21 Days - An Unsuccessful End..! :)

So the maximum number of days I could religously wake up and stick to my routine was just 7 days in a row.

March 8th - International Womens Day - when we celebrate the achievements of women world over, was the Day I made my 1st excuse and broke my regime - what an Achievement! :)

Thanks to DJ Suketu and the rocking Saturday night Vodafone Annual Party @Pancards - Sunday I oversleep! :)

So with a feeling of guilt of not having exercised 2 days in a row I wake up for a Monday morning Jog and follow it up on Tuesday to fall sick and drag myself to office till Friday.

Come Saturday and I decide to focus on preparing for my certification and hence give up my regime altogether!

But this still doesnt stop me from asking Abhi to buy me new fitness gear and get myself enrolled for Power Yoga n Aerobics ;)

I am at it again ! :)

Being a Fitness Freak helps - but only on Alternate Days - or better still - how about 4days a week ?? :)

so long as the weighing scale pointer doesnt tilt rightways & your tape shows the same numbers ;) :)

~ sayli :)

To Succeed as an EAI Architect

As authored by Eric Roch reproduced here with an inclusion (and slight modification) of only the most relevant and notable facts:

The Career Path to being an EAI Architect must include technical and leadership milestones. Often developers overlook the need for strong written and verbal skills needed to produce coherent design documents and communicate the system vision to a team of developers. Once the design deliverables are in place the architect must then act as a technical lead to ensure the design principals are complied with to produce the components that must work together as an integrated system.

For an EAI architect, there is no way around a strong technical knowledge base. You must know the integration tools intimately to define the role the tools will play in a total solution. A solution typically consists of the EAI tools, application servers, web servers and enterprise applications like ERP systems.

The architect must understand where components of the system should be built and how these components interact to create a composite application. The goal of EAI is to integrate disparate system to function as a one. The systems to be integrated, are essentially the components and message flows, broker orchestrations, adapters, etc. are the integration environment that requires design artifacts defining the component relationships.

We effectively treat systems to be integrated as objects with interfaces and message flows into these interfaces. It is therefore critical that the architect has a solid understanding of OOA/OOD and UML.

Another important aspect of creating architecture is the use and creation of design patterns. This is the fundamental means to reuse design artifacts, so a study of design patterns is a requirement for an EAI architect.

Some design patterns categories that apply to EAI follow:

Enterprise Architecture:

SOA, ESB, Hub and Spoke

Reference Architecture: Composite Applications, Portals, Web Servers

Integration: File Transfer, Messaging, Shared Database

Application Architecture:

Application Server Platform: Model View Controller (MVC) e.g. Struts Model View

Integration Broker: Validate, Enrich, Transform, Route, Operate (VETRO)

Messaging: Publish-Subscribe, Request-Reply, Filter, Routing

Services: Canonicals, Security, Common Error Handler

Business Process Management:

Business: Codified Business Rules

Workflow: Control Flow, Branching and Synchronization, State-Based Instance management and task priority

To Sum it Up:

1. First make sure you have a solid development background in the tool set. You cannot make it to the next level without understanding the tools for EAI.

2. Study OOA/OOD and UML and be able to produce design deliverables with UML.

3. Collect a library of design patterns from books and past projects.

4. Develop your written and verbal skills by looking for opportunities to produce design deliverables and present them to the development team.

5. Look for opportunities to act as a technical lead always seeking to lead bigger efforts to the point where you can lead large projects (from a technical perspective). People skills, negotiation and communication are critical in this step.

I am already acquainting myself with design patterns and a business requirements specification deliverable. Exploring further on both these lines is going to be very interesting.

keep you posted
~ sayli :)

The 7 Disciplines - of the IT Architect Profession

This is the information I came across on the IBM site publicly available to everyone.

Again one of those pieces of information that i wished to archive here to enlighten myself and others alike.

The IT Architect Profession can be classified in 7 disciplines:
1: Application Architecture
2: Enterprise Architecture
3: Information Architecture
4: Infrastructure Architecture
5: Integration Architecture
6: Operations Architecture
7: Systems Engineering and Architecture

The role of the IT Architect involves listening to clients, understanding their business requirements and defining the structure of information technology solutions. They assist clients on their hardware and software infrastructure and help clients decide which platform is best for their applications. They may also lead the technical sales team in their proposal activity. There are roles that include Technical Sales Architects (which can be on a sales plan – see sales roles), or Test architects. Some of the more common IT Architect roles are listed below:

Infrastructure Architect:

This role concentrates on the design of infrastructures including servers, storage, workstations, middleware, non-application software, networks, and the physical facilities that support the applications and business processes required by the client. Included in the focus areas is the critical evaluation and selection of the software and hardware components of the infrastructure. Infrastructure Architects are responsible for performance, availability and scalability of the infrastructure.

Integration Architect:

The primary focus of an Integration Architect is to design and develop solutions that fully integrate and collaborate with existing IT systems in order to perform an automated business function. These solutions may use different technologies, vendors, platforms, and styles of computing. The Integration Architect has a holistic view of enterprise solutions, including a sound appreciation of operational costs, security, performance engineering, application development and systems management.

Operations Architect:

These professionals focus on the design of systems to manage the infrastructure and applications used by the client. This role focuses on defining plans, strategies and architectures for the installation, operation, migration and management of complex information systems. An Operations Architect gathers and analyzes client I/T needs, translates these needs into requirements for specific systems management processes, products, and services, and may lead or advise the teams which install, operate and maintain the I/T system.

Systems Engineer:

This role provides creates technical solutions for customers in the delivery of complex projects/programs, including complex system integration projects. Their responsibilities span the end-to-end lifecycle of a complex project, from system requirements through delivery and production/deployment, providing technical, architectural, and project management leadership to insure overall solution integrity.

Hope it helped.