@adrianrcampbell wants to explain #entarch to IT architects who don’t see the wood for the trees (via @itworks). Adrian reckons that the primary Purpose of Enterprise Architecture is to support strategic change.

@nickmalik says that IT Archs still won’t get it. “Need examples of individual activities that make a difference.” So let’s hope Adrian provides some useful examples in his subsequent posts.

In the meantime, I’m concerned that the phrase “supporting strategic change” lacks bite. What is support really worth? Let me look at a parallel case – sports coaching.

Let’s say that the purpose of a sports coach is to support one or more athletes and help them win competitions. For example, Scottish tennis star Andy Murray has recently appointed another former tennis star Ivan Lendl as his coach. This follows Murray’s lack of success at the highest level – his repeated failure to win a Grand Slam tournament. Perhaps Lendl’s presence on Team Murray will make some unspecifiable difference to Murray’s performance; but even if Murray’s performance now improves, nobody can ever be sure how much difference is due to Lendl. Murray has survived without a coach for extended periods, and might possibly have won sooner or later anyway, so we have to regard the coach as an optional extra. There is a sense that the appointment of a coach is an admission of some inadequacy on Murray’s part. (John Seddon would call this “failure demand”.)

At this level considerable sums of money will change hands, and it is not clear how this is negotiated. What is a fair reward for the “support” of the coach? Does the coach get a flat fee or a percentage of winnings?

I don’t think there are many enterprise architects who work on a no-win-no-fee basis. But there are certainly many executives who believe they can manage so-called strategic change perfectly well thank you, without having enterprise architects sitting in the player’s box tutting and fretting. It’s not just IT architects who don’t appreciate enterprise architecture.

I will join the OPN Forum in Malaga Spain, on February 7th & 8th 2012. If you want to join just click on the link:

#entarch @leodesousa asked if one had to teach a 1 wk mod on EA, what would be the approach?
@leodesousa asked if it was necessary to say what #entarch was before describing the value+process

I am not convinced it is necessary, and I started a discussion on Linked-In Does it matter what enterprise architecture is?

@nickmalik suggested tellimg story of a company without EA doing planning. Show class complex / silo happens. Do Root Cause Analysis … then walk them through EA data collection, EA taxonomy, and models. ask class to make decisions again w/ data

Nick’s solution to Leo’s requirement assumes the goal is to appreciate the difference between EA and its absence. Yes, as foundation, says @nickmalik Build understanding as first step to empower collaboration between biz and #entarch

@leodesousa confirms that his objective is for the students to know there is an approach called #entarch that can help manage chg … I would want them to know enough to ask for #entarch services to help the business – partnership … which is a good way to explain the capabilities and value that can be derived from a planned approach

@aleksb6 is trying to cope with the idea that value of a planned approach needs to be explained … can’t we just tell people to go read The Art of War before they start learning #entarch ? … imo #theartofwar is a pre-req for any strategy/planning function, not just #entarch

---

My idea of a learning objective is that the students learn to do something, not that they are persuaded of (the value of) something. What is more important for the students to be able to do at the end of the week – talk about architecture or solve real business problems? And if the students manage to solve some meaningful problems using the tools of enterprise architecture, this is surely more likely to convince them of the value of EA than any amount of theory and rhetoric?

How does reading The Art of War contribute to such learning objectives? Clearly there is a value in shared stories, and being able to refer to certain patterns of activity. @greblhad has been posting an EA version of the Art of War by instalments. Maybe when he’s finished he can do an EA version of the Aenead: “De Architectura Virumque Cano”.

(I don’t know any Latin by the way; I just plugged the title of one work into the first line of another. Doesn’t that always work?)

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SOA
& WebCenter & BPM & WebLogic Partner Communities

Take
this opportunity and register now for the Oracle Fusion Middleware Partner
Community Forum that will be held in Malaga on February 7^th
and 8^th. Registration is free of charge, except in case of
cancellation or no show (cancellation fee € 150).

During
this highly informative event you can learn about partner success stories,
participate in an array of break out sessions and exchange information with
other partners.

What are the Benefits for Partners?

• learn how to sell the value of Fusion Middleware by
  combining SOA, BPM, WebCenter and WebLogic solutions
• meet with Oracle SOA, BPM, WebCenter and WebLogic
  Product Management
• exchange knowledge and have access to competitive
  intelligence
• learn from successful SOA, BPM, WebCenter and WebLogic
  implementations
• learn about WebCenter Sites and WebLogic12c
• network within the Oracle SOA & BPM Partner
  Community, the Oracle WebCenter Partner Community and the Oracle WebLogic
  Partner Community

Additionally
to the Fusion Middleware Partner Community Forum, you can participate in technical
hands on workshops on February 9^th and 10^th.
The goal of these workshops is to prepare you for customer implementations.

To
Register and for more information on the agenda, logistics and contact, please
click here.

Google has been hoist by its own petard: it seems obliged to ban its own browser from its own search engine for infringing its strict rules. Apparently the infringement resulted from some misbehaviour somewhere down the subcontract chain, unknown to Google itself or its prime subcontractor (which with fitting irony is called Unruly Media). A number of blogposts were created to promote Google Chrome, containing direct hotlinks to the Chrome download page. Google has recently penalized a number of other companies for such behaviour, including J C Penney, Forbes and Overstock. See also my 2006 post on BMW Search Requests.

A number of offending posts were discovered because they contained the magic words “This post was sponsored by Google”, and the Google search engine dutifully delivered a list of webpages containing these words. (This kind of transparency was foreseen by Isaac Asimov in a story called “All the troubles of the world“, in which the computer Multivac was unable to conceal its own self-destructive behaviour.)

As a number of search engine analysts have pointed out, there are two problems with the sponsored pages. Besides containing the offending links, they are also pretty thin in terms of content. (Google has recently developed a search filter code-named Panda, which is intended to demote such low-value content, but this filter is extremely costly in computing power and is apparently only run sporadically.) Many of these pages credit Google Chrome for having helped a company in Vermont over the past five years, despite the fact that Google Chrome hasn’t been available for that long. None of them explain why Google Chrome might be better than other browsers.

So here we have an interesting interaction between the elements of VPEC-T.

Value	How is commercial sponsorship reconciled with high-value content? Does this incident expose a conflict of interest inside Google?
Policy	How does Google apply its strict rules to itself?
Events	How was this situation detected (with the aid of Google itself)? Will any future incidents be as easy to detect?
Content	What is the net effect on the content, on which Google’s market position depends?
Trust	What kinds of trust have been eroded in this situation? How can trust be restored, and how long will it take?

---

Sources

Aaron Wall, Google caught buying paid links yet again (SEO Book 2 Jan 2012)

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Jaw-Dropping Sponsored Post Campaign For Chrome (SearchEngineLand 2 Jan 2012)

Charles Arthur, Will Google be forced to ban its own browser from its index? (Guardian 3 Jan 2012) Google shoves Chrome down search rankings after sponsored blog mixup (Guardian 4 Jan 2012)

1. Create c:\stageFMW to hold the download files used for installation

2. Download the installation files to c:\stageFMW as follows:

• ofm_soa_generic_11.1.1.5.0_disk1_1of2.zip and ofm_soa_generic_11.1.1.5.0_disk1_2of2.zip to c:\stageFMW\SOA
• ofm_rcu_win_11.1.1.5.0_disk1_1of1.zip to c:\stageFMW\RCU
• ofm_osb_generic_11.1.1.5.0_disk1_1of1.zip to c:\stageFMW\OSB
• jdevstudio11115install.exe, soa-jdev-extension.zip and bpm-jdev-extension.zip to c:\stageFMW\JDEV
• wls1035_oepe111172_win32.exe to c:\stageFMW\Oracle WebLogic Server + Coherence + OEPE – Package Installer
• OracleXE112_Win32.zip to c:\stageFMW\DB

a) Oracle Database 11.2 Express Edition Beta (the express edition does not meet the minimum version requirement for supported use, but will generally work in a personal development environment)

Important note:

If you are using Oracle XE as your database, you need to set the RCU_JDBC_TRIM_BLOCKS environment variable to TRUE prior to running RCU.

set RCU_JDBC_TRIM_BLOCKS=TRUE
echo %RCU_JDBC_TRIM_BLOCKS%

Otherwise you‘ll have the following error when starting weblogic server:

oracle.mds.exception.MDSExceptionList: MDS-01329: unable to load element “persistence-config“
MDS-01370: MetadataStore configuration for metadata-store-usage “OWSM_TargetRepos” is invalid.
ORA-04063: package body “DEV_MDS.MDS_INTERNAL_SHREDDED” has errors
ORA-06508: PL/SQL: could not find program unit being called: “DEV_MDS.MDS_INTERNAL_SHREDDED“
ORA-06512: at line 1

b) Oracle WebLogic Server + Coherence + OEPE – Package Installer (to install also Oracle Service Bus and use Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse (OEPE), the IDE for this release of Oracle Service Bus)

c) Repository Creation Utility 11.1.1.5.0

d) SOA Suite 11.1.1.5.0 (part 1) and SOA Suite 11.1.1.5.0 (part 2)

e) JDeveloper 11.1.1.5.0

f) JDeveloper extension for SOA (Start JDeveloper and select Help/Check For Updates to install automatically or manually download the SOA Composite Editor, check ‘Install From Local File’ and select the downloaded file)

g) Oracle Service Bus 11.1.1.5.0

3. Follow the instructions of Quick Start Guide for Oracle® SOA Suite 11gR1 (11.1.1.5.0) – Version 1.2, August 2011 to the installation.

Thank you!

The call transcript from TIBCO’s Dec 21 review of Q4 results is great reading.  Starting from a simple Rete Algorithm and the insightful acquisition of Spotfire, TIBCO has transformed itself from a technical middleware vendor to a promising enterprise platform.

TIBCO has a long way to go in making its business optimization offerings less technical, but for those that can tolerate less alignment between IT and the business than may be ideal, TIBCO is leading the way in integrating technical agility with business visibility.

It will be tough for Oracle or IBM or SAP to close the gap with what TIBCO has.  Don’t be surprised if rule-based event-driven business processing drives the acquisition of TIBCO by one of these over the next two years.  The growth rate certainly justifies it!  And it won’t stop.

An article titled "Solving the SOA
Governance puzzle: Taking a "Bite-Sized" approach" authored by Oracle’s Jyothi Swaroop was published as the
cover story in the December issue of Service Technology Magazine.

Abstract:
SOA Governance initiatives help organizations optimize
their service-oriented architecture (SOA) by providing a means to reduce
risk, maintain business alignment and show the business value of SOA
investments. But all too often these initiatives can be seen as daunting
projects that are overly broad and complex, require too many resources
and are too time consuming.  In this article, Oracle’s Jyothi Swaroop
will explain how organizations can take an incremental approach to SOA
governance initiatives to meet their specific needs. This will include
an overview of how SOA governance technologies can support specific
tactical level projects and yet ensure the organization is able to
optimize the entire lifecycle of its SOA.

Read the complete article

#entarch @lapalj has written an interesting article on the Three Schools of Enterprise Architecture.

The schools are distinguished along two dimensions: scope and ends (purpose).

Scopes	Ends
Enterprise wide IT platform (EIT). All components (software, hardware, etc.) of the enterprise IT assets.	Effective enterprise strategy execution and operation through IT-Business alignment. The end is to enhance business strategy execution and operations. The primary means to this end is the aligning of the business and IT strategies so that the proper IT capabilities are developed to support current and future business needs.
Enterprise (E). The enterprise as a socio-cultural—techno-economic system; hence ALL the facets of the enterprise are considered – the enterprise IT assets being one facet.	Effective enterprise strategy implementation through execution coherency. The end is effective enterprise strategy implement. The primary means to this end is designing the various facets of the enterprise (governance structures, IT capabilities, remuneration policies, work design, etc.) to maximize coherency between them and minimize contradictions.
Enterprise-in-environment (EiE). Includes the previous scope but adds the environment of the enterprise as a key component as well as the bidirectional relationship and transactions between the latter and its environment.	Innovation and adaption through organizational learning. The end is organizational innovation and adaption. The primary means is the fostering of organizational learning by designing the various facets of the enterprise (governance structures, IT capabilities, remuneration policies, work design, etc.) as to maximize organizational learning throughout the enterprise.

Besides scope and purpose, I have always considered it important to identify a third dimension of perspective (viewpoint). (For example, I talk about these three dimensions in my 1992 book on Information Modelling, pages 16-22.)

Among other things, perspective helps us to address the question: What kind of system is the enterprise being understood as? For example, the (micro-)economic perspective views the enterprise as a production system (value chain or value network), while the management cybernetic perspective (such as Stafford Beer’s Viable Systems Model) views the enterprise as a thinking system or brain. Gareth Morgan’s book Images of Organization contains a good survey of several contrasting perspectives.

Most enterprise architects in the first school adopt the traditional IT perspective of regarding the enterprise as an information processing system. Most of the well-known EA frameworks (such as those listed on the ISO 42010 website) are solidly within the first school.

Lapalme’s second school explicitly invokes the socio-cultural perspective, and calls for all facets of the enterprise to be considered – this clearly implies going beyond the traditional IT perspective.

However, there is a considerable body of work that looks at the enterprise-in-environment, but remains within the IT perspective. This would include the Open Group work on the extended enterprise, as well as the Systems-of-Systems community. A key scoping question here is the exercise of governance over large distributed systems of systems. Mark Maier distinguished between directed and emergent systems (or we might think about directed and emergent enterprises), and this has been developed into a four-part schema by the US Department of Defense: Directed, Acknowledged, Collaborative and Virtual. Some useful work at the SEI, where this thinking has been connected into work on SOA and enterprise architecture.

Lapalme’s article identifies James Martin as one of the leaders of the third school, based on a minor work published in 1995, but most of Martin’s work belongs solidly within the first school. In his 1982 book, Strategic Data-Planning Methodologies, Martin shows how IBM’s BSP methodology could be used to decompose the activities of the organization, as a precursor to planning IT systems. The primary aim of such methodologies from the 1980s onwards was to identify opportunities to install more computers and develop more software, and I think it is no coincidence that a number of the pioneers of enterprise architecture (from Martin to John Zachman) had worked for IBM. See my note on The Sage Kings of Antiquity.

So I think it makes sense to divide Lapalme’s third school into two distinct sub-schools. There is clearly a lot of work in School Three A, which extends the scope of architecture without introducing the socio-cultural or other perspectives which Lapalme associates with School Two. There is as yet very little formal work in School Three B. 

School One Single Enterprise IT Perspective	School Two Single Enterprise Multiple Perspective
School Three A Extended Enterprise System of Systems	School Three B Ecosystem Multiple Perspective

---

James Lapalme, “3 Schools of Enterprise Architecture,” IT Professional, 14 Dec. 2011. IEEE computer Society Digital Library. IEEE Computer Society, http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MITP.2011.109

After the Sun acquisition, largely welcomed by customers and industry alike, Oracle expressed a strong commitment to support Java CAPS customers in both their current investment as well as in delivering options to facilitate their migration to Oracle Fusion Middleware  (and more specifically Oracle SOA Suite).

Oracle is committed to preserve the investment of Java CAPS customers. This commitment has been demonstrated through the extension of most support timelines previously announced by Sun as well as the addition of Indefinite Sustaining Support options – see the Oracle Lifetime Support Policy for Oracle Fusion Middleware brochure for exact dates.

For customers ready to migrate to SOA Suite, Oracle offers a range of benefits, commercial ones as well as technical ones, with the goal to minimize costs and risks.

First, Oracle offers a license migration program that includes license credits and no extra support cost for legacy software during the migration phase, for an extensive period of time (please contact your Oracle sales representative for the exact details of the license migration program and support benefits). It is also important to note that key Java CAPS libraries and components are now included in the Oracle SOA Suite license. This was done to ensure that you can run migrated artifacts that have a dependency on these libraries without having to keep your full Java CAPS licenses.

Secondly, Oracle offers expertise through Oracle Consulting Services. Our OCS team has expertise in both Java CAPS and SOA Suite and has helped several Java CAPS customers to take advantage of the robust, scalable, feature-rich and cost-effective SOA Suite while retaining their, often large investment, existing code already running in Java CAPS. OCS offers “SOA migration assessment and planning services” that focus on the critical planning and architectural aspects required to ensure a successful migration. Understanding that customers might already have their own preferred system integrator, Oracle has also been working with members of the Oracle Partner Network (over 50 workshops delivered around the world as to date) to help them package their expertise as a commercial offering.

Finally, Oracle has developed migration tools and certified interoperability across Fusion Middleware and Java CAPS.  Tooling has been developed to migrate a host of Java CAPS artifacts (such as JCDs, OTDs and BPEL) to SOA Suite across  various versions of the products such Java CAPS 6.x,  JBI-based projects, Java CAPS 5.1.x , BPEL 1.x/2.0,  ICAN 5.0 JCDs and so on. Oracle has also certified the interoperability of Java CAPS and SOA Suite across JMS and Web Services. This interoperability approach is key to ensure a seamless co-existence of the two generations of products during migration. Please watch this blog for a more detailed post on technical capabilities of the migration tools.

Whilst customers have found that other vendors are on a voyage of discovery or on a mission to sell services under the guise of product, they see Oracle’s commitment to customer satisfaction bearing real fruit. They have been turning to Oracle, who is now owner of both Java CAPS and Oracle SOA Suite, as the only company with sufficient depth of knowledge and experience in both the source and target platforms as well as the only one able to offer the licensing and support benefits highlighted above. Earlier this year, during Oracle Open World, customers and partners have come forward and started sharing their migration success stories.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you are currently using any Sun/SeeBeyond integration products and looking at modernizing – we can help!