Gartner Integration Summit- Recap

Here is my promised recap of this conference from my perspective

Major Themes

1. SOA Governance - lots of discussion - but I did not see a great deal of take home work that we could pick up - Big push
2. Cloud computing/platform as service - Nick Carr has a talk about the advent of utility computing using the utility industrialization of the late 19th/early 20th century as the main corollary.  Interesting concept that I am still getting my head around
3. SOA/ESB/Registry/Repository - not mentioned in any detail - expected that you have them or do have them BUT informal surveys of the participants suggest this not true - SO, it looks like especially Registry/Repository is still an open market.

Top 3 Sessions attended - Not in rank

1. SOA Business Value
2. Frank Kenney session - always enjoy Frank
3. Web Services vs. REST

Worst 2 Sessions attended - Not in rank

1. SOA Horror Stories - Lots of hype, really lame
2. People side of change - not a great keynote

My conference wrap - up

I will write a more formal session conclusion in the next week or so

Here are my quick thoughts

1. Very good conference that kept my interest the entire time - On my radar for another go in 18 to 24 months - I only skipped the vendor sessions and one main session in three days. The one I missed was taking care of some hotel issues.
2. Blogging was a great way to take notes and publish what I saw. Worked for me
3. Nice facilities and would like to come back again.
4. Love having twitter access at my beck and call when I wanted it; still thinking on how to leverage the idea internally -

The Big Switch: How Will the New Grid Will Transform IT? - Nick Carr

In this session, which draws on the themes of his new book "The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google," Nick Carr puts the ongoing transformation of IT in a larger context. He argues that more and more of the computing functions that companies rely on will shift from internal data centers to the Internet's vast computing grid, as the World Wide Web turns into the "World Wide Computer." He shows how IT, as a business resource, is experiencing a situation analogous to the rise of the electric grid a century ago, with a fragmented IT supply leading to inefficiencies and inflexibilities in the business use of IT. But he also looks at how IT differs from earlier utility models, particularly in its modularity, and he explains how companies have an opportunity to create hybrid systems that leverage the grid while still finding innovative ways to apply Web applications and databases to a new range of consumer products and services. Finally, Nick looks ahead to how IT departments themselves will be transformed by "the big switch."

 

Really a cloud computing model push - that we will eventually move out of data centers -

SOA Horror Stories - last keynote

Here is the presentation

This story is just too scary but reminds me of us in some ways

 

Application Platform as a Service: a Reality Check - Yafim Natis

This the second part of his talk this morning that I saw. That talk and notes were here. The presentation for this is here.

In general, I need to think on this as a concept.  That we would provision our app platform from a supplier at this point is seems a stretch. I am seeing websites doing this in complete. 

Couple of key slides

Portable Personalities

Need to show this to John Hoffler and Randy Burton when I get back - the next generation in virtualization - I did not attend this session but the content was of great interest.

SOA Case Studies: The Numerous Paths to SOA Business Value - Paolo Malinverno

Here is the presentation. It was one that we all need to look at long term

Credit Suisse Story looks like our own in some ways

And the Standard Life story is compelling

 

Final recommendation

Practitioner's Guide: Choosing an Application Platform Stack for an SOA Project - Yefim Natis

SOA applications are divided - need to agile AND be secured and robust.

The Cloud is the third platform - the integration platform is the key to manage the heterogeneity - the today and future of computing - eliminating heterogeneity is a waste of time - IMO - that is a limiting statement.

Important Slide and concepts

Application Server is the workhorse here.

Idea of a SOA Blackplane - a runtime solution space that we should look to add to XCA

Microsoft will continue to grow in the enterprise space with bigger and bigger spaces

BEA and Oracle will be a true mix; first announcement will be July 1st.

There will be a leader in this space from the Cloud - not sure who but one will emerge.

These two slides are good reminders on where the state is

The recommendation slide is nice - good review - we need to look to the cloud vendors in the future

The Session I did not attend Getting Radical Enterprise Value From Web 2.0 Social Software

Slides are here. Looked interesting

heading into Day 3

The home stretch for me; last day and I fly home this evening

1. First day will overlaps where in each session I have to choose; I hate that.

2. I mentioned it rained hard right; well it rained in our room. My wife is here and she had to move our room. The rain came into the room. in fact, we saw numerous places at out hotel with water damage and the gold course was flooded. The debris on the road at WDW was impressive; I was glad to not be in park when that hit.

3. My wife came down with me, with my parents keeping the kids. It has been awesome. It has made the conference a ton better, especially having someone to go out at night. I love having her here. Part of the trick has been that we have a Visa Disney card and have used our accumulated points. Between the points and the corporate coverage, I have been able to have two very nice meals.

4. Last night was Artist Point at the Wilderness Lodge. It is a Pacific Northwest themes restaurant. The major restaurants at Disney hotels often are themed to the hotel motif. We have eaten there before and loved it. Tow favorites are a smoky mushroom soup and the coffee creme bulee. they did not have the dessert. major bummer.  in fact, we went to Kona restaurant over in the Polynesian, and could not get in there. Oh well, we did see the Magic Kingdom fireworks again last night. So, moral of the story - take your wives with you, leave the kids at home - much better experience.

Day 2 observations

More on Process - SOA Governance was the morning focus with some strategy work in the afternoon

The EA track begins tomorrow and we are seeing the blending start

Application Strategy Keynote was really the best part of the day - And we had a wicked thunderstorm while it was occurring.

If You Had an Application Strategy, What Would It Look Like? - Andy Kyte

Great presentation is here

The skill shortage is real - people leaving the industry and new folks not coming in

Strategy should cover 7 years

Great Definition of an application strategy

The application strategy is a very hard space given the layers of the portfolio

A plan is under continuous movement and review it; events will happen, and priorities will change

Application Portfolio Management is hard work

Time to get into the APM space more responsibility - we need to look back at this and get on track

APM is not a tool but a discipline; in fact paper and pencil is a good enough tool; when you choose a tool be very careful.

Much of senior management are firefighters and thus planning is not how they think nor are rewarded

Robert DeSisto Software as a Service -

Presentation is here

Couple of big slides

 

Application platform as service - promising but immature

Gartner 1 on 1 - Paulo

 

My questions his responses

1. SOA Governance - our current approach adding governance checkpoints to our current SDLC- challenges/success in this strategy

Roadmaps in several steps - quality gates need to be happening - looking for acceptance BAP solutions - back of amberpoint do roadmap

SOA Software and BEA infuego BPM

Relatively immature space  - Gartner is writing notes - look for summer for case study

2. SOA Governance tooling - looking at repository tools potentially with workflow - what is the market here and our their emerging best practices we should watch or even adopt

Systinet and Software AG potentially - alliances for federation - Software AG most worried - Amberpoint is sitting

3. SOA COE - role as advisor - review our current XCBS view and the gradual shift to SORs owning and building services -

The COE can exist as forum and focus

Cross LOB COE - staff still within LOB - payback to the owner  for maintenance - chargeback upon the usage  - Leave the service where it use

4. Perceived how cost of model-driven development and the rationale

It is more expensive - need for only the things that change the most so use selectively.

SOA Governance Case Study Panel - John D. Williams and Leo Shuster

SOA Ecosystem at Nat City

ESB between clients and providers - as well with a registry/repository for policies and metrics

DO NOT have a service management solution in place

ESB uses the registry for service location and metadata

Implements a Architecture Review Board/Service Council for approval

Wants to do Service Regression/Load Testing -

My opinion - Nat City put up a bunch of smoke and mirrors - we have more real stuff than they do

Strong governance leads to better quality services, greater reuse and improve efficiency

Avoid politics in governance

QBE the Americas - property and casualty business

insurance companies not typical fast adopters

KPI back to the business to Reuse cost avoidance

Reuse organization - focused on speed

Golden Rule of Reusability

• Have to find it
• what it does
• how to reuse it

Rule of Trust

• Before people will reuse something, the must be able to trust it.

Guidelines for Reuse

• Driven by architecture
• Measured - is that money real?
• use it as real money
• Systematic not opportunistic
• Assets must be owned and maintained

Reuse Lifecycle and SOA Governance

Have an actual reuse architecture for asset provisioning -

Creating reusable assets - will harvest and the reuse center will take and make it reusable the extra work is not project related - better model - Need a reuse center approach :? - to take the exiting assets and elevate them -

Reuse questions  How much do you want to govern/manage

Who pays

• Do not make projects pay extra for uses
• pay for only what they need
• have a reuse center do the extra

Lessons learned-

• build truly reusable business level services
• SOA infrastructure worked well - need to scale
• Easy to be drawn into creating technical services
• Establish reuse measurements and targets
• focus on a single domain

John is moving onto a purchased product in the future for the repository -

Trying to measure the reuse cost versus the benefit to substantiate the reuse center

Funding model - have a supplementary fund (Leo fund) to complete the function

Managing the People-Side of Change: Best Practices for 2008 and Beyond - Jeff Hiatt

No slides

For Project success

1. Sponsorship/Leadership
2. Management
3. Change Management

Most resistance group to change is middle management

Active and visible executive sponsorship

1. At the right level
2. understands their role
3. willing and able to participate
4. willing able to build coalition with key business leaders
5. able to communicate directly with employees

The speed of technology will not be hindered by IT innovation but by the ability to manage the people side of technology changes

Most effective method to communicate change to employees is face-to-face

Communication should talk to change, the risk to not changing - NOT on the technology

Today, on average 25% of resources focused on change

Point-Counterpoint: Web Services vs. REST/POX for SOA Interoperability - Nicholas Gall and Roy Schulte

Presentation is here

Best definition is on WOA I have seen to date

Interesting comment on WOA moving into the A2A space

WOA lives with HTTP as a transfer protocol not just a transport - more generalize the interface

Structure and Trust then SOA is appropriate Ws-* - WOA is a faster 

ATOM is the potential solution for the lack of WSDL

 

 

 

Application and SOA Governance: The Who, What and Why - Matt Hotle

Presentation is here

Governance is important to predictable results

"Through 2010, a lack of working SOA governance arrangements will be the most common reason for SOA failure."

SOA Governance require application governance practices- as the application paradigm begins to break down

Need an explicit SOA architecture - SOA will cost 15 to 20% more over the first two years to build to SOA - long term payoff. Two year plus.

SOA built on a bulletin board style model will not work - not in invented here OR the duplicate services

Notice SOA is now on a level plain but Governance is climbing the hype curve and the tools.

Interesting definition of SOA COE - and how it does not align to GBG T

Caution - with lots of COEs, soon you have no one left to do the work - the RED stuff is in the ICC -

SOA COE has a governance role -