Gotze.eu

Tag: Enterprise Architecture

  • Interoperability, Change and Architecture

    Have you noticed how relatively little is written about enterprise architecture in government? Time to change that …

    We started writing this report as a final deliverable from the ICA Study Group on Enterprise Architecture in Government, which we co-founded back in 2003. Having done that, we then thought, why not keep writing. So we did.

    The result is, we hope, a report that anyone concerned with transformational government will find worthwhile reading.

    Our concern is government enterprise architecture, which in our view is far from “a big fat joke”1. Having said that, we also find a gap between what we see in government EA around the world and what we would like to see.

    That’s how Olov Östberg and I start off our report, Interoperability, Change and Architecture (PDF, 1,2MB), to the International Council for Information Technology in Government Administration, ICA, and the EA world at large.

    We would love to get comments on the report.

  • Gartner and the European Interoperability Framework 2.0

    Recently, the European Commission’s IDABC published a document written on contract by Gartner initiating the revision of the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) and the Architecture Guidelines (AG). Check out the EIF v2.0 Gartner-report.

    I represented Denmark in the comittee that created the EIF and maintained the AG, so of course I read the Gartner-report with a biased view. Then again, I always tend to read documents from Gartner with a biased view.

    These days I also read a lot of masters theses and other reports by my students, and I can’t help comparing the Gartner report to a student report.

    The Commission asked Gartner inc. to “make a study, situating the European Interoperability Framework in relation to the current practices in the Member States and elsewhere and to give an independent view on the revision process and on its desired outcome.”

    If the Gartner consultants were my students, they should fear the exam, because I would confront their problem understanding, their methods, their empirical depths/shallowness, and not least their pseudo-theoretical analysis and model-amok. Having said that, I admit to finding some of their proposals pretty interesting, for example, their Generic Public Services Framework is conceptually interesting, but not very well explained and motivated.

    Researchwise, the Gartner report does not go into much if any detail with respect to the national interoperability frameworks that have been established in several member states: Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland, Malta, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom.

    EIF presented a pretty clear definition of open standards. EIF 2.0 will, Gartner suggests, “allow open standards and other recognized standards to coexist”, and Gartner recommends not to focus on the use of open standards per se.

    That calls for a campaign, someone decided. See openstandards.eu:

    On the content of EIF v2.0, I ask

    1. that EIF v2.0 recommends the use of open standards, as defined in the definition given by EIF v1.0 for all exchanges by public institutions and states, as did the EIF v1.0 document,
    2. that recommends the use of open source software, by public institutions and states, as did the EIF v1.0 document,
    3. that EIF v2.0 recommends the use of open standards for all communications eg. documents, videos, sounds … they publish, to and with the public for example on their websites, by the public institutions in Europe, at the European Commission and all the member states, and conform to open standards for the tools they provide,

    On the elaboration process of EIF v2.0, I ask

    1. for the explicite public consultation during a sufficiently long time, for the redaction of such an important report as EIF v2.0,
    2. for the explicite participation of SMEs and a majority of members states for such a consultation and document redaction.

    I signed it. Go sign it too!

  • SOA This. SOA That.

    When I a month ago prepared for a lecture about architecture, I found some interesting videos on YouTube. My students loved them. So, when I today gave a talk to a group of Danish CIOs, I thought of showing at least one of them, but on site decided not to because there wasn’t internet access.
    I first found the video Meet the Architects, an example of viral (or maybe not so viral) marketing from a place called scyscrapr.net, but by and large, a decent “light” way of applying the urban planning metaphor to describe architectural work. I’m sure there was a more subtle campaign site there, but now it points to Microsoft’s skyscrapr, “a new site on MSDN where you can learn about software architects and architecture”. Skyscrapr seems to be a pretty cool information service, see for example their Archipedia, which offers brief descriptions of (software) architectural terms.

    And then I found Greg the Architect: SOA This. SOA That. and Greg the Architect: ROI of the Beholder. This is Tibco‘s award-winning viral SOA marketing. I’m not sure about SOA Now, the magazine the videos promote, but I love the videos.

  • Certify!

    Update August: Some logistical changes. Some date changes, and some place changes. I’ve updated below to correct dates/places.

    Update July 2007: More dates added due to popular demand.

    Danish visitors, see enterprisearchitecture.dk!

    Announcement: Carnegie Mellon University and Telelogic Collaborate on Enterprise Architecture Certification Course Series, Coming to Europe
    Carnegie Mellon Telelogic
    The Enterprise Architecture Certification Program, offered by Telelogic and Carnegie Mellon University‘s Institute for Software Research International ISRI, “will give you the knowledge and skills you need to successfully implement an EA initiative in the public or private sector”.

    The program was launched last year in the US, and I’m pleased to announce, that it will now come to Europe.

    I’ve made a deal with CMU and Telelogic, and will be in charge of the execution, i.e., be the instructor.

    We’re launching the program down in Antwerp, Amsterdam and Brussels. We’re looking at other locations, and are open to requests. The scheduled courses for now are:

    Level 1
    EA: Fundamentals of Enterprise Architecture
    10-13 Septermber, Bruxelles (full)
    24-27 September, Antwerp
    12-15 November, Amsterdam

    Level 2
    EA: Applied Enterprise Architecture Concepts
    8-11 October, Antwerp
    14-18 January 2008, Antwerp

    Level 3
    EA: Advanced Enterprise Architect Concepts
    20-22 November, Antwerp
    19-21 March 2008, Antwerp

    The three-level structure of the courses is based on a set of EA Knowledge and Skills Areas (KSAs), that identify what enterprise architects need to know to do their jobs at various levels of the organization (see the top level of ISRI’s EA-KSA List), and specific learning points within each KSA are used to develop the teaching objectives in each course.

    The program curriculum is based on the 350 learning points associated with the CIO Council EA competency matrix, and hence aligned with the 42 EA learning objectives in the 2006 Clinger-Cohen Core Competencies and Learning Objectives.

    The comprehensive curriculum is compiled from the experience and best practices of top organizations worldwide, by Dr Scott Bernard and staff at Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Software Research International. Scott has written the EA text book, which I’m using in my university EA masters class, which roughly equals the level 1 course.

    On the certification program, candidates can attain the title Certified Enterprise Architect after passing three intensive course exams.

    I’m really looking forward to running the program. Please spread the word!

  • Microsoft and Danish Government in New Identity Deal

    A year ago, my former collegue Søren Peter Nielsen wrote, on behalf of the Danish government, a letter to Microsoft. Seems he got a response, and I’m sure it’ll interest XMLGrrl and many others, that an announcement was made yesterday: Agreement between the National IT and Telecom Agency and Microsoft: Agreement concerning partial support of the SAML 2.0 standard.

    “The ongoing dialog between the National IT and Telecom Agency and Microsoft has resulted in an agreement on partial support of the SAML 2.0 standard in Microsoft’s forthcoming version of their federation product named Active Directory Federation Services 2”, the agency writes.

    The text agreed upon is as follows:

    “The Danish public sector has chosen SAML 2.0 as their federation standard. Microsoft products use WS-Federation and WS-Trust as the foundation of their federated identity architecture. The Danish government has agreed that the SAML 2.0 token format is sufficient to provide basic interoperability between WS-Federation and SAML 2.0 environments as a common assertion format, without loss of authentication integrity.

    To support interoperability between WS-Federation and SAML 2.0 based products Microsoft has agreed to support the SAML 2.0 token format in the future release of Active Directory Federation Services code-named Active Directory Federation Services “2”. Microsoft will provide the Danish public sector Centre of Service Oriented Infrastructure with pre-release code to help analysis and planning of solutions for integrating WS-Federation-based clients in the Danish federation, and to collect feedback on the feature implementation.

    In addition, the co-authors of WS-Federation (including Microsoft) have submitted the specification to OASIS for standardization. This step further enables interoperability between federated environments that deploy SAML 2.0-based products and those that deploy WS-Federation-based products.”

    In commenting the agreement, the agency writes: “With this agreement a possibility for inclusion of Microsoft based clients in a common public SAML 2.0 based federation has opened”, and notes:

    The integration will require the standard based login solutions to be expanded with a special integration code. The solution is therefore a pragmatic tactical integration solution, but with the above-mentioned partial SAML 2.0 support from Microsoft it is expected that the integration can be done without influencing the individual “Microsoft Active Directory Federation Service” user organizations.

    The agency notes that more iinformation on the concrete possibilities will be published as the National IT and Telecom Agency’s Centre for Service Oriented Infrastructure receives pre-release code from Microsoft that can be integration tested.
    The agency elaborates a bit more on the deal:

    It is still desired, that Microsoft support all of the SAML 2.0 standard in their products, but the above-mentioned agreement are a good first step towards more convergence among standards for transverse user management.

    The National IT and Telecom Agency also sees the filing of the WS-Federation (WS-FED) specification for standardization in OASIS as a step that can promote convergence among federation standards.

    It should be stressed that it does not mean that the WS-Federation specification is recommended equally to SAML 2.0 for common public solutions.

    When the results of the standardization with WS-Federation become available (expectedly in the end of 2008) it might be relevant to do a new assessment but for now the SAML 2.0 it is still the only standard, which is recommended as a federation standard for Danish common public solutions.

    So, there we have it.

    I want to congratulate Søren Peter on a job well done. Stand firm on SAML 2.0, the open ecosystem needs it. And thanks to Microsoft for listening to customers (but why only partial support?).

  • Norwegians Launch Interoperability Framework, Mandate ODF

    Norway’s Minister of Government Administration and Reform, also Minister of IT, Ms Heidi Grande Røys, in a press announcement on Friday, Første skritt mot en offentlig sektor uten leverandørbindinger, announced that with the launch of the Norwegian Government’s interoperability framework, called Referansekatalog for IT-standarder), the Norwegian government takes “the first step towards a public sector without vendor fixation”.

    Of particular interest is that the Norwegian government boldly goes ahead and proposes mandation of a set of standards for document formats:

    • ODF is mandated for document exchange and downloads of editable documents. According to the framework document, OASIS ODF 1.0 is the standard used, but the reference link actually goes to ODF 1.1.
    • PDF is mandated for publication of static documents on the web.
    • UTF-8 (ISO/IEC 10646) is mandated as a universal character set standard, to be used in web publications, connections to registres and databases, and all other textual exchange and archiving.

    Regarding ODF, according to Digi.no, Ms Røys at the press conference said she wants ODF to be the preferred document format also internally in the administration, and not “just” for external communication. But as I read the published documents, there is no actual mandation of internal use. One could – and should – of course argue that ODF “all the way” is the only sensible way to implement the policy, but I’m sure some will argue otherwise.
    According to the press announcement, the interoperability framework is in consultion until 20 August 2008. I suppose they actually mean 20 August 2007. The mandation is proposed enacted by 1 January 2009.

    Included in the interoperability framework is a set of national government standards, such as NOARK4 for archiving, and also a plan for extending the framework to other areas. On the latter, the document analyses the Danish, Belgian, German and British interoperability frameworks standard by standard, and explicitely argues that a European alignment and cooperation is necessary.

    Danish coverage at Version2

  • Conference Time

    I’ll be attending a few conferences as a member of the Press in the coming weeks, so if you’re there too, and want to meet up, do get in touch.

    On Sunday, I’ll leave for Vienna for SAPPHIRE 2007. “Business at the speed of change“. It’ll be interesting to hear more about where SAP is with SOA and much more, but frankly, the presentation I look forward to the most is the one by Geoffrey Moore, on Business Network Transformation to Create Competitive Advantage.

    Then in June, I’ll go to Orlando for the IBM Rational Software Development Conference 2007. “What Keeps Me Rational?”. I think I’ll focus on architectural issues, and it seems there will be talk about both SOA and EA. It’ll also be interesting to hear about where Danny Sabbah is with Jazz.

  • Bob Sutor in First Life, Copenhagen

    Bob Sutor is in Copenhagen, and will give a public lecture at the IT University at 5pm today, Wednesday. He’ll talk about what’s going on with open standards and why it’s important, also to IT students. I’ve reserved the big lecture hall (Aud 1), and everyone is welcome to join us.

    I’m certain that Bob will talk about the situation around document formats, where a lot is happening. Just covering the past couple of days’ events around the standards is a talk in itself: It’s clear now (!) that many standards bodies point to contradictions around Ecma Office Open XML and its submission to ISO, so the fast-track for Microsoft’s Office 2007 format becoming a standard is slowed down (at least, if not stopped?). In other news, two more US states gives more momentum to OpenDocument, and ODF passes yet another maturity signpost as ODF 1.1 is now an OASIS Standard.

    Over at my Danmark 2.0 blog, I have suggested that the newly formed S-142/U-34 Danish Standards mirror committee to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC 34 spend their time on making ODF a Danish Standard. That would be kind of ironic with all those Microsoft Gold Partners in the group, I know, but none the less, I’m deadly serious about the proposal!

  • Version2: New Media for IT Professionals

    Version2

    On Monday, Danish media house Ingeniøren A/S will launch the first phase of Version2, a new biweekly magazine and online media for IT professionals in Denmark. I’m proud to say that I’m part of the team behind Version2.
    The magazine and website will launch in November, but we will start the river of news via Ingeniørens site next week, where Tania and I are covering the JAOO-conference.

    The “real” Version2 opening in November will be our attempt at practising “Media 2.0″/”News 2.0” or whatever – lots of good blogs, wikis, and all that.

  • 2006 International Enterprise Architecture Survey

    Get the journal article we wrote about this.

    Peter Engelund Christiansen and I are pleased to announce a new report and website: EASurvey.org: International Enterprise Architecture Survey – Trends in Governmental Enterprise Architecture on a National Level.

    The report presents key findings from an international survey about governmental EA on a national/federal level conducted earlier this year. 16 countries participated in the survey: Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nothern Ireland, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and USA.

    The survey documents trends in governmental EA and focuses on eight areas:

    • EA motivation
    • Achieved goals and barriers
    • EA measurement
    • EA process
    • EA framework
    • EA tool
    • EA governance
    • Existing EA assets

    The key findings are:

    EA on a national level is emerging fast
     93.3% of the participating governments are already having – or planning to have within the next two years – a national EA program. Only one government does not have any future plans incorporating a national EA program.

    Limited realisation of EA goals
    54% of the governments with national EA programs have experienced the achievement of EA goals.

    The lack of skilled staff is considered as the greatest barrier against the achievement of EA goals
     55% of the governments report “lack of skilled staff” as the greatest barrier against the achievement of EA goals.

    Less than half of the governments are measuring EA program performance
     Accordingly, less that one half of the governments are using key performance indicators.

    Less than one fifth of the governments are calculating the ratio EA benefits to cost
     18% of the governments, Japan and Taiwan, are calculating the total expenditures in EA, the total amount gained from EA and the ratio EA benefits to costs.

    Less than one fifth of the governments have mandated their EA programs via legislation
     18% of the governments, USA and Korea, have national EA programs that are mandated by legislation.

    Less than one third of the governments know whether their publicized EA processes are used
     72% of the participating governments have publicized guidelines describing an EA process. 29% of those governments do not know whether the guidelines are used or not.

    We conclude with some calls to action:

    • Define clear and measurable EA goals
    • Do not uncritically buy the vendors ‘Ten steps to successful EA’ and expect the world to change in any advantageous direction
    • Measure EA performance to ensure progress and ultimately EA success
    • Calculate EA expenses-/earnings to enable communication in a monetary terminology; it becomes necessary
    • Do not make the mistakes of the past
    • Do not isolate an EA team and expect them to generate value-adding EA

    The survey is endorsed by the Association of Enterprise Architects (a|EA), but a|EA does not necessarily agree with our calls to action.

    The bulk of the work was done by Peter in his Master of IT thesis project, which explains the survey in excruciating levels of detail, and which is as clear an A+ as I’ve ever seen and supervised. I helped connecting Peter to the survey I started two years ago, and introduced him to relevant respondents around the world. After the exams, we have worked together on quality assurance and recommendations, but Peter should really get all the credit.

    Get the journal article we wrote about this.