Response to Jonathan’s “Sun’s Network Innovations (3 of 4)” article

I posted the following comment in response to Jonathan Schwartz’s latest blog post and vlog “Sun’s Network Innovations (3 of 4)“, however Jonathan and his blog pixies can’t be up and reviewing this yet because it’s awaiting moderation (and too right too, it’s the dead of night in California, and frankly I’m happy Jonathan is keeping busy running Sun, as he’s our CEO, if you didn’t know).

Hi Jonathan,

In 1998 I was involved in building Harrods Online as Chief Architect (employed by Harrods). We used a heavily Netscape based stack, using both Netscape Web Server and Netscape Application Server. And at the time Netscape had over 56% of the Enterprise Web Server market-share as well as being some of the best available technologies at hand.

Both of these technologies were available under free to use licenses from Netscape, with payment for support on top. Well I have to tell you in three years running this stack in production we never once paid for support, not a bean, nada, not on Christmas day, not on any day. Why? Because these were such stable technologies performing in their core capabilities that we knew from direct experience that very little would go wrong and because we architected a fully redundant and highly-available architecture based around horizontal scaling, network load-balancing, and avoiding session persistence where possible.

Looking back I would have liked to have paid Netscape something, even a token amount, because they were a great company, sadly missed, and perhaps if they’d been able to generate more revenues they’d still be with us. However this was a completely economic based business decision so we didn’t. Of course Sun eventually acquired these technologies through the iPlanet Alliance and we were able to integrate some of the innovation, robustness and domain knowledge into our own technologies.

I really wish at the time MySQL had been available, because we wouldn’t have had to pay Oracle either (our biggest license cost outside of Vignette, which was a core component). And before you ask, no, Harrods Online never went down because of any of the Netscape components, if anything by far the biggest problem areas were Vignette (esoteric, overtly Vignette specialised skill set required) and Oracle (connectivity to Vignette, Netscape, the other technologies we used, a number of content version issues, and it’s applicability as a web-scale technology). I know that some of these issues in these technologies have been resolved, but in both cases this was true then.

What’s cracking is that Sun has some of the best Architecture Services for Open Source deployments, especially large-scale implementations. Sun have a genuine sweet spot in the three areas needed to get these to work in the most cost efficient manner: Open Source Software (low barriers to entry, low barriers to exit, ease of availability, applicability to function), cost effective and highly price performant Hardware (Servers and Storage, both Open Source and Open Standards based), and the Professional and Managed Services needed to tie it all together and ensure operational effectiveness.

Frankly, I suppose we were ahead of the pack in many ways at Harrods Online, because the architectural principles used there are precursors of the one’s you’d see in a modern web-tier architectures, such as Flickr or Delicious. I know that if I was building that now not only would we have a near on 100% Open Source stack, but I’d also be looking at how I could offload some of our costs (especially in terms of low level and non-functionally focused skills and technologies) by utilising a Cloud Computing based infrastructure and platform provider.

All the best,

Wayne

If, and when, it gets authorised I’ll add a link here.

Response to the Capgemini CTO Blog article on the release of TOGAF 9

About five weeks ago, on the 3rd of February (2008), I celebrated the launch of the Open Group’s TOGAF version 9, with a short review of the new Enterprise Architecture (EA) Framework standard.

My article was kindly picked up across the web, notably by the Open Group themselves and by the excellent Capgemini CTO blog in their article “TOGAF 9: A Sunny Day in San Diego“.

Afraid to say I couldn’t help responding to the author of the article, Ron Tolido (VP and CTO Continental Europe and Asia Pacific at Capgemini and Director at the Open Group), by adding a comment to it.

Being so busy I didn’t give it much thought after that, however last night, whilst at the inaugural meeting of the BCS Enterprise Architecture (EA) Speciality Group (SG) I met up with Matt Armstrong-Barnes, Chief Architect for the NHS Data SPINE Programme at BT, and a peer Chartered Fellow of the BCS (FBCS CITP), whom I haven’t seen since we worked together at HMRC.

Speaking with Matt we covered the release of TOGAF 9 and the article I’d written. He hadn’t seen the response I’d left at the Capgemini CTO Blog and guessing that you probably haven’t seen it either and, as it contain some further insight into my opinions on the latest release of TOGAF, I thought I’d repost it here too:

Hi Ron,

Many thanks for the mention; very kind of you.

When I last worked with Capgemini using the IAF I remember it being very much Zachman influenced, dare I say derived, in fact I recall the main overview diagram was extremely similar to the classic Zachman ‘framework’ diagram (a layered approach incorporating the six serving men model).

It’s a good job you guys have donated so much of your time and experience to the TOGAF standard, because frankly the Content Framework (or lack thereof) was the most obvious gap in the TOGAF portfolio. However I look forward to that particular area maturing because it is still only the first iteration. I believe that weaknesses in that particular area are the no.1 reason that Enterprises are still having to adopt more than one EA Framework to achieve a realistic EA.

There is one major gap still in TOGAF of course, but it shares this particular issue with all the major EA frameworks. And that is if only TOGAF could teach one how to architect then we might be getting somewhere!

Then we get down to the ‘minor’ practical areas that still need to be addressed, i.e. addressing ‘Ivory Tower’ syndrome, maintaining programme sponsorship and support, delivering an inclusive EA Governance structure that includes vendors and partners, rotation of EA staff into delivery programmes to maintain estate awareness, maintaining programme relevancy during the current economic downturn (when the Enterprise will be forced to focus on tactical issues), compartmentalising EA delivery into individual ‘steps’ which deliver incremental tactical advantage, getting the EA team to deliver value quickly, avoiding excessive focus on EA tools when the focus needs to be on defining a shareable and readily communicable EA, approaches to delivering an agile EA and derived estate which can readily adopt and react to industry and other outside pressures (such as radical innovation and ‘disruptive’ technology, changes in legislation, the effect of acquisitions and mergers, or new business stream and extreme business change). I would go on, but I’m sure you can think of many more yourselves.

Great post by the way, I enjoyed it a lot and agree wholeheartedly with much that you’ve captured here, especially around standardisation and having a common language across the EA community.

All the best,

Wayne

Since writing this a number of people have added comments, some of them quite informative, and this and the Capgemini CTO blog article itself are well worth five minutes investment if you’re interested in EA or TOGAF:

links for 2009-02-07

The greatest motivation poster ever conceived? 'Keep calm and carry on'

Links for this article:

links for 2009-03-07

UK boffin: Social networking causes cancer, heart attacks, lupus, dementia…• The Register There’s mounting evidence that Facebooking, Twittering, and other “social networking” activities can kill you (or at least impact your health adversely). …..

links for 2009-03-06

Ebay dumps ‘anti-Semitic’ yellow stars – ITExaminer.com – Ebay surrenders to French extremist; it seems that Ebay is so terrified of being branded anti-Semitic it has forgotten that there will always be someone who thinks something daft, and that that is no reason to do.…..

links for 2009-03-05

Who’s responsible for all the concrete carbuncles?~ | Magazine | BBC NEWS | Le Corbusier is thought of by many in the world of architecture as the leading mind of the 20th Century, whose work preceded and defined the wholesale use of concrete in architecture, but as a new. …..

links for 2009-03-04

How the Feds shook hands with an internet paedophileThe Register The FBI “do a deal” with a convicted paedophile for his help in bringing down his botnet contacts; but have the FBI gone too far by dealing with the ‘enemy’? …..

links for 2009-03-03

The science of selling out | Magazine | BBC NEWS | “Is it heartbreaking for Iggy Pop to sell insurance?”, perhaps, but just as heartbreaking to see John Lydon sell butter. …..

links for 2009-03-02

‘Superguns’ of Elizabeth I’s navy | Science & Environment | BBC NEWS | “What we have shown is that the English navy and its gun founders were almost 50 years ahead of their time technologically” concludes Marine archaeologist Mensun Bound of Oxford. …..

links for 2009-03-01

Two sexes ‘sin in different ways’ | Europe | World | BBC NEWS | Women are prouder than men, but men are more lustful, according to a Vatican report which states that the two sexes sin differently. …..

links for 2009-02-28

Global downturn: In graphics | Business | BBC NEWS | Some of the key facts and figures behind the turmoil in the global financial markets; in easy to consume graphical formats. …..

links for 2009-02-27

Home repossessions rise to 40,000 | Business | BBC NEWS | Harrowing news that number of home repossessed in the UK by lenders rose by 54% to 40,000, thankfully this is less than predicted by the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), however they still expect that repossessions this. …..

links for 2009-02-26

  • Another collaboration with Google Maps, showing updated data about approximately 2,500 endangered languages around the world. Out of circa 6,000 existing languages, more than 200 have become extinct during the last three generations, 538 critically endangered, 502 severely endangered, 632 definitely endangered and 607 unsafe. The Atlas shows that 199 languages have fewer than ten speakers and 178 others have 10 to 50. Recently extinct include Manx (Isle of Man, 1974), Aasax (Tanzania, 1976), Ubykh (Turkey, 1992) and Eyak (Alaska, USA, 2008). UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura stressed, “The death of a language leads to the disappearance of many forms of intangible cultural heritage, especially the invaluable heritage of traditions and oral expressions of the community that spoke it – from poems and legends to proverbs and jokes. The loss of languages is also detrimental to humanity’s grasp of biodiversity, as they transmit much knowledge about the nature and the universe.”

links for 2009-02-25

Shark attacks predict economic bubbles, says boffinThe Register A top Florida fish boffin says that the global recession is causing a massive decrease in the number of shark attacks; “I’ve yet to find a surfer who says he or she won’t go back into the water. …..

links for 2009-02-24

Thoughts on hearing that Northern Rock are to lend £14 Billion in mortgages

Just wanted to jot down a few thoughts on hearing that Northern Rock are to release £14 Billion into the UK economy via lending for mortgages.

Frankly it seems pretty obvious that this isn’t just the UK Governments method for pumping liquidity into the UK housing market, but also demonstrates a frustration with the money used to help ‘prop up’ the Financial Sector. Much of the Government bail-outs were supposed to help restart the financial institutions in question to start lending again, this plainly hasn’t happened. I think everyone, especially the UK Government, is disappointed that the money has been used to shore up the massive debts run up, as well as the short-falls exasperated by the world-wide economic downturn.

Northern Rock was the first of the big financial companies to bite the bullet and need to seek massive Government investment to stay solvent, or be nationalised, whichever you prefer.

What’s phenomenal about this apparent ‘turn of face’ given that up until today they had closed their books to new mortgage lending (in fact they had been aggressively repossessing homes across the UK), is how much the Bank had ‘closed the gap’ between it’s original debt and what it now owes; a massive two-thirds, the original level of debt when it sought Government intervention was £27 Billion and it now stands at £9 Billion.

The Shadow Treasury Minister, Greg Hands, is concerned about the dichotomy between existing Northern Rock customers, facing repossession, with all the new mortgage customers; a very valid point given that the Bank has said that it will be restructured, with new mortgages and existing mortgages managed separately, furthering any gap between the two groups.

Evidently this is not all that there is to this story and the three other questions I think we should be asking right now are:

Given that the number of homes in the UK repossessed by lenders rose last year by 54% to 40,000, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), how much was this number contributed to by Northern Rock?

Given that the new management team at Northern Rock successfully decreased the Banks debt by £18 Billion, how much of this was done via straight forward repossessions and how much by other methods, and if replicable in an appropriate manner, can any of these alternative approaches to repossession be turned into ‘best practices’ which can be shared with the rest of the UK banking community to reduce their levels of debt too?

Given that organisations like the CBI are saying if credit isn’t available soon the recession is going to get a whole lot worse what is the Government going to do to get the other Banks and Financial Institutions lending again as soon as possible?

links for 2009-02-23

Steam cashes in on better gaming experience – The Inquirer – The future of distribution is in giving people what they want; immediate access to high quality content. …..

links for 2009-02-22

USA CO2 emissions from fossil fuel (2002 data only) : Project Vulcan : US Scientists from Purdue University have created an interactive Google Earth map showing carbon dioxide emissions across the United States, the high-resolution map shows carbon dioxide emissions in metric. …..

links for 2009-02-21

“Whose data is it anyway?” Facebook in row over who owns *your* data | Technology | BBC NEWS | With Facebook still yet to find a genuine revenue generating business model, there are plenty of people who are uncomfortable not knowing what Facebook might do to achieve profitability.…..