Journal 6
January 2006
Foreword
Dear Architect,
In the beginning, I wished to publish just six issues of The Architecture Journal and gather enough evidence to help Microsoft decide whether or not it was worth keeping. Regular readers know what has happened to The Architecture Journal; it's been a marvelous thing for all of us involved, including our superstars—the authors—to see the interest and subscriptions grow dramatically worldwide, month after month, for both print and digital media formats. It has been fantastic!
Now it's time to let a professional team at Microsoft Corporate HQ take over this publication and grow it beyond my initial dreams. As a key component of Microsoft's broad architect outreach program, it makes 100 percent sense for The Architecture Journal to be given better resources in terms of people and funding than I can manage with my team in Europe. To this end I am delighted to introduce Simon Guest, group program manager in the Microsoft Architecture Strategy Team, as the new editor for The Architecture Journal. Simon and his team have the vision and passion for this publication, and I'm confident they'll remain faithful to its original charter as an independent platform for free thinkers and practitioners of IT architecture.
In this issue we have a number of great articles spanning SOA governance, practical information modeling using topic maps, software factories for collaboration protocols in the health care industry, and a service-oriented perspective on business intelligence. We also have two short papers on software modeling and technical planning. Many of these papers discuss my favorite subject areas.
I'll continue to be involved in The Architecture Journal and look foreword to seeing Simon and his team realize its full potential, and I wish them every success in that endeavor.
I'd like to acknowledge all of you for the great support and encouragement you have shown me personally. For the pioneering authors of The Architecture Journal I have nothing but the deepest gratitude and respect. Thank you.
With best wishes!
Arvindra Sehmi
Articles in This Issue
Taking Governance to the Edge
Service-oriented architecture (SOA) gives businesses a new way of getting work done, but SOA brings with it the traditional problems of governance as well as new challenges. Discover an approach to asymmetric forms of governance that focuses on how businesses understand their risks.
Applying Topic Maps to Applications
Topic maps provide a metamodel for representing knowledge models that are integrated with other systems. See what current and potential application areas there are for applying topic maps and how to access topic map information using Web services architectures.
Designing and Implementing a Software Factory**
**The health care industry offers a representative environment for interoperability among organizations. Take a look at designing and implementing a software factory that is based on the Health Level Seven (HL7) standard that also provides a vision for supporting collaboration in different industries.
Service-Oriented Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence (BI) and Service Orientation (SO) are independently developed architectural paradigms that form the synergy of the SoBI framework. Find out the similarities and differences between them that are leveraged by the SoBI architectural framework.
Planning Technical Architecture
Managers and operational staff know the value of technical architecture planning and its merits for aligning IT with the business and controlling service levels and expenses. Get insight on how these business drivers can impact creating a tactical plan for an infrastructure architecture.
Behavioral Software Architecture Language
A tenet for architecture definition is to design software structure and object interaction before the design phase, and architecture design and approval should precede any software development project. Learn how the Behavioral Software Architecture Language unifies software architecture definition with software implementation.
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This article was published in the Architecture Journal, a print and online publication produced by Microsoft. For more articles from this publication, please visit the Architecture Journal Web site.