the concepts, terminology and semantics of SOA in both business and technical
terms, in order to:

• Create a foundation for further work in domain-specific areas,
• Enable communications between business and technical people,
• Enhance the understanding of SOA concepts in the business and technical
  communities, and
• Provide a means to state problems and opportunities clearly and unambiguously
  to promote mutual understanding.

2. It potentially contributes to model-driven SOA implementation. The ontology is designed for use by:

• Business people, to give them a deeper understanding of SOA, and its use in the
  enterprise;
• Architects, as metadata for architectural artifacts; and
• Architecture methodologists, as a component of SOA metamodels.

The full draft can be found here:

http://www.opengroup.org/projects/soa-ontology/doc.tpl?gdid=16940

Tags: Enterprise Architecture

SOA Software Acquires LogicLibrary

Today I received a press release that SOA Software had acquired LogicLibrary. LogicLibrary is an architecture repository tool with great integration into many IDE tools in the market (including Visual Studio http://www.logiclibrary.com/vsadd-in.asp). They had once had built a portal on MSDN that showed how the MSDN assets would be represented in an architecture repository.

 

SOA Software says this about the value proposition that LogicLibrary provides them:

"The combination of SOA Software's governance products, with LogicLibrary's strategy to provide federation with other leading repositories, creates a single solution that provides unparalleled lifecycle and policy governance across all major platforms," said Alan Himler, chief executive officer and chairman of LogicLibrary. "We are excited to join forces and capitalize on our complementary capabilities by creating the most comprehensive, closed-loop Integrated SOA Governance Automation solution."

The EA and SOA tooling market is consolidating a rapid pace. I am hoping that with the consolidation that the market can mature at a more rapid rate. There is obviously a great deal of potential as larger organization combine their ability to augment and enhance their offerings to customers.

As for how Microsoft is affected by this acquisition... Well, SOA Software and Microsoft has been doing a great deal of work together recently. I do not see that changing anytime in the future.

Tags: Enterprise Architecture

Open Group Enterprise Architecture Conference - Day 1

I thought I would share with you a few of my notes from the Open Group conference. I have also added some of my thoughts on the topics.I will cover the Keynotes and Roundtables primarily and add some thoughts where appropriate on other sessions.

Keynote Highlights - Real World SOA (David Linthicum)

Overview

• Dave suggests to start with ROI first rather than architecture. I think that this is easier said then done, but I agree at a high level. I do agree that this should happen but as many architects know we are hindered by technology / strict business requirements, cost and deadlines.
• Start the Business case right away! Yes, yes yes!!! Ideally focus first on the capability and then figure out the downstream processes you want to enable to build that business case.
• Dave asserts that "the business" is not happy with IT. I agree and this is a perception that we need to change.
• Dave provides a simple cost calculator and suggests us to use our own if we have one
• He also talks indirectly about the importance of Application Portfolio Mgmt, but doesn't directly call it out. Rather he speaks of the value of having a catalog of SOA assets that provide iterative value
• BTW - I love the quotes:
  • "Managing SOA by Magazine" - Referring to what I lovingly call E-Weeker's that take the guidance from the trade publications to heart and build systems accordingly.
  • "Vendor Driven Architecture" - Organizations that have bought into one SOA stack and allows that vendor to drive their SOA strategy rather than their business concerns.

Dave's tips for getting things done:

• Get a champion
• Build a case
• Show the ROI

I couldn't agree more on these points. These very points are what I heard five years ago at the META Enterprise Architecture conference. 

Challenges

• Lack of data - I translate this to the failure to define the rights metrics and then ultimately create the mechanisms to capture. 
• Organizational barriers
• Organizations build SOA solutions when business requirements are not stable

 

Roundtable Interesting Tid-Bits

Below are some statements and questions discussed at the roundtable.

1. What is the biggest challenge to SOA?
   1. Organizational - Too many barriers, Lack of CxO support, etc.
2. The hype is over, now the world is focused on how to pragmatically implement.
3. How do I solve these organizational issues?
   1. No meta-data tools, vendors are dropping the ball. I agree we have some work to do here but I think the bigger issue here is architects that have the skill set to be change agents, there is a great need for EA's to have a tremendous amount of leadership abilities.
4. How real is SaaS?
   1. Look at SaaS when it makes sense, not an answer for everything. There is a very clear subset of solutions that are SaaS-able. The term - internal SaaS, behind the firewall. My former boss and Microsoft thought leader, John DeVadoss was referenced about his "My Cloud" concepts.
5. Do you think SOA and EA Tools will merge?
   1. Dave L. responded: Who has a real SOA tool, besides Visio??? I had a bit of a chuckle on that as it is the reality and glad to see someone actually say those words aloud!
6. What about BPM?
   1. There is a clear disconnect in the industry between these functions. This needs to be fixed

Tags: Enterprise Architecture

Managed Services Engine (MSE) v6.2 Released

On Tuesday at the SOA & BP Conference (http://www.mssoaandbpconference.com/), we are announcing the availability of the V6.2 CTP of the Managed Services Engine (MSE).  This release (http://www.codeplex.com/servicesengine) is the culmination of three years of working with customers to address the challenges of real world SOA, collaboration with P&P, CSD, and EPG, and a lot of sweat and passion from some of the brightest architects and consultants in the field.  At the same time, this is just the beginning of the public roadmap for the MSE.  The name might change, key contributors may continue to come and go, the customer base will expand, and the learnings will continue to be realized, but we are just scratching the surface on the applications of service virtualization through metadata to enable a higher level of agility for organizations.