February 2007 - Posts
Microsoft’s Architecture Journal is a quarterly magazine, providing a world-class forum for the publication of unique articles on how good architecture can help create great implementations. Microsoft’s Architecture Journal is available as a printed subscription (you can order your own here) and also online here
Although we've only just finalized Issue #11, in order to hit TechEd dates this year I'm now looking for abstracts and ideas for Issue #12, the theme of which is Web Architecture (think web based architectures, hosting, deployment, web services, there’s a lot of scope here).
Writing for the Architecture Journal gives you the opportunity to get your thoughts and ideas in the hands of enterprise, solution and infrastructure architects around the world – that’s a growing number of over 50,000 subscribers! In addition, your article will be localized into multiple languages and distributed at major events and conferences worldwide, including TechEd US 2007 in June!
The cut off date for abstracts for the next issue is Feb 28th. If you are interested in making a submission, here are the details:
How do I make a submission?
To submit an idea for a paper, you are asked to send the following:
- A 2 – 4 paragraph abstract explaining how your paper fits the theme of the magazine
- A 1 – 2 paragraph bio
- A list of previously published articles
Submissions should be made via Email to editors@architecturejournal.net
Each issue of the Architecture Journal follows a theme (for example; integration, workflow, data). 80% of the issue is dedicated to this theme. 20% is reserved for articles that we wish to print, but do not follow the theme.
We receive many submissions for each issue, so we encourage you to put time and thought into the submission.
When will I know whether my submission is accepted?
After the call for papers has ended, everyone that submits an idea will be notified via Email as to whether their submission was successful or not.
What happens if my submission is accepted?
If accepted, you’ll have between 4 and 6 weeks to submit two drafts and a final version of your paper. These dates will be clearly communicated. Your first draft will be reviewed by an editorial board to ensure it is on message for the magazine. Your second draft and final version will be subject to both technical and content editing. You’ll be asked to be available to work with our editors via Email during this process.
The magazine is generally available in print and online 4 weeks after final drafts are submitted.
What are the guidelines for papers printed in the Architecture Journal?
We recommend that papers are between 3,500 and 4,500 words in length – although we have accepted shorter and longer papers in the past. The article should be submitted using Microsoft Word. Diagrams should be submitted in either Microsoft Visio or Microsoft PowerPoint.
Do I still own the work?
Yes. We ask you to sign a release form that gives Microsoft permission to reprint the article, but ownership of the paper remains with you, the author.
Will I get paid for writing?
We do not currently pay authors for contributing to the Architecture Journal.
Will I get copies of the magazine as an author?
After printing you’ll be sent 10 copies of the Journal for your own use. Additional copies can be requested.
Where can I get more information?
Check out this link.
3 weeks ago, Ron Jacobs, the host of the ARCast show came to Israel for a pretty packed visit. It was a one-of-a-kind visit, so I want to share with you what we did but in an opposite chronological direction:
Thursday Feb 1st: The visit's highlight was the delivery of the "Software Architecture Essentials" workshop to about 110 new architects that were not registered as architects in our repositories. The workshop was intended for team leaders and senior developers or even managers who wish to understand what it takes to be an architect.
You know, I think that next time, the workshop should have a cooler nam, such as "Who wants to be an architect". Even though, the workshop got great feedbacks from people who said that it helped setting things right about the architect's role and the main essentials of the architecture profession. Ron delivered the workshop in his own unique way and I'm sure he will be happy to do this again. He already is going to deliver it in Belgium. Feel free to download the slides from here. You can also look at this cool invitation we designed and reuse it.
I already heared that in MS India they have a whole week that continues Ron's workshop, so I am working on redelivering it too in Israel.
Wednesday Jan 31st: Our hands were full with the biggest Israeli Developers (and Architects) event for 2007, the Developers Academy at the Cinema City with more than 2000 participants. Ron started the day with two sessions about Security Principles and Patterns for architects. Then we headed to the Cinemax lobby to deliver some ARCasts about CAB and about Smart SOA Clients with some of the local architects. The third part of this day was the architects panel which was also hosted by Ron.
Tuesday Jan 30st: We met in the cinema city's conference room for 5 back-to-back ARCasts recordings. From time to time I snuck a bagel for Ron in order for him to recharge between the interviews :-). I also had the privilege to record an ARCast with Ron and Izak Cohen about the new session we deliver about SOA and ESB from a back to the future like story - Hope he posts it soon.
At 16:00 Ron participated in the 5th meeting of the Israeli Architects Forum whose theme was SOA. This is a close forum that includes the thought leaders in the Israeli Architecture space, so we had some interesting discussions and sessions about SOA, ESB and Workflow. Because it was the forum's birthday (give or take), I invited the forum members to the Cinemax to see a movie of "Déjà Vu" about the way the future could look like. I never had an idea that the movie will be so well connected to the discussions we had previously.
Monday Jan 29th: Ron started his agenda in Israel and headed stratight to the Israeli Architects User Group to deliver the best session he also delivered during Tech-Eds about SOA Patterns and Anti-Patterns. Then we went to Doris Katazavin (Butchers) restaurant to eat the biggest steaks I ate for a long time, 750 grams each :-)
From me and from the architects in Israel, I wish to thank Ron for the Sessions, Arcasts, Panels and Workshops he delivered here in Israel.
Our story begins in the year of 2010 in a quiet hospital somewhere...
Suddenly a phone call disturbs the peaceful day of an R&D Manager and his colleague, the IT Manager...
"This is your CEO Calling", says the voice on the other line.
"I need you to change the process of prescribing drugs to a patient to include allergies check.... and you should allow doctors to watch patient record while working from outside of the hospital."
"And I need this done by tomorrow!" said the CEO
"Yes Sir" said the two managers as their CEO hung up the phone
Then, the camera zooms out and instead of seeing the managers working like crazy, you see them.... Playing Games!!!
What happened here? You probably ask...
Well, to answer that, we need to take you back in time to 2007 and tell you how we managed to implement SOA based on MS tools & methodologies and managed to bring the agility everyone is looking for.
As you've probably noticed, the story of Microsoft with SOA & ESB is delivered in a different way through a role-playing act-like humoristic manner.
The talk is intended for Business Decision Makers and is based not around what SOA is but rather around:
1) What you can gain with it?
2) How you can get there with MS from both the IT & the R&D eyes, which are very different.
First of all, feel free to download the PDF of the presentation from here.
The story goes through 4 major milestones that span a great portion of what MS has to offer in the SOA space:
1) The Research for SOA: Most organizations today are still in this phase, trying to look for case studies and how-to guidance for successful SOAs. Unfortunately, also Gartner says that only 7% of the organizations are failing to realize the value from SOA which is business agility. Therefore, we decided to tour the world for case studies that implemented SOA on MS Platform (Kaiser, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Dell, Haphenix and more) and also checked why SOA failed after talking to analysts. Finally we analyzed our hospital organization using the APIO (Application Platform Optimization Infrastructure) model from Microsoft. After this analysis, we were able to decide where to start and how to progress in stages.
2) Laying the Infrastructure services using the Microsoft ESB Toolkit. In this part, my colleague who played the IT Manager's role explained to me that ESB is more than a local American beer. He explained the core functionalities we can achieve out of deploying it in the hospital. He explained about automatic subscription, dynamic routing, registry and service governance using real scenarios from our work in the hospital. The ESB is actually like a run-time bus that services can attach themselves to during run-time and consumers can do the same. This is where the ESB Toolkit as a way to deliver an SOI (Service Oriented Infrastructure) is presented.
3) Delivering the business services that are a few levels above the infrastructure services. For example, "Discharge Patient" or "Check for Allergies" are business services while "Routing" or "Find Service" are infrastructure services. In this stage, I step into the picture telling my colleague that the infrastructure services are great as an ESB and I will consume them, but satisfying with this is like putting a lipstick on the pig's face :-) --> This can also be treated as a Bottom-Up approach that wraps what we have (which is easy to wrap) and not what we need. Therefore, I go through the Motion methodology for analyzing the business architecture from Top-Down.
To balance the top-down and bottom-up approach, Microsoft presents the middle-out approach which is an iterative cycle that goes through the business need with the highest priority and loops through an ECC cycle of Exposing the Services, Composing the business services and Consuming them from different types of clients. This part goes through some of the additional pieces in MS Story such as: WCF, Service Software Factory, Workflow Foundation, BizTalk Designer, Visual Studio Team Architect, CAB, Office Based Applications, SaaS and more. We present the first two cycles for the urgent business needs of "Treat Patient" and "Discharge Patient".
4) Realizing the Value - Do you still remember the 2010 phone call? After two iterations, we stop to show that the CEO's requests can be fully answered using the services we exposed up till now.
The presentation ends here, but the SOA doesn't. The secret is to continue to implement the Middle-Out Approach and the newly prioritized business needs and go through the ECC cycle with them.
SOA is like Love and Marriage: It starts with the glow of romance, but we need to invest in it in order to make it work...
Calls to Action:
1) Send your feedback about the message and the PDF
2) Ask for our help in starting with SOA in your organization
3) Send me an e-mail if you want us to present the story