IRIS as opposed to ARIS

So we see IRIS is getting aligned with #BizBok and looks to be a solid coverage in the Business Architecture space for coverage at that level.

We'd argue so far that tools (such as OpenText's ProVision, IBM's System Architect) have only touched into the Business Architecture space, coming from #BPM and #EA respectively.

Amongst the ever-growing "must investigate" pile, we've got this to peek at, as we're curious to see whether #BizArch should have its own tooling or should sit with the existing tools - or is there space for another toolset?

Watch this space... 

Over architecting

So, we're in the position of being around some hard-core types again, no before you ask, not that type. Rather strategy and architect types of the consultant variety.

We're in an environment that is fluid, flat-structured and moves quickly; not having had imposed on it the rigidity of formal frameworks, process and governance. It works well for them and they seem to pocket some decent wedge, so fair play on them.

What our learned colleagues don't like is what they consider #immaturity due to the incompleteness of the enterprise picture; where we see it as a grey space that doesn't need to be filled in this organisation, at this point in time.

The obsession with taxonomies and frameworks leads architects especially to what we feel is doing the equivalent of a children's game; each bucket/segment/levrl must have a chip in it and ideally they should be evenly distributed as that aids the creation of a diagram later. Ideally of course for a consultant architect that should be either #threeThings or a #twoByTwo, depending upon the consultancy religion they worship at the altar of!

This is where a real, big-picture thinker doesn't get stuck on detail; an organisation is organic, the combination of flesh, stone, cables and tables - it won't meld to a tidy system model, rather we try to make it for our own ease of life, but must accept that abstraction as a notional falseness that does not aid the business itself.

But #maturity, that word really bites; it is used like an insult now. Like when we were young calling someone a #Reebok was an insult as clearly (to our minds) #Nike was superior; based on no actual premise but our own internal taxonomised ordered of cool trainer brands.

Working to maturity against a framework, technology stack or even a specific maturity scaling (IVI etc.) can be useful; but only when you truly understand the goal. 1 out of 4 is perfectly acceptable (and mature) score for some aspects of an organisation at some times; going to 2 and beyond could possible be over-engineering and prone to error - our mental model is more like the scales of old - you are where you need to be (mature?) if factors on each side balance out.

We're not sure whether this is a consultancy thing, maybe each "missing" maturity level is sitting there in a PowerPoint somewhere with a $ sign swinging underneath, or maybe it is just the set thinking that must be imposed to cookie-cutter produce a set of consultants to apply the same thing again and again. But it is less relevant now to our eyes; in a world of swirl and change wasting time applying a framework against which to measure is waste; which our old friend Deming talks at length about.

What is important are KPIs; measured, re-measured, compared then introspected in an open and transparent manner so as to aid improvement or, as least talked about. The decision to stand still; reduce or even remove are all just as valid as that to improve. What is the point having a corporate aspect of testing bulging with a score of 4, when your delivery scores just 1 and you delivery well and quickly to the business every day?

So; thinking about the bar and organisation has set for itself and the vision they have is really more important; not all are or ever will be the same; neither to organisations want to "grow up" to be a bigger version of themselves at the next highest level; some ideas will never flourish like that.

A comparison can be made here to people and the corporate ladder; how many are CEO material?

Very few of course; while the majority still are not even management or executive possibles; so we don't train them to be at the top of the pyramid.

But break outside of the corporate structure and you see any entirely different set of personal aims; the local grocer, if you're lucky enough to have one, has and needs different aims - his #maturity cannot be measured against a corporate clone as they're clearly not the same.

So, let's stop applying our vision and target on an enterprise; rather prise it from them and work to aid that rather than checking boxes...

Architecture Eventage

London has a burgeoning #tech events scene for the #geekdom, where that be the cult of {, who meet to discuss the benefits of placing the aforementioned { at the start or end of a line; through to those who discuss the many ways of doing thing over the why - but, sadly (or maybe rightly?) we have seen few events for architects, the British Computer Society's specialist group for #entarch being the exception, which isn't to our mind attaching #architecture in a modern way.

So tonight, inspired and fuelled by some fizzy stuff at a networking event, we started to see an angle to achieve a new #meetup for architecture, with a pragmatic and realistic footing. The conversation is just beginning and may amount to nothing, but if it works out we could see a sponsored network, with drinks of course, drinking one or two events every few months, to play ping pong ideas on the direction of the profession, whether it is really a profession and on the religious wars practiced between framework zealots, taxonomy bigots and those who are trying to justify the value of their #architecture roles in a modern space when a quality developer can (arguably) do architecture better than an architect.

Given the #acrhitecture space is about influence, communication and networking; our hope is we can push to do more of this, with some great speaker, ideas and hopefully hot debate - rest assured @enterpriseperspective will be there throw a brick in the windows that is the conventional approach to #architecture!

Docker

We've been saying for a while... To anyone awake enough to listen... That VMs are just a workaround and developers are too lazy (or not bright enough!) to code for multiple processors and cores, so instead the answer was to scale #os to utilise the advances in processor and machine size - in our opinion it has filled a gap talent wasn't there to fill, our included.

So, along comes #Docker... With an excellent talk by Adrian Mouat at the Trifork meetup.

Now you might say this #tech has existed for a while, but has it?

We hear so many organisations say they are "#virtualised", but really are they? Have they just moved there sloth-like infrastructure management onto virtual machines? Does that really offer a step change difference? No.

#Docker is by no means mature or #enterprise ready, but it is the best step in the direction, being the Monty Python funny walk amongst the dullness that catches the eye.

Right now a fledgling container come environment, less than #VM, but more more macho than a process, it allows a similar host (Linux only right now, as all the best server tech) to host a set of #Docker containers that have their own layer of file and process (may or may not be persisted). The contains holds any dependencies it needs, so is guaranteed to run, without no nasty dependency gotchas - but remember as this is thin, it must have the same host/kernel.

The packages themselves are build in layers, you utilise and existing OS from the Docker community (some official, others not) starting with OS, then DB before services, so your WorkdPress image is just a small deta on top of those - the Container Engine handles all of this, including one-time loading of libraries, sharing these between containers.

Processes are native to the host, but limited in context, the community has a fresh approach and is open about the potential vulnerabilities obvious here. For further access, capabilites can be enabled to provide a more exciting experience to the container, say GPU access.

So far just 64-bit #linux the geek in me says yay, but the corporate slave ask for #windows, I'm told a way off, but I recall there was some #vms mysticism built into #windowNT that set it aside from #windows3, so maybe it might just be doable, after all @citrix managed it.

In a way it's what #Apple have with the #iOS app-ecosystem, but grown up and not monetised based on lock-in.

Oh, and it's quick, very. Being so light weight there is no tear-down, while there is nothing much to create beyond invocation and the setting of a limited context.

Community additions are coming t hick and fast, subuser.org is like a secured package manager, but rather than traditional binary installs, it gives containers that provide functionality you need segregated from the host.

Supporting systems is a lighter story just now, persistent storage is there, even the ability to share storage between running containers, but working with virtualised networking will be up to you,me specially as networking is achieved by port mapping in the main.

Now #AWS and #Azure are doing container hosting, price-wise it will be fun to see how the costing compares with traditional VM and computer resource, as Docker should make this cheaper.

No news on #Windows and #Mac versions, but no big surprise there, though the benefits of installing say #MicrosoftOffice without a VM, or and registry bashing seems massive, plus the new .NET DLL hell  (the revenge) would be wiped out.

Big circles again in #IT, isn't this like the days of mainframes, which had thin hypervisors and sandboxed process space - well yes, but these circles in tech are always a good thing...

It's about time...

So, we have a new identity, you might say grown-up - to express the right mix of seriousness (vision, strategy and architecture) as well as fluidity (agile, lean-startup, anti-bankruptcy) so as to produce something that can work. From abacus to the mysterious concept of cloud, from a new approach to the way you exercise iyour #IT muscle, coming up with a solutions to a problem, technical or not, or just some good honest answers without the #BS or $¥£€ this industry is so fond of spouting.

Whether that be at start-up or multi-billion level, we don't see any real difference. The usual consultancy suspects will tell you there is - so we're here with a fresh approach, controversial maybe (hopefully!), with our thoughts on how you can tackle the age old problems of #hashtag #IT and the people who make that happen (or not).

Our belief is that the aforementioned #IT isn't really a part of a modern fluid business, rather the complexity of it, combined with high salaries, day rates and extortionate consultancy rates has made it more important than it really it. Our surmise is that it is utility...

Do you get worried about the toilet paper in your corporate bathroom?

Quite frankly, who gives a shit!

We have better things to do, very few of us have to worry about hairdressing, but those that do are often artists.

Our fanatical belief is that #IT is going that way, so why pay for an overpaid nerd with headphones that cost more than your house, when instead you can get some creativity into your business and fresh thinking, getting well away from that utility toilet duty, after all, do you care?

We're here to bring together aspects of business, the best bits of IT (less than 20% at best) and look to how this glues together for businesses of the future; whether they are institutions keen to go with the new flow, or start-ups with g-string funding package - the strategy is not that different.

The @enterpriseperspective can benefit all those who want to suceed and have fun while doing it...

Amazon Web Services

So, tonight [Thurs 28th Nov] we've been mostly enjoying a few cheeky white wines courtesy of our favourite voicemail invader, Rupert Murdoch, at News UK.

Alas it was not to meet the as-yet-not-British man himself, but we did get to hang out with some #AWS groupies 17 floors up, with a great view that would surely inspire a hand to write somehat right of centre, with an overuse of puns.

First observation was that #AWS must be successful and work well, unlike the usual skinny hard-working #geekdom, here we have some exhibiting the accumulated girth of the easy life, like the pale landed gentry of old. They extolled the virtues of the burgeoning cloud platform and hoped they could style out the increasingly common move from #PowerPoint / #KeyNote / #Prezzi, to somewhat 90s looking #HTML5 #slideware, but let us not go parallel, as the content was good... While the wine was cheap and crisps did not hide the evil Cheese and Onion in their midst.

#AWS is moving and quick, in respouse to to the #dev community in part, but mostly to customers who have a good relationship with the vendor, each release seems to see the missing asks from last time around make an appearance, further simplifying the move from on-prem.

What was missing though is a dollar ticker, each Amazon slide showed more and more #Visio prettiness (no cloud version of that yet!) but along with that extravagance was no idea of value, in a #newLabour kind of credit control method, the idea was to ignore spend that multiple load balances, secondary virtual appliances and content distribution might add. They may be micro payments, but it doesn't take long for them to add up - recent analysis show in some cases #cloud costs are very close to #on-prem.

However, features are good, but so heavily biased towards infrastructure folks, not development geeks, which I see a major different to #Azure which prays to another section of the unwashed novelty T-Shirt adorned aficionados.

This is not to say features are bad, as deployment, cost, security andpacking are covered, #Docker too, but to my mind we miss the solutions invention, where #Azure comes out better. #AWS solves the issues with tin and wire really well, but less so the focus on what business really wants. Articulating the real value of #cloud to a senior exec in a way that aligns to their business is a challenge few seem to be able to meet,

Maturity is sprouting liked the first gentleman's garden though and it is the way forward, especially with #Docker, as we are less tied to the #AWS way of doing things and their #APIs, but still #Amazon rules these standards in many cases, becoming the #Apple and #Microsoft (of old) in this economy.

Positive though was our feeling, it's great to see how different mindsets see the technology addressing things and approaches taken to dispose of data centres, when perhaps not the easiest solution, are very inventive - what we are seeing isn't #DevOps, rather a new and invigorated breed of #virtualInfrastructure experts with a drive seen missing from the #BAU teams in the last decade, solving business problems using #IT as they should be, rather than trying to squeeze the square-shaped business into round #IT hole as we often see.

While there are still considerations for e,ploy inn the #cloud, the blockers are minimal for most businesses, so the tide has certainly swung - it does leave us yearning for some in-depth dark-fibre, cooling, mass-storage and other skills require for the hyper-data-centres that will replace corporate ones now - those skills will provide a heft salary or day rate for the few that need them.