The 2006 Rational Software Development Conference is taking place these days in Orlando, Florida – and Kelly Drahzal from IBM Rational is blogging live from the conference.
[Via Andy Piper]
Tag Archives: software architecture
Microsofts Skyscrapr architecture site launched
Microsoft has just launched a community for IT architects called Skyscrapr. Skyscrapr is described as:
Skyscrapr is your window on the architectural perspective. Discover the different disciplines of system architecture, as well as perspectives on building successful systems. Check out our architects’ blogs, learn about industry trends, download webcasts, watch videos, find training, and more.
The site contains several blogs but I have trouble subscriping to the RSS feeds using Bloglines. Perhaps this is due to the site just recently being launched. The site looks promosing though and I plan to have a further look at the site later.
[Via Architects’ Linkblog]
Dana Bredemeyer and Ruth Malan: Resources for Software Architects
I just came across Resources for Software Architects – a very interesting site on software architecture by Dana Bredemeyer and Ruth Malan.
The Software Architecture Links section of the site has lots of links to resources on software architecture including links to blogs by software architects. Ruth Malan herself has a blog called A Trace in the Sand. Another interesting blog is the Architect’s Linkblog which “is a resource to help architects and aspiring architects keep up to date on areas relevant to being an architect“.
Dana Bredemeyer and Ruth Malan are also the authors of the Software Architecture Action Guide Book.
Tutorial: Visualize with Rational Software Modeler: UML 2.0 modeling
A new tutorial for Rational Software Modeler has been published: Visualize with Rational Software Modeler: UML 2.0 modeling. The tutorial will introduce you to some of the visual UML 2.0 modeling capabilities in RSM.
A similar tutorial from March 2006 is available for Rational Software Architect: Visualize with Rational Software Architect.
Down for maintenance?
As I write this, the IBM developerWorks site is down for maintenance… perhaps someone should have a look at the web architecture behind the developerWorks site to avoid downtime when doing maintenance 😉
“The IBM developerWorks Web site is currently under maintenance.
Please try again later.”
Actually I was going to the developerWorks site to read an article on discussions of architecture issues called “developerWorks bloggers on Architecture, Part 2” (as pointed to by Bobby Woolf).
The benefits of software architecting
Peter Eeles (Senior IT Architect, IBM) has published his fourth and final article on developerWorks Architecture in a series on software architecture – this time on the benefits of software architecting. The article “covers the benefits that a business and an IT organization can derive from a sound software architecture“.
The article appears in the May 2006 edition of The Rational Edge.
Tutorial: Hello World, Part 1 – Rational Software Architect
A new tutorial called “Hello World, Part 1: Rational Software Architect” has been posted on developerWorks. The tutorial is the first tutorial in the “Hello World! Series”, which will provide high-level overviews of various IBM software products. Part 2 of this series will introduce you to Rational Application Developer.
The tutorial “introduces you to IBM Rational Software Architect, and highlights some basic features of Rational Software Architect with a hands-on exercise. Learn how to design an application using UML diagrams, publish the model information into a Web page, and transform the design to Java code using Rational Software Architect.”
Update February 28, 2007: An updated tutorial for Rational Software Architect V7.0 has been published.
Mainframe for the masses?
Yesterday on April 27 IBM announced a new mainframe for small and medium sized businesses called the IBM System z9 Business Class.
From the press release:
“IBM today launched a new System z9 Business Class mainframe with pricing starting at around $100,000 and designed to tackle the critical computing challenges of our time: the coming wave of automated Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), new heightened expectations for data security and the rapid expansion of emerging markets.”
The mainframe is very useful for virtualization – as mentioned in the press release: “one System z9 Business Class system might handle the workload of up to hundreds of distributed servers based on Unix or x86 class systems.”
eWeek.com has an article on the announcement [via the Mainframe blog].
I have previously blogged about running Linux on the mainframe.
Update: a draft Redbook called “IBM System z9 Business Class Technical Introduction” is available.
Update 2: IBM Eye has also blogged about the announcement.
Architectural patterns and Domino (Show’n Tell Thursday)
This is my first contribution to the Lotus Notes and Domino Blogging Community Show’n Tell Thursday series. I will give a high-level introduction to architectural patterns using Patterns for e-business as the specific example of architectural patterns and introduce how Patterns for e-business can be used for Lotus Domino applications.
What are Patterns for e-business?: Patterns for e-business are specific architectural patterns and not design patterns (that can be transformed directly into code such as fundamental, creational, structural, behavioral, and concurrency patterns). From the Patterns for e-business site: “Patterns for e-business are a group of reusable assets that can help speed the process of developing Web-based applications” and “customer requirements are quickly translated through the different levels of Patterns assets to identify a final solution design and product mapping appropriate for the application being developed.”
The Patterns for e-business site also describes the process to follow to arrive at a specific architectural pattern for a specific business problem: “For simpler implementations, the Patterns Web site is designed to navigate you through a logical, step by step process to arrive at a previously tested solution design appropriate for use in your e-business application deployment. The steps involved in this process are as follows:
- Select a Business pattern to meet the needs of the application you’re developing.
- Select an Application pattern that can implement the application’s specific functionality.
- Review Runtime patterns and select a pattern that satisfies the system requirements of the solution.
- Review Product mappings to determine which products have been successfully used for the Runtime pattern selected in step 3.
- Review Guidelines and related links for the Application pattern and product mapping you selected in steps 2 and 4.“
Patterns for e-business are generic architectural patterns for e-business implementations and can be used with any type of application servers and middleware – not just IBM products. As it is stated: “Note also that, where IBM products are listed as part of pattern implementations, IBM products are not the only solution option.”
The pattern implementations include Self-Service and Collaboration patterns implementations using Domino and Websphere which makes this interesting for Domino developers, architects and administrators. The specific Domino and Websphere product mappings shows how to implement the different patterns such as putting a load balancer and a caching proxy (reverse proxy) in front of several back end Domino servers but also how to combine Lotus Domino with Websphere, Sametime, external directory servers and relational database servers.
Several redbooks and other resources exist on the subject of Patterns for e-business.
Tutorial: Explore database tools in Rational Data Architect
A new tutorial called “Explore database tools in Rational Data Architect” has been posted on developerWorks.
The tutorial “guides you through the steps to begin database development using Rational Data Architect. You will learn how to create, edit, deploy, and debug SQL stored procedures. This tutorial also covers how to share a project in CVS.“