About 2 months ago InfoWorld published 11 programming trends to watch. I’d like to share three with you since they are close to home for me:
- No code is an island
- Bandwidth is no longer free
- Energy is no longer free, either
No code is an island
Having worked in integration project for almost a decade the idea that there is little code living on an island is not strange to me. However InfoWorld points out that besides that more and more software developer are creating products to enhance other products
Our code is living increasingly in ecosystems. Many PHP programmers, for instance, create plug-ins for WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, or some other framework. Their code is a module that works with other modules.
The same goes for development for mobile devices that rely increasingly on modules or apps created by others, whether they run on the device or in the cloud. This increases the demand for stable interfaces and contracts. Besides that the requirements for availability and scalability will weigh in heavier.
An urge for lean programming
Or create programs that deliver value in an efficient way. New releases of software programmers tend to demand always more resources (just a small example). The cost of keeping a computer plugged in has never been an issue. It never mattered how much energy your rack of servers sucked down because the colo just sent you a flat bill for each box.
The Cloud trend tends to make cost more transparent. Some of the clouds — like Google App Engine or Amazon S3 (example) — don’t bill by the rack or root password. They charge for database commits and queries. This adds a new perspective for software developers. We might need to start thinking about the cost of each subroutine in euros, not in lines of code, function points or milliseconds of execution time.
On the consumer side more and more ISPs adding bandwidth caps and metering. To a software developer this means that optimizing bandwidth consumption when designing apps is becoming imperative. Besides the cost issue this will also be needed because of the customer experience (loading speed etc).
Since this blog is also dedicated to sharing resources that are valueable to me I decided to share my reading list of 2011 with you.
Lean Integration: An Integration Factory Approach to Business Agility
A great best practices book on integration. The first part provides description of the business value of Lean. It introduces the core concepts. As a manager that doesn’t need all the details you could just read this part and you can get a good grasp of the ideas presented.
The second part translates the lean principles from the world of manufacturing to the world of systems integration. It has great case studies that shows the principles applied in a real world context.
Part three of the book provides a “how to” guide. This can be used as a reference and as such is a great desk-top reference manual. This book is great and a must read for all technology and business practitioners and innovators.
Web Service Contract Design and Versioning for SOA
Great reference (not a book that I read front to back) on Web Service Design from Thomas Erl and his co-authors. This book focuses exclusively on the contract part of the service. Due to the depth it is a extensive resource to use besides others. The book is filled with extensive examples on how to meet the goals of SOA properly using contract design.
Via the site of the publisher and on iTunes are additional service design podcasts by the authors of the book. Could be a great resource to start with.
The Back of the Napkin (Expanded Edition): Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures
This is a great book on problem solving, extremely useful and in a sense thought provoking. It structures problem-solving into a six by five visual codex. This makes sense; you can literally see the evolution of the thought processes and the development of the insights take shape through the pages. Fun read as well.
Just uploaded the presentation I gave at the Seminar “Architecture and Governance”:
Recently while listening to OTN ArchBeat podcasts, a panel discussion on Reference Architectures (part 2 and part 3) I was thinking back to some pieces I wrote on industry data models and processes that I didn’t share with you yet. There a some similar argument to using these and reference architectures.
The value of reference models whether it contains data models, standardized messages, processes of a reference architecture, is or should be in a faster time to market and better quality of the solution.
Handle with care
What makes it hard to achieve this value, is the fact that these models contain always far more than is needed. That can be considered a waste. Even the parts that are not used still require attention while implementing and maintaining. This incurs work to understand the complex model, hide the details you don’t need, and customize and extend the parts you need.
Implementing a reference model requires spending time to determine how and to what extend this model meets the needs of your business? That is typically something you have to discover for yourself. It is where the majority of the time is spend! If you don’t go through the effort of understanding your business requirements, you are missing understanding of how the business can and should use the model. That makes it very hard to determine the value of the end solution to the business.
When using a reference models you should be aware that your business is not average. In some shape or form it delivers value to your customers in away a reference model doesn’t provide. Reference models should be used with care your business deserves.
Just uploaded the presentation I gave at the Seminar “Lean & Agile IT: beter resultaat, betrokkenheid en IT volwassenheid” (Dutch) on Lean Integration. Besides the aspect of getting a lean process to create integrations we also focused on how integration is lean in the sense that it can create value.
Martin van Borselaer asked me to present at a seminar he is organizing on Lean and Agile IT. I’ll be presenting on Lean Integration and will probably also offer a peek into the Integration Factory.
This seminar will take place on Thursday September the 15th at our Whitehorses head office in Nieuwegein, the Netherlands. It’s in Dutch and aimed at our customers or potential customers. More information on the seminar program.
We’re looking forward to share our ideas with you. Hope to see you there!
When you are using Oracle ESB 10g and encounter the message No WebService Provider is registered at this URL when testing a web service from the ESB Console try the following:
EM OC4J_SOA
Verify the ESB web service providers are generated correctly in ESB runtime (known as the esb-rt):
- Login into Enterprise Manager
- Go to the Application Server Control
- Click OC4J_SOA oc4j instance
- Click Web Services tab
- Verify the deployed web services are listed here, and test that services.
In case there are no web service from the ESB runtime (esb-rt) the service providers were not generated correctly, restart ESB-RT:
- Click OC4J_SOA oc4j instance
- Click the Applications tab
- Expand Middleware Services, ESB and esb-dt
- Check the esb-rt and click the restart button
Now check the j2ee/_instance_name_/log/*/oc4j/log.xml to see if the ESB application has started correctly. Verify that ESB-RT application is initialized correctly by searching for ‘ESB bootstrap: Runtime initialized‘ message in the log file. If you also restarted the ESB-DT, verify that ESB DT application is initialized correctly by searching for ‘ESB bootstrap: Repository initialized‘ message in the log file. And finally check that the ESB web service providers were generated correct (see above).
For my own reference some useful AIA 11g Foundation Pack references:
Documentation
The AIA 11g Foundation Pack documentation:
Installation
Installing AIA FP (11.1.1.4.0) on SOA Suite 11g R1 PS3 explained by Edwin Biemond on the Whitehorses blog. The Oracle Installation and upgrade guide to go with it can be found here and a whitepaper on installation topologies and architecture.
Blogs on installing previous versions:
Using Composite Application Validation System for non AIA Composites testing
Usings CAVS to test non AIA composites is described by Edwin Biemond.
The session I presented at the SOA Symposium 2010 is now available online via InfoQ. You can find it as a Service Bus case study. It is introduced as:
a case study of using a service bus in a supply channel connecting a wholesale supplier with hundreds of retailers, the overall context and challenges faced – including the integration of POS software coming from different software providers-, the solution chosen and its implementation, how it worked out and the lessons learned along the way.
Watch the video, download the mp3 or sheets.
This year, in partnership with InfoQ.com (the largest community site for technical architects), 1/4th of the SOA Symposium sessions was filmed and will be published on InfoQ. From early November InfoQ has started publishing these videos. At the time of writing the following videos are available:
Cloudy SOA
This session on Cloudy SOA by Mark Little covers:
an introduction to cloud computing pointing to the fact that the middleware needs of the cloud are similar to SOA’s, showing some of the benefits of running SOA along with the cloud, asking if cloud computing and SOA should evolve together and giving some future directions to consider.
BPM Top Seven Architectural Topics in 2010
Hanjo Normann’s session presenting the BPM Top Seven Architectural Topics in 2010 covers:
how to design a BPM/SOA solution including: modeling human interaction, improving BPM models, orchestrating composed services, central task management, new approaches for business-IT alignment, solutions for non-deterministic processes, and choreography.
Resurrecting SOA
Anne Thomas Manes in her Resurrecting SOA session goes into details on why she:
believes organizations need SOA more than before, but using a redefined SOA based on the SOA Manifesto, focusing on models, methodologies and patterns, not on technology, intended to produce the desired business and technical goals.
For a complete overview of SOA Symposium sessions on InfoQ check their SOA Symposium page.
Categories: Architecture, Release, Service Orientation
Tags: Architecture, BPM, cloud, Erl, ESB, InfoQ, integration, Service Orientation, SOA, SOASymposium
