Few days back Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 was released by Microsoft to the general public. When tried to install the beta 2 release onto my Vista machine which had beta 1, it throwed me an error message that I need to remove the previous version of IE 8.
Windows IE 8 beta 1 installed as an update to Windows and hence I had to uninstall the update before proceeding to install beta 2.
One of the new features which caught my eye is the new ‘Browse Privately’ mode where one doesnt want to leave any trace of specific web browsing activity, such as checking your bank a/c online.
While trying to help a friend to re-locate I found this property search engine which makes simple use of Web 2.0 technologies — for the benefit of end user.
Oracle announced the availability of the Oracle Development kit for Spring. The new development kit is designed to simplify the development, deployment and management of Spring based Enterprise Java Applications.
As a TOGAF Enterprise architecture practitioner, I often encounter queries from enthusiastic Architects as to how I go about creating, communicating and maintaining the Technical reference Architecture.
For those interested , I will give a brief explanation of creating, communicating and managing the Technical reference architecture.
Let us start off with the first step in creating Technical reference Architecture using TOGAF.
Creation of Technical Architecture:
Am not going to discuss the creation of Business Architecture, though this feeds into the Technical Reference architecture.
As the name suggests ‘Technical reference Architecture’ is a reference to the set of architectural best practices for use by all the teams in the organization.
TOGAF has a Reference Model for Integrated Information Infrastructure (III-RM) that focuses on the application-level components and underlying services necessary to provide an integrated information infrastructure.
Reference architecture should be defined along different levels of abstraction, thereby providing more flexibility on how it can be used. I preferred the TOGAF way to portray reference architecture diagrammatically and expand it to include technology compatibilities for projects.
In addition to the layers shown in figure above, in some cases there might be more layers embedded within layers.
Though one can present the information for different layers in various formats, I used a simple table that facilitated a quick look up and easy communication of the material.
Table 1: Operating System services
Operating System
Databases: RedHat Linux ES 4.0
Application Servers: Solaris 10
Communicating Technical reference Architecture:
The Technical reference architecture should be communicated effectively to senior managers as well as to technical and cross domain functional teams. It should be articulated in business terms adopting more business oriented approach explaining effectively the business value it provides. At the same time it should be easily understandable to the technical team which is the key force in implementing the architecture and driving the Enterprise architecture process.The ultimate goal of the process should be to get the buy-in from business teams and technical teams.
