Journal 7
April 2006
Foreword
Dear Architect,
I remember the morning well: The day was clear and cold, and I was in the Microsoft office in London sitting with Arvindra Sehmi as he explained his vision and showed me one of the first exciting prototypes of the Journal. As you may know, from that morning onward the Journal has gone from strength to strength. You are reading the 7th issue of the Journal, which reaches over 30,000 subscribers worldwide—both in printed and online formats through our new site, ArchitectureJournal.net, that launched last month. As I was chatting with Vin, little did I know that three years later I would have the honor of taking over as editor of the magazine.
Although there are no major changes to the format, as editor I do plan to introduce a couple of new directions for The Architecture Journal. First, given the growing subscription base we will be localizing it into eight languages worldwide. If you are reading this issue in a language other than English, I'd like to be first to welcome you to this new format and hope that it sets a continuing trend.
Second, from this issue we are moving toward a themed approach, where the majority of the articles in each issue fit a common theme or pattern. As you may have seen from the cover, the theme for this issue is "Generation Workflow." To kick off the theme we start with an article by Dave Green, an architect for our Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) product. Dave will be sharing the decisions and reasoning his team faced while building a workflow platform, which ultimately shaped the product they are developing.
Next, we have Vignesh Swaminathan, a product manager from Cordys R&D. In his article Vignesh will be taking you on an "Amazing Race" and will be looking at the similarities between workflow decision matrices in enterprises and a popular television show. To add more of a human touch to the Journal, Jesús Rodríguez and Javier Mariscal will be covering the main components of a human workflow system and describing patterns that can be used to model human-related tasks.
To hook these pieces together, Kevin Francis will be discussing integrating applications with workflow in his article, "Workflow in Application Integration." And to complete the set of workflow articles in this issue, Andrew Needleman will be showing a technique he uses called "dots and lines" to simplify the process of communicating complex workflows with business experts.
Following the articles on workflow we are lucky enough to have William Oellermann's article on the Enterprise Service Orientation Maturity Model (ESOMM), a maturity model that looks at service management in the enterprise. Finally, to wrap this issue, we have decided not to let Arvindra off the hook completely, and he'll be returning with Beat Schwegler to deliver Part 1 of an excellent overview of "Service-Oriented Modeling for Connected Systems." Part 2 will appear in the Journal's 8th issue.
Overall, it's been a great ride putting my first issue together, and I hope you'll find the articles useful and thought provoking. As the new editor I would like to welcome you again, and look forward to hearing from many of you in the near future.
Simon Guest
Articles in This Issue
Building Applications on a Workflow Platform
A workflow is important for resolving business problems. Examine a range of applications that demonstrate the decisions and reasoning architects face when building a workflow platform.
The Amazing Race Metaphor
Today's enterprises realize the potential of automating their business processes. Find out about managing high-level business processes through an analogy to a reality-based television game show.
Exploring Human Workflow Architectures
There are two components of human workflow systems and representative patterns of human-to-business processes interactions. Discover how to apply these components to implement these processes.
Workflow in Application Integration
The integration of applications is one of the greatest challenges architects face today. Take a look at a framework for application integration through the use of tools such as workflow technologies.
Simplifying Design of Complex Workflows
Solid workflow design requires many skills that make workflow a challenge to even experienced architects. Learn an approach for simplifying the design process of complex systems using a new kind of diagram.
Enabling the Service-Oriented Enterprise
Although building lots of Web services can be difficult, managing them can be really difficult. Explore using a model that can assist you with planning capabilities for a service-enabled enterprise.
Service-Oriented Modeling for Connected Systems: Part 1
Architects want to identify artifacts correctly and at the right abstraction level. Check out an approach to model connected, service-oriented systems that promotes close alignment between IT solutions and business needs in Part 1 of a two-part series.
Enabling Aspects to Enhance Service-Oriented Architecture
One of the biggest hurdles to achieving true service orientation is separating the needs of the service from the needs of the application. While services should only be concerned with the business functionality that they are exposing, it is not unusual for application specific features to "leak" into the service layer. We can now overcome the difficulties that have prevented widespread adoption of aspects in practical implementations and enable architects to factor out cross-cutting concerns from the services they are designing.
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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.