…and I’ll charge you an arm and a leg to make it better. Looks like IBM is starting up a dysfunctional SOA practice. Not surprising really. Consider this quote: “Some organizations may not be happy with their service oriented architectures (SOAs). They may have “unhealthy” SOAs as a consequence of partnering with inexperienced system integrators. They may have proprietary SOA technology in the mix, and it may be difficult to scale operations.”

They will probably make a killing since no one agrees on what SOA really means and all IBM has to do is figure out what you think it is, then convince a few key executives that that’s the wrong idea, thus rendering them instantly unhappy. It was bad enough when selling the buzzword ruled the day, but selling the band-aid will be worse, I fear. This, my friends, is why we never should have let our executives hear “SOA” in the first place. 

Here’s a question: what happens if an organization worked with IBM as their Systems integrator in the first place and is now unhappy with what they got? Would IBM ride in to rescue that organization too? <unrealistic>Maybe for the sake of good-will and a case-study, they’d do it for free.</unrealistic> I wonder how IBM would sell that engagement? Probably by blaming your internal management.

I can’t help but think that this is a case of selling me poison, then following that up by telling me I have a deadly poison in my system and that you just so happen to have the antidote. Not that I am calling SOA poison in any way. Conceptually, it’s just the opposite.

Maybe I’m overreacting or being too negative here. Any one care to chime in with excitement about this announcement?

From December 3-7, Gartner will be holding two back-to-back summits on Application Architecture, Development and Integration and Enterprise Architecture at the Rio in Last Vegas. It looks to be a informative week with some valuable sessions and insight. Todd Biske will be there in two panel discussions and I am looking forward to both of those, along with a number of others currently on the agenda.

Aside from the sessions, I’ve found that I gain the most value from these events when I have a chance to interact with other attendees. Are any other folks reading this planning to attend? If so, drop me a line in the comment section or via email at bsatrom at gmail dot com and we can try to connect during the week. I am always looking to gain the perspective of others in the opportunities and challenges that my EA group faces, as well as hear about the exciting and innovative things that other enterprises are doing. Hope to see you there!

In my last post, I spoke briefly about posting from time to time on the topic of technology that plays a role in fighting poverty. I figured that a good place to start with would be the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program, probably the most notable example of such. There’s not much I can say about this highly-publicized program that hasn’t already been said or written elsewhere, so I’ll just share a couple of resources I have come across recently.

For starters, Ivan Krstic, the Director of Security Architecture for OLPC gave a great talk on the technical ins and outs of the XO Laptop at Google back in April. You can check it out here. It’s an hour long, but worth a watch. (Thanks for Phil for pointing this out to me).

Of course, the biggest news in the XO Laptop department is the Give 1 Get 1 Program, which officially begins at 6 AM Eastern tomorrow. (BTW, the OLPC news site is a great resource for exactly that) The gist of the program is this: You pay $399 for two XO Laptops. You get one and the other is sent to a child in a developing country. T-Mobile has jumped into this promotion by throwing in a year of free T-Mobile Hot Spot access for the donor and EA is graciously donating the original Sim City to be included on all of the laptops.

Professionally, I am interested in Give 1 Get 1 because it seems to have potential to enhance the 1-to-1 model of child sponsorship that Compassion has held to for over 50 years. Imagine the impact of a sponsor purchasing one of these laptops, then designating that the other be delivered as a gift to his or her child. I don’t know if this is possible, probable or neither at this point, but I have contacted Ivan Krstic to ask and I am at least looking forward to hearing a bit more on OLPCs future plans for partnering with international non-profits that have similar goals to OLPC.

If you haven’t seen or read much about the program yet, I would encourage you to go check it out. The work that OLPC is doing is pretty amazing on several fronts: they are pushing the hardware and software envelope, all while providing affordable technology with the goal of improving education and peer learning. I, for one, am excited to continue to watch the program and its impact evolve.

I haven’t blogged much about technology as it relates to eliminating global poverty, mainly because it’s hard for me to do so without talking about the organization for which I work. As has been discussed in the past by Todd Biske, James McGovern and others, corporate bloggers have to be careful to separate our own opinions and stances from those of our organization. Thus, it makes it tricky to talk much about our employers in much detail.

However, I think that putting a gag on myself regarding all issues related to global poverty is a bit extreme. Furthermore, I think that I’m in a reasonable position as an Enterprise Architect working for a non-profit that serves nearly one million children in poverty around the world to try to bring to bear a technology and EA perspective that is shaped by using those tools in that fight against poverty.

I think it’s a perspective that is needed, mainly because some people that I encounter in the EA space are surprised to hear that my organization has any kind of IT organization, much less one with an Enterprise Architecture group. I believe a common assumption is that when the main concern is the bottom line and profit, innovative and mature IT is acceptable, if not vital. The unspoken subtext, of course, is that non-profits have no business dealing with (too much) technology strategy and innovation because we do not deal in profit or competitive advantage (I actually think we do deal in competitive advantage, just not in the way you might think… more on that another day). However, a robust and healthy IT organization that is fully aligned to its business is even more important in the non-profit world, simply because the stakes are higher. Not in terms of profits and jobs, but in terms of lives and quality of life. And I honestly don’t think that I am dramatizing the issue here, though please chime in if you think I am. I am quite passionate about the subject and might need a cooler head from time to time.

I enjoy the fact that James McGovern increasingly uses his blog to raise our awareness about poverty and to influence others to give to worthy causes. My desire is to add a dimension to my own blog that takes a step beyond “knowing“ and “giving” to what we are “doing” with technology in the name of wiping out poverty around the globe. And not just in my organization, either. I think that there are many organizations and individuals out there doing amazing things with technology where the benefit is not a  personal bonus or a shareholder dividend; it is a child who can read and write, a mother who can start a business to feed her family, or a saved life.

Thus, I plan to, from time to time, post articles, links and thoughts under the banner of “Using Technology to Fight Poverty.” I might even, on occasion, discuss the work my organization is doing because I am sure that there are those out there interested in where we are going with technology. Furthermore, we know that there are thousands of brilliant people involved in technology that already support our cause and would be interested in knowing what more they can do to help us. However, please keep in mind that anything I discuss around these topics is and always will be solely my opinion and may or may not reflect the opinion of my employer. That actually goes for anything on my blog, but it bears repeating.

So, keep and eye out for some more posts with this heading. This should be fun…

Last week, Jean-Jacques Dubray published an article on InfoQ regarding Microsoft’s recent announcement of Oslo, a strategy designed to “…take composite applications to the mainstream.” Rather than revolving around a single product, Oslo sets strategic direction for Visual Studio, BizTalk, the .Net Framework, Microsoft System Center and a new product called BizTalk Services. On a side note: Arnon Rotem-Gal-Oz hopes that this final project’s association with BizTalk is more about branding than actual product similarity, a sentiment I share.

After posting this article, Jean-Jacques sent me an email and asked me to share some of my thoughts on Olso for a follow-up article to be published at InfoQ. I sent my thoughts along on Friday, but thought that I would post them here as well.

When we developed a long-term strategy for Composite Applications at my organization, it was obvious that while Microsoft technologies would have a major role to play in many areas of our future-state architecture, there were several vital pieces missing in the Microsoft stack that we would likely need to find elsewhere. I’ve always felt that we weren’t alone in that sentiment, and the Oslo announcement suggests that Microsoft is also well aware of the gaps in their current offerings. While products like Dynamics CRM and MOSS 2007 offer composition scenarios which I regularly point to as examples of end-user and/ or business analyst composition, Microsoft has long been missing the technologies to unify these experiences under a common framework. Though missing in the products themselves, the Composite Applications vision is one that I have seen preached by Microsoft Architects and blogger’s like Mike Walker and others who seem to have a good grasp on the long-term potential of composite applications. The good news about the Oslo announcement is that those individuals are no  longer in the minority. With Oslo, I believe Microsoft has unveiled merely the beginning of a unification strategy that enables composite applications. I believe that this bodes well for clients and non-clients of Microsoft alike.

That being said, There are two reasons why I’m a bit skeptical about the Oslo announcement: For starters, I believe that Microsoft’s stated vision for Composite Applications is too narrow. While the Software + Services and SOA visions are needed, I believe that the end goal of any Composite Applications strategy should be to gradually enable composition up the stack toward the end-user. This is done first by providing a SOA which enables true service and process composition, then by extending those principles to developers of customer applications, business analysts and, ultimately, end users. Oslo speaks well to the former, but the latter is auspiciously missing. I actually don’t believe that such a goal is absent in the halls of Microsoft, but I do believe that it hasn’t permeated across the organization and thus, isn’t given a place in the conversation yet.

The second reason I am hesitant to praise Microsoft for the Oslo vision is because their announcement is related to technologies which are anywhere from 1 year to 3 years or more away from release. Most of the tool updates are two releases away. Microsoft is correct when they say in their press releases that 21st century business is moving faster than IT can deliver, but that statement is true today. Organizations need solutions today, not announcements of solutions coming tomorrow. My organization, for example, cannot wait for a repository to manage models, metadata and services (one of the gaps we knew about in our strategy) when our ability to manage all three is already beyond our control. I honestly believe that Microsoft’s vision for Oslo is a good one, but they are just now announcing plans to provide functionality that most organizations already know they need, which puts them at a disadvantage with those organizations. I can see a day in my company where many of the pieces in the Oslo stack make their way into our architecture, but today we need to keep moving. Of course, the good news is that when SOA and composite applications are done right, vendor lock-in is reduced and organizations can focus on delivering for the business today instead of waiting for the remaining puzzle pieces to fall in place tomorrow.

I’ve worked for organizations where IT moves too fast (and thus wastes money and alienates customers) and others where IT moves too slow (and thus the customers go around IT as much as possible). I’ve also worked in places where IT does both, often in the same day.

This week, I have the pleasure of sitting in all-day meetings related to a series of IT infrastructure projects we are pursuing. The folks in charge of coordinating this effort brought in a vendor to lead a brief engagement designed to help IT project teams and key business stakeholders better understand how to proceed with these key projects. This is a noble goal, and it’s one I support. However, I fear that the engagement was put together too quickly and with almost no deliberation. It’s just my opinion, of course, and I’m sure that this engagement will have some value. I, for one, want to make sure that we obtain that value even though the process has been a bit hasty. But will it have equal value to the dollar amount on the contract? That I don’t know.

To be fair, I’m certain that we’re moving quickly in this effort because we’ve been far too slow with similar efforts in the past. But, it seems as though the pendulum has swung the other direction. So here is the underlying question: How does IT get things done, without moving too fast or too slow? Here are a couple of my thoughts off the top of my head:

1) Empower people in the right places - IT doesn’t need to poke it’s nose into all areas of the business just because something smells like technology. The question is, what information technologies do we need to be involved in?

2) Respect the Business and Keep them Informed - IT managers like to talk about getting users in the room, then they go and demand they be present without respect for the ever-crushing workload which they have to deal with. If you need to move fast, and you need your customer, it’s your responsibility to move mountains for them, not ask that they do so for you. 

3) Remember who you are working for - An extension to number 2. Sometimes is looks like IT is the tail wagging the organizational dog, as if our business units exist to use our technologies. If IT feels the need to get things done fast, then I would imagine that there is a good business reason for doing so (there had better be). If that’s the case, its our responsibility to help the business understand how moving fast is our best bet for meeting that need. When we help the business understand that, they get in our corner and help us move as a partner, not someone we feel the need to drag along.

What else am I missing here? Quite a bit, I’m sure, so additional thoughts would be appreciated.

• SOA: Sometimes it IS about the technology - Both Nick’s post and Andrew McAfee’s original are worth a read and right on. I think the pearl of wisdom is for all of us to stop advocating one extreme or the other (”x is about technology” vs “x is not”) all the time and start using wisdom, common sense and a willingness to either talk about technology (when the situation calls for it, as Nick describes when one must know which “… goals are realistically achievable given current technology trends”) or leave technology out of the discussion (when the situation calls for us to convey to the business that we truly get their business need and aren’t simply looking for a way to implement the cool new technology).
• Why Microsoft Should Not Support SCA - Bottom line as I read this: Microsoft doesn’t benefit and neither does anyone else. It makes sense, but David certainly makes SCA seem like less of a “big deal” standard than others want us to believe. Not sure what I think yet, but  I would highly recommend David’s Introducing SCA article. It’s a good read and provides a good overview of some big technology movements outside of the Microsoft world.

• Green Datacenter Initiative - The idea of “Green IT” is becoming a bigger and bigger deal as more organizations realize that Global Warming is not a joke (it never was) and that the measure corporate ethics and responsibility will increasingly include the impact of their IT organization on the environment. As Simon says, the measurement technology isn’t there yet, but why not start grassroots with your own PC. Downloaded the LocalCooling app Simon links to and get an idea of how little things we all do as individuals does have an impact.

• SSIS Team Development Experiences - Another example of database developers being left out in the cold when it comes to first-class development tools and practices. It’s getting better, but we’re not there yet…
• Adaptive Path UXWeek - Simon Guest is at UXWeek and will be blogging about the experience. I hope that the number of EAs only increases in coming years and hope to attend myself in the future.
• Go old school with a notebook - I’m a tried and true notebook guy. There is no and never will be an adequate replacement for pen and paper for me…
• User experience and the analysts - A nice piece of research done by Rosenfeld Media on major Analysts use of certain UX-related terms. The Gartner ones weren’t surprising to me as a Gartner client (though I would imagine that they would argue that the “Consumerization of IT” term is a UX term, thus should be on the list), but it was interesting to see some side-by-side comparisons. More research along these lines would help an organization like mine have some good insight into which firm, if any, should get our money.
• DSLs bringing the end of single language development? I hope so… especially if one is more open with the terms “language” and “development.”
• Are You a Synthesizer? Enterprise Architects have to be… I sure hope I am. If I’m not, I’d like to become a professional fly fisherman…
• Enterprise 2.0 is about building a collaboration platform that is better than e-mail - The reality, as Jason states himself in this article, is that Enterprise collaboration (I won’t use that term in the title) is less about replacing email and more about repositioning email to be used correctly (messaging) and bringing other tools into the enterprise which are better suited for collaboration (like Parlano). (via Joe Lewis)

• Microsoft: My way or the highway with SOA? Though Microsoft can certainly afford to do “SOA their way” and though such approaches have certainly worked in the past, I wonder if this one might actually hurt them is the long run. As Joe says, “What Microsoft appears to be doing… goes completely against what SOA is supposed to be all about, which is the ability to deploy and run what you need based on what you need, unencumbered by the limitations of vendors’ systems.” Wouldn’t it be ironic if Microsoft’s way of forcing organizations to “do SOA” causes organizations to turn to SOA itself as a way to minimize their dependencies on Microsoft systems?
• Project Zero: IBM enables REST-based development - Not surprising to see IBM adding support for REST, especially since Microsoft is doing the same by adding a Web Programming model to its WCF upgrades in the .NET 3.5 Framework. In many ways, this simply underscores David Chappell’s assertion that the REST versus WS-* debate is over. While we may still have a place in our hearts for one over the other, the major vendors seem to be saying “why not both?”
• Binding SOA to BPM instead of BPM to SOA - Not sure I understand the assertion that we should attach SOA to the swimlane diagram and not BPMN Nick. Pools and Lanes are used heavily in BPMN, so what is it about BPMN that you have an issue with? If it’s the BPEL/automation side of BPMN, then I agree, but I think that BPMN can be very useful to organizations without that side, especially since what you get is a standard Process modeling language where none exists today.
• Why Sales isn’t process driven - According to Steve Jones, the “mechanism for the implementation and measurement of a service” (process) isn’t always the same thing as the drivers for and value of the service (goals). Meaning that our services ought to pay attention to user goals first and the underlying process second. It’s a UCD/UX perspective for SOA…
• PowerPoint: Boon or Bane? I tend to fall into the camp of PowerPoint is a misused tool, not a bad tool in and of itself, though its conventions in the form of automatic title and bullet regions do encourage bad behavior. 
• Stuff - I read recently that it took the self-storage industry 25 years to build the first billion square feet of storage space and only 8 years for the second billion. Yet our houses have grown by 80% and we still face a storage crisis. Stuff is best gotten rid of…

• Enterprise Architecture, REST and SOA all sit down at a bar? - More on REST, SOA and EA and EA’s responsibility to be relevant to project teams.

• Do Enterprise Architects ask Stupid Questions? - There are no stupid questions, only questions that self-righteous people think are stupid.

• Build versus Buy versus Opensource - Good advice if you can get Opensource in the door. Of course, vendors charging a premium to solve common problems already solved should be reason enough to adopt opensource…

• Loc.alize.us - A Google Maps and Flickr mashup that brings photos of different lands to you. I’m planning a trip to Italy right now and it’s nice to be able to get more than just the top-down view that Google Earth and Maps provide. Google Earth has functionality similar to this, though I like the UI here better.

• What SOA needs to learn from Ruby On Rails - Though I’m not sure what “Canned SOA” would look like, I agree with the argument that SOA needs some measure of default convention which can be leveraged.

• The Developer Theory of the Third Place - My third place is usually one of several coffee houses or restaurants with free WiFi close to my work or home. BTW, If you’re ever in Colorado Springs Scott, we’d love to have you drop by and share some of your expertise.

• Free Code - Getting IT out of the Applications business - IT takes EIM and the Business Event Ontology and gives the business (Biz Process Devs specifically) the ability to write “free code.” While it sounds a little counter-intuitive, it certainly has some promise.