Two Stage Rocket

I just spent the day at Progress Software's annual analyst day. The highlight of the event is, always, to hear from their customers about how they are getting real things done. This year we heard from: EMC, Sallie Mae, TD Securities, Royal Dikzwager, BT Global Services, Lincoln Financial Group, Sabre Holdings, and Fiserv.

The theme: High velocity business demands high velocity technologies such as complex event processing, enterprise infrastructure, data infrastrcuture, and others.

But, this post is about Kenneth Rugg, VP and GM of Integration Infrastrcuture for Progress  Software, comments on open source software.

"I think about our use of open source software as a two-stage rocket"

Mr. Rugg explained that the open source version of software is the first stage that lifts the technology off the ground. The second-stage is when a vendor, such as Progress Software, adds secret technology sauce, support, and integration with other technology. His example was about what Progress has done with FUSE ESB.

I thought this was a useful way for customers to think about acquiring open source from vendors. Is the vendor moving the rocket to the next stage or instead weighing it down for an unhappy ending.

What does a 21st century software development process look like?

During the last three months I have been talking to many people on what a software development process looks like to them in the 21st century — you have seen some of the initial thoughts and ideas posted in this blog.  The community seems full of different views as to what makes a process, or even if process, as we currently think of it, is right for software development teams. 

It is clear that software development is NOT the same as other manufacturing processes, and that organizations that approach software development in that manner do not exploit the opportunity for innovation or develop an efficient process.

In the pursuit of building better software, it has always been the belief of most senior managers that if you have a good process you will get great software; that problems with software can be attributed to problems with process.  Many people are now questioning that traditional mindset, believing that changing the tasks, work products, and responsibilities within the process does not lead to success, but a focus on culture, knowledge, and skills will instead improve the end product.  This change in emphasis is embodied by the Agile methods movement and described nicely in one principle in the Agile manifesto ‘Individuals and interactions over process and tools’.

Initiatives around process improvement such as the CMMI seem to be drying up, with companies either at the level they desire or seeing no real value from such work. A focus on professional development with content such as PMBOK and BABOK are gaining favor with an increased focus on the practices of software rather than the processes.

Are we seeing a tide change?  Is software development process changing focus? A new survey is currently underway to help uncover the truth about process in the 21st century.  If you have 10 minutes please take it, your contribution and support will help shape how we think about process in the future. You will also receive a copy of the report when it is published. PROCESS SURVEY

Is SOA Dead?

There’s been a lot of kerfuffle about Anne Thomas Manes’ blog post declaring SOA dead.

The main thing that bothers me about declaring an architecture “dead” is the idea that all the good actions that Forrester and other experts have advocated people should be taking over the years – which are about the practices of the architecture, not purchases of infrastructure – can be called into question. What about all those years in which Anne Thomas Manes was, herself, an ardent advocate of these same practices? Is she saying she was wrong?

 

No, she’s really just talking about the term no longer being fashionable, about it no longer seeming appropriate to fund large infrastructure investments under the banner of SOA. In her own blog post she (weakly) makes the point that the practices of SOA should continue, without spelling out the acronym.

 

This is just pure silliness. SOA (the architecture, not a marketing banner for large infrastructure purchases) continues as before. For years we’ve been saying there are larger and more strategic ways of looking at architecture, mainly Digital Business Architecture. All of that is still true.

 

A more appropriate way to position the state of SOA is to say that it’s become a well-accepted part of the landscape. Back in 2002 when Carl Zetie and I published a report titled The Post-Internet Era, we weren’t saying the Internet is over, any more than post-Modernism is about Modernism being over. Rather, it means that thing has become a part of the landscape, so we no longer really notice it. Now we look back at the Modern design in furnishings in Mad Men (apologies to those who don’t know this TV series) and the only thing that’s unique about them is their concentration in one place to the exclusion of other things. Today these same pieces would be at home in many of our homes, but would likely be mixed with designs from other eras.

 

I’m not advocating the actual usage of the term “post-SOA,” because we learned from using the term “post-Internet” that most people don’t understand this usage, and thought we were saying the Internet was dead. In fact, what we were labeling was many things that are now labeled “Web 2.0,” although we missed the social dimension (which is a pretty big miss! – although it hadn’t really become a major factor when that report was written).

 

What I am suggesting is that SOA should just be positioned as a useful school of thought, which produced some classics, but which is not the last word in architecture, any more than object orientation was. Hey, I’d love to have a Wassily chair in my home! But I like my other stuff, too.

 

The furniture metaphor only takes us so far, however, as it’s not a good architectural approach to just mix a bunch of tastes randomly. It’s more a design aesthetic that says we can mix the Wassily chair with the Breuer chair with the Louis XIV side-table, if the rug and drapes have the right colors and tie it together in a pleasing way. And the room has to be right, too – and Alexander could tell us the classic patterns to which that room design should adhere, if it is to be pleasing as part of the overall aesthetic.

 

 Bottom line: SOA is no more dead than objects are, or COBOL. SOA was (in Forrester’s view) never about buying a bunch of technology. Your SOA Platform strategy is a set of choices for how you will architect and design applications and infrastructure to enable them to work together the way you want them to. Not an RFP.