Thoughts and experiences of an enterprise architect

Google Chrome OS - I told you so

2009-07-09T12:41:00.004+01:00

The Google Chrome OS announcement is a 'I told you so' moment for me. Nothing pleases an analytical mind than when the prediction borne out of analysis turns out to be true. There are enough doubters, doubting motives, timings of this announcement. But I always thought this would happen. Google is not at war with Microsoft, rather it is enabling the uptake of 'the Cloud'. As for enterprises, I

Business IT alignment: Who cares?

2009-06-11T21:33:00.002+01:00

Business IT alignment is a topic that generates heated debates and outright ridicule sometime. There is a Gartner fellow, who declared, "None of you are in IT, all of you are in business". Then some one else claims why IT is so special, no one talks about aligning Finance and Accounting to business. The general feeling is that, it is a non issue.I beg to disagree. All of these commentators are

Retrospective

2009-05-27T16:37:00.007+01:00

Here is a retrospective on some of the blog posts.Incidentally most of them are also top content on this blog per reader's choice.So if you are a recent visitor, there might be a gem you may have missed ;-)Agile, iterative or waterfallCity planning and slum controlCentralised service delivery teamRequirements management is crucialChallenges in using services as integration mechanismRequirements

Open group conference

2009-04-26T21:06:00.006+01:00

In these recessionary times, taking short term view and conserving cash is the mantra. However negligence of architectural matters and short term view, actually adds to long term woes and costs. The way you would not stop essential maintenance of critical components, you must keep maintaining your enterprise architecture. Architectural spend prepares your IT organisation for long term survival

Oracle's Java

2009-04-21T17:17:00.004+01:00

Normally when I refer to 'Oracle' on this blog, I refer to 'Enterprise IT Oracle'. This time I am however referring to Larry Ellison's Oracle Corporation on this blog. It is because its acquisition of one of the significant technologies of 21st century, viz. Java programming language and associated paraphernalia.This is BIG. Large chunk of enterprise IT is done these days, using Java technology

To buy or to build, that is the question.

2009-04-04T08:00:00.003+01:00

Buy before build, is the mantra you would hear more often in enterprise IT. Most analysts would support this line and will have manier reports proclaiming the benefits. However a few independant analysts, tend to put a rather balanced perspective on things. It appears buy or build decisions tend to fluctuate from buy to build and back to buy depending on where the equilibrium has shifted. The

Of TLAs and FLAs

2009-02-27T18:30:00.004Z

In my previous organisation every employee used to have a three letter acronym (TLA) made from employee first, middle and last name, instead of an employee number. There was an anecdote about it as well. The company's then chief, who is also called "Father of the Indian Software Industry" had actually ordered a four letter acronym (FLA). But the software that was used to generate those acronyms,

IBM in cloud.

2009-02-13T16:11:00.006Z

I read about Nick Carr commenting on IBM putting their infrastructure software in Amazon EC2. He is comparing it with IBM's disastrous decision to leave IP rights of Microsoft-Dos with, well, MicroSoft. Is this recent decision really comparable? In case of PC, in hind sight it appears that IBM had erroneously assumed that their micro-processor based PC was non commoditisable, whereas Microsoft

Darwin and enterprise architecture

2009-02-12T21:23:00.003Z

Today is 200th birth anniversary one of the great thinkers of modern times. Darwin presented us with the theory of evolution, summed up as 'natural selection' or 'survival of the fittest'. We also know that applying Darwinism in all spheres (e.g. social sphere - a la Nietzsche/Hitler) is not a good idea. However thats what tends to happen when it comes to enterprise IT. The evolution of

SOA - Dead or alive

2009-02-04T22:05:00.002Z

I had doubted SOA hype years ago in this post about SOA hype. Recently a small storm was raised when Anne Thomas Manes of Burton group blogged about untimely demise of SOA. But curiously, I am not so pessimstic anymore. My feeling is that SOA as an arhcitecture style is now better understood for what it is, than a magic technology silver bullet intended to solve all of enterprise IT problems.

Enterprise IT Oracle revisited

2009-01-27T23:06:00.003Z

This post is prompted by James' post about analyst community and their licensing practices. My thinking is that analyst are resorting to these practices because they feel they are leaking revenue. The revenue is indeed leaked because of sharing of their intellectual property. If analysts replace their current model with 'youtube' type of model, whereby users are required to connect back to

Data and meta-data

2008-12-16T19:21:00.006Z

Data - A letter of recommendation Mr. Most Hated, can always be found hard at work in his cubicle. He works independently, without wasting company time talking to colleagues. He never thinks twice about assisting fellow employees, and he always finishes given assignments on time. Often he takes extended measures to complete his work, sometimes skipping coffee breaks. He is a dedicated

Consumer IT and Archimedes

2008-12-15T09:41:00.001Z

The rise of consumer IT means, everyone now is acquinted with various hardware and software artifacts. Many people have network routers at home, can create a small home office network all by themsalves. Make various applications on different computer work together. They can make applications share resources like printer, fax and scanners. They share data like photos and music across their own

Two computers per employee

2008-10-25T19:25:00.003+01:00

There is an initiative to provide children in developing world with a laptop each. Which is very laudable. What will you think if I were to tell you that enterprises too have similar initiative. They are spending money, even in these turbulent times, to put an extra desktop computer on each employee's desk?Well that's what you do when you put a specialised VoIP phone on each desktop. A VoIP phone

Cloud or SaaS?

2008-10-21T18:49:00.005+01:00

In response to my earlier post Apoorv has pointed that there are questions on viability of SaaS model. My take is that SaaS is a commercial model whereas Cloud computing is an architectural approach. One can deploy cloud computing in an enterprise need not be as SaaS. In the same vein one can deploy SaaS with traditional tools, over proprietary infrastructure without cloud computing.I feel

Google Chrome: Beginning of a new future?

2008-09-02T16:13:00.000+01:00

The new browser released by Google is first nail in the coffin of desktop OS in enterprise computing. Chrome has taken over process management. It needs OS services only for hardware access. Wait for a Google VM directly accessing a hardware abstraction layer. Next step would be, to make it available on BIOS, enabling a full fledged diskless desktop.Now most desktop applications are available

Enterprise architecture: The missing link of business IT alignment

2008-09-01T17:28:00.004+01:00

Business IT alignment is an issue most large enterprises grapple with. Normally there are separate organisational units for strategy and operations in enterprises. The business strategy unit formulates business strategy as a response to business drivers. Business leaders know, how to translate their business strategy into actionable items for business operations. That insured alignment of

Does IT matter?

2008-08-27T17:04:00.008+01:00

It has been more than five years since Nick Carr made his prediction about IT becoming inconsequential. His argument was that IT will become so standardized that it would cease to have competitive advantage. IT would roughly follow a utility provider type of evolutionary path. Since then we have had great strides made in Cloud/Grid computing and it appears IT infrastructure is on its way to

SOA Fable: Can you handle the pressure???

2008-08-25T14:19:00.002+01:00

One of my friends had this experience in recent past, which relates to SOA.He had his storage boiler system replaced with a combination boiler. A storage boiler system, heats the water and stores in a container to be distributed on demand. Whereas the combi boiler does not need a storage tank for hot water. It directly connects mains to all taps, heating the water while its flowing thru the

EA Governance

2008-08-22T13:35:00.011+01:00

It has been a while since I posted on this blog. This discussion initiated by Todd is of some interest to me and got me motivated to post this entry. I had spoken at Open Group Conference, about the same. My presentation can be seen here (subscription required).My concise picture of EA governance is as below.The governance function of EA can roughly be divided into three broad categories, viz.

BPM or Workflow ?

2008-01-31T20:55:00.000Z

This post referred in Todd's post has resurrected an old debate. What exactly is the value provided by BPM over traditional workflow solutions?Those who have worked with traditional workflow solutions know, how there is no concept of end to end process in workflow solutions. The workflow solutions were mainly ground-up automation tools to complete various process steps executed in back-end

SOA Fable: Thermometerman

2007-12-23T16:43:00.000Z

This story is courtesy James Gardner. The story points out that how a shared service provider sticks to service level agreements (SLA) rather than service consumer's satisfaction with service. The SLA often define objective criteria to measure some attribute of service. And attributes covered by SLA do not essentially imply the satisfaction of consumer. Providing personalised consumer

Model driven development

2007-12-02T18:38:00.000Z

Todd has asked a few question about using models during development of software. Though his questions are from Business Process Model perspective, they apply generally to model driven development as a whole. Since I have considerable experience in this area, I would like to comment. In my opinion, modeling does not negate the need for continuous integration nor testing. Unless one can prove

SOA Fable: Do you know the intent?

2007-11-30T16:58:00.000Z

Before advent of SOA, enterprises opened up their central systems to a limited set of users, thru initiatives called 'Extranets'. The idea being stakeholders can have a limited visibility into workings of enterprises which would help them in their businesses, which in turn help the enterprise.So this giant automobile company opened up its inventory to its distributors, and distributors could

People or process?

2007-11-15T18:12:00.000Z

This is an interesting debate going on, that of people versus process in enterprise architecture function. Now that we are on subject let me bring in my perspective.Legend has it that there were weavers in Dhaka region of Bangladesh, who could weave cotton cloth so fine that a nine yard piece would weigh less than 50 grams. Well that art is lost, because those weavers would never codify that