Another layer of indirection – Intermediary Pattern

David Wheeler (computer scientist) once said: “Any problem in computer science can be solved with another layer of indirection”.    This is often mis-quoted with “abstraction” substituted for “indirection”.  I think the main idea remains untouched.  We in computer science use this pattern all the time.  Most of widely used patterns are based in creating abstraction layers that hide the complexity of working with the overall system or architecture.  These abstraction layers can be represented as generalized models or algorithms that hide the complexity of the specific implementations. 

Well, that is exactly what we have done with the Managed Services Engine(MSE).  A model was designed to represent useful business logic via endpoints which abstract (hide the complexity of implementation) business services available on the wire to the enterprise.  Hiding the complexity of bindings, protocols, security, technology, etc… is priceless.  In this model the model components can be managed centrally and introduce to a level of management that is consistent across the myriad of services.  But representing today’s cloud of services is not enough, turning around and exposing these implementations in a totally new way with new attributes and behaviors is key to  any enterprise to successfully adopt SOA and enable core business functions in a way that remains under control.

The MSE uses the intermediary pattern to achieve the decoupling of the client and the service implementation.  This pattern has proven very successful for our service virtualization strategy to SOA.  The components of this pattern are:

• Service Client – These are the consumers of the services
• Service Implementation – Specific service implementation.  could be a Database, mainframe, web service (SOAP, REST, POX, etc…)
• Service Intermediary – This is our “Runtime Server”.  This is the heart of the service virtualization strategy.  Virtual Services are expose their Address, Binding and Contracts (ABC) thru the “Runtime Server”.  
• Service Catalog – The metadata that describes the virtual and service implementations must be stored in catalog.  there are two key components here: the Catalog database and the “Catalog Server”.
• Design Tools – An administration tool to help you manage the metadata would make everyone’s life easier.  A WPF based tool that provides visibility across the whole model and exposes features that allow administrators to import metadata for various service implementations makes your life even easier.

Service Intermediary

The MSE’s Service intermediary implementation allows us to host virtual services by reading the metadata that describes what these services Address, Binding and Contracts (ABC).  This intermediary sits between the Client and Service Implementations, thus providing a centrally available interception capabilities such as: Operation Versioning, protocol mapping, monitoring, routing, run-time policy enforcement and custom behaviors.   The value add here is that neither the client or the Service Implementation needed to be touched in order to enable these capabilities.

If you are looking to adopt an Enterprise Service Layering approach a Service Oriented Infrastructure will provide a good framework for centralizing control, improved manageability and visibility.

Virtualizing your Services

The Microsoft Global SOA Practice is happy to announce that our new release of the Managed Services Engine is available now at CodePlex. (here)

This new version is a huge departure from the Management Console snap-in. We now have a Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) administration tool that simplifies management of the various old and new Service Model Components introduced in this version.

TechReady 8

As you probably know by now. I joined Microsoft at the beginning of December 2008. I have been in ramp up mode while trying to contribue as much as possible on sales calls, QA for one of our solutions, and of course all that HR required training.

Today we are less than a week away from Microsoft’s internal technology conference for folks in the field, people just like me!
I am excited about attending my first TechReady. I’ve heard about this conference, kind of like a TechEd but with no marketing.  Highly technical awareness & training.  It was a challenge building my schedule of sessions that I want to attend.  And in more than one time slot I have 2 or 3 sessions that I still have not made up my mind on which one I will be attending.   The tool even syncs up with my Calendar.  That Schedule builder tool was pretty neat and simple to use. I only wish it had to option to automatically suggest a schedule based on topics of interest in combination with my “Track”, in my case Architecture Delivery in SOA.

I will also help one of my colleagues, Chris Madrid, in a Hands On Lab. I will be a proctor during this lab and I am looking forward to answer questions on the SOAInfrastructure solution that the team has put together.  I kind of remember  when I was a Sybase & PowerBuilder instructor back in the day….  those days spent teaching RDBMS design, Sybase administration and deployment, PowerBuilder Basic and Advanced courses in Monterrey, Torreon and Merida.

Can’t drive 55!

I was happy with 6mbps but you can never have enough.  I just upgraded my AT&T Internet service to the MAX! 

My downlowad/upload speed test

I am loving the speed and not to mention how happy I have been with the TV service.  IPTV Rocks!  way to go AT&T Uverse.

IT vs. Business – and old feud

More than once I’ve heard technologists complaint about the business and how they don’t understand the issues the IT faces to provide appropriate Service Levels to the business, on the other hand, I also hear the complaints of the “Business” on how IT and the solutions intended to provide functional services are not flexible and take too long to implement.

Who is right?  BOTH!

Until recent times, we had not been able to provide better alignment between IT and Business.  Yes, I know that we have preached about it for years if not decades, but reality is that the internal IT department is no longer the preferred IT Services provider and that many of the core IT solutions (e.g. ERP, messaging, etc…) are an impediment to agility in the business.

So, how are we to solve this intricate and complex problem? The answer seems simple at first.  Technologists will propose Service Oriented Architecture principles to be adopted, the Business will demand Agile, nimble solutions. But more than one enterprise will lose sight of the greater goal before they are done implementing something that works.

It is absolutely critical to have a good plan for this enterprise transformation, a plan that includes details for sourcing options (cloud computing, SaaS, etc…), organizational (IT and business), technology, security, and operations among others.  My point is that this is not only a technology solution and any plan that does not include more than technology is destined to fail.

I will be sharing more thought on future blog posts about what things should be considered in order to implement a successful Service Oriented Strategy that will enable business agility.  Keep in mind that not all companies face the same issues and that IT /Business dynamics are different from company to company.  Nevertheless, the same principles might apply and the detail implementation plans should be customized for each organization.

My Experience with Cloud Computing

Working with the Energy and Utilities vertical at nGenera we are seriously considering hosting a new product offering on the cloud using Amazon’s EC2 web service.

My experience so far is very positive.  Easy to sign up, easy to use, easy to administer (even with the command-line tools) and the price…  can’t beat that!  at $0.10 / instance hour it beats the typical hosting agreements.

even for a 24/7 site at an average of $73 / month plus the data transfer it looks like a very good option.

 

Lost Steam? Find your “lost soul” with Social Media!

Everyday I see more and more of the “wikinomics” concepts being applied in real business scenarios.  One of the latest is Starbucks.  they have been loosing steam and they are now brewing a social media project in order to find their ”lost soul”. http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/home/home.jsp

Interesting to mention that this is build on force.com.

Managing the Innovation Process

Recently I have been working with our y own Agile and Collaborative Technology group and with customers on the very topic of this post.

There is so much to lean and unlearn about the Innovation Process that I recommend reading the following two books:

ThinkerToys by Michael Michalko and Wikinomics by Don Tappscot/Anthony Williams (by the way Don and the company he founded, New Paradigm, are now part of the BSG Alliance.)

These two books will provide some specific techniques and fresh ideas on transforming your company’s talent into Next Generation Talent. 

Speaking of innovation, I also wanted to share my experiences and interesting finding while briefing with customers.

One thing in common that I hear time and time again is that the customers are pretty sure where they want to go (NGE), but they are not sure how to get there.  This is where BSG Alliance comes into the picture.  We are creating a platform to assist these companies with the journey into the Next Generation Enterprise (NGE) space.  This is a comprehensive platform composed of services, offerings, tools, education, methods, On Demand apps, etc… that will enable customers and guide them throughout the transformation.

Such platform is innovative in nature and it will be an NGE enabler for the Enterprise.

 keep tuned as I intend to share more on this last topic.

Enterprise 2.Next

I recently saw a similar product to MS Surface on TV.  Can’t recall the name, but while googling for it instead I found what appears to be the mother of all touch-screens.   This is a multi-touch, collaborative interactive media wall. 

Just think about the collaboration possibilities!

If you are interested you can get your own Intearctive Media Wall for $100K.  Available only in Neiman Marcus’ Catalog.   (http://tinyurl.com/2f6842)

Now that I think about it, where else could I get such a gift?  Only at Neiman Marcus, the same catalog where I could get a Galactic Charter to Space.

 http://www.perceptivepixel.com/

 I will keep looking for that other interactive collaboration table, but after seeing this one not sure if I should look for that other skimpy table model. 

The Next Generation Enterprise and Enterprise 2.0

The following is my point of view on a topic that has been getting a lot of attention lately.  There are two camps on Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0.  Each one has some very good points of view and relevant experience on the subject matter.  I will discuss briefly Enterprise 2.0 and how it relates to a Next Generation Enterprise.

Enterprise 2.0 is commonly defined as the technology and business practices that promote collaboration and free information sharing.  Enterprise 2.0 makes accessible the collective intelligence of the organization, thus translating this into competitive advantage in the form of increased innovation, productivity and agility.

I agree with all of these concepts.  The increased potential due to self-organization collaborative structures combined with the ease of information flow brings supports the idea of agility, flexibility, productivity and innovation.

When I read about Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 for the most part the emphasis is on the collaboration paradigm, which is one of the main components of this initiative.  But I don’t see much on the integration to the Line of Business applications or Enterprise applications that are ingrained in the organization.  Many enterprises have adopted ERP systems and other enterprise services such as messaging and middleware.  And although they will benefit from the Enterprise 2.0 adoption there is still a gap that must be filled.  Bernard Lunn wrote a thought-provoking article on some of the topics I am describing here.

Let’s be cognizant of the fact that the impact to the enterprise due to the adoption of collaborative technologies will not be significant or even relevant if the underlying systems, where the real business process is implemented, can not be rapidly adapted to support the outcome of the wave of innovation and collaboration brought by Enterprise 2.0.  Most of the investments in IT have been on these Enterprise Systems and Line of Business systems that implement the mission critical business functions.  From Purchase Orders to Manufacturing functions, from inventory to accounting, and on, and on…    In addition to the “core” business functions we can also find systems that support decision making and other relevant supporting functions.

As a case study I will describe a “Global Company” that provides specialized equipment.  The “Global Company” needs to maintain its competitive advantage by providing new products quickly.  Their customer base has become more demanding wanting quick response and shorter product development cycles.  They also experienced more competition in the area as new comes to the market offer similar products.  And on top of that they see that their Research and Development group has been expanding due to recent acquisitions.  Let’s keep this scenario in mind for future reference.  This scenario is not too far from reality as I was involved on a project to assist the organization with the design for a global collaboration platform a few years ago.

This is where the overlooked component of Web 2.0, the technology paradigm, is absolutely necessary in order to transform an organization from a Typical Enterprise to a Next Generation Enterprise.  Even more important is the convergence of the collaborative paradigm with the day to day business functions and underlying systems.

The business logic that implement mission critical business functions is locked into legacy ERP and LOB systems and other supporting systems and workflows.    This is where Service Oriented Architecture provides an important foundation for the NGE.  BPM also adds to the flexibility required to quickly adapt the business processes.   

Going back to the “Global Company” case study.  The globally distributed  R&D group needed to collaborate more and expand their participation to multiple projects at the same time across the globe.  The tools that the R&D used were commercial off the shelf (COTS) tools focused in Mechanical Engineering and electrical systems design.  The new collaboration platform needed to seamlessly integrate the work products and plans produced by the use of the Design Software to a globally available document storage for continued collaboration on the plans and designs.  The intention was to provide ways to capture relevant information as it concerns the product being designed.  All other departments would have the opportunity to collectively participate throughout the product development process, from inception to delivery.  ”Global Company” wanted to identify the changes that needed to be made to the operating model and business processes in place to support the development and release of the new products, and the awareness of the new products throughout the organization will provide multiple points of view on what needs to change internally as the product is being designed and developed.  Eventually the product design had to be broken-down to components that could be sourced to partners and suppliers, but the overall process will continue to be centrally managed in their existing ERP platform.  They also needed to collaborate with their partners during the development of the product.  This is a good example of what I mean by an integrated collaborative platform.

A Next Generation Enterprise is an On-Demand Enterprise.  One that is connected end-to-end and is flexible and responsive to the Economic Pressures and changing markets.  One that is built on a flexible platform where collaboration and Enterprise systems are fully integrated.  One that has the flexibility to source services from the cloud or internally due to a flexible, agile business and technology platform.

Business Involvement, collaboration, technology and business agility,  and the convergence of Business and IT are the imperatives to the Next Generation Enterprise.