PATTERN LANGUAGE

Modeling, Managing, Making it Right.

January 2007

If you happen to be in the neighborhood of Newport, Gwent in early March, you might want to stop by the Mcrosoft Architect Insight Conference. Of course, I'm not quite sure where Newport, Gwent exactly is except I think it is part of Wales.

Still, the conference is being held at the Celtic Manor Resort which appears to be several notches above the Howard Johnson's the boss insists that I stay at. In any event, the two day conference targets "senior enterprise, solutions,and infrastructure architects, plus CTOs and senior IT decision makers." It doesn't sound like MASM will be a covered topic.

Speakers include Ivar Jacobson, creator of the Rational Unified Process and frequent Dr. Dobb's contributor (he has a two-part article coming up in DDJ), and Alan Cameron Wills and JackGreenfield, software architects and members of Microsoft's VSTS Architect Team.

The agenda is split into seven tracks covering Enterprise, Real World, Identity, Lifecycle, SaaS, Collaboration and Dynamic Systems; the main content sessions will be 75 or 150 minutes in length to accommodate the different formats and levels of interaction that may be required.

There will be an emphasis on architectural "investigation" through the use of small focus groups, as well as a structured networking clinic where individuals from similar vertical business backgrounds can discuss and work through a particular problem domain.

Posted by Jon Erickson at 01:05 PM  Permalink |

If you're developing large, complex systems, you might want to take a look at the recently released report entitled Interoperable Acquisition for Systems of Systems: The Challenges from the Software Engineering Institute.

Prepared by James D. Smith II and D. Mike Phillips, the report identifies the challenges involved in building network-centric operations, joint and combined operations, and system complexity has led to the prevalence of interoperable systems of systems. Specifically, the report examines interoperable acquisition (that is, the set of practices that enable acquisition, development, and operational organizations to collaborate more effec-tively in fielding interoperable systems) from a variety of perspectives in the context of real-world acquisition programs.

Additionally, according to the SEI, this report explores how systems-of-systems realities necessitate changes in the processes used to acquire, develop, field, and sustain operational capability. Interoperable acquisition is defined, and key concepts are explored through an analysis of some of the ways in which traditional acquisition approaches can result in problems when applied to a system-of-systems context.

Sounds interesting.

Posted by Jon Erickson at 11:43 AM  Permalink |

The Open Group, a consortium recently mentioned by Arnon in regards to an upcoming conference has announced the release of Version One of the Universal Data Element Framework (UDEF), a standard way of indexing enterprise information.

UDEF Version One contains the definitions that let organizations index many commonly-used information items. It simplifies information management through consistent classification and assignment of a global standard identifier to the data names and then relating them to similar data element concepts defined by other organizations. Although this approach is a small part of the overall picture, it is potentially an enabler of semantic interoperability.

According to the Open Group, application development continues to be costly because of the difficulty of organizing and accessing the large volumes of information stored by enterprises and utilized by applications. With the introduction of UDEF, enterprises can access and utilize a standardized framework to index information, allowing developers to find information sources more easily and reducing development costs. Because UDEF is a standard, the cost of interfacing with other enterprises that use the UDEF is reduced as well.

Posted by Jon Erickson at 10:15 AM  Permalink |

Okay, maybe this post belongs in the Embedded Systems or AI department. Still, you have to design and write applications for it. What I'm talking about is Create, a new mobile robot from iRobot.

iRobot, you recall, is the company that builds and sells the Scooba, Roomba, and Dirt Dog, robots that vacuum and scrub the floor for you.

Create is a different sort of beast, however. It is billed as an "affordable, programmable robot designed for aspiring roboticists, advanced high-school and college students, and serious robot developers." Create comes pre-assembled, so you can design new robots without having to build a mobile robot from scratch. And pricing starts at $129.99.

A variety of methods and programming languages can be used to control Create. You can watch the robot’s behavior in one of 10 demonstration modes, or they can program the robot directly by downloading short scripts with any basic terminal program. You can also can write programs for completely autonomous robot behavior in C/C++ using the iRobot Command Module. Furthermore, you can also create custom software and interact with Create using a Microsoft Robotics Studio, a Windows-based toolkit.

I recently had a chance to talk with Colin Angle, the co-founder of iRobot about Create and other topics. A fascinating chat about what looks to be a really fun device.

Posted by Jon Erickson at 09:33 AM  Permalink |

Security experts have recently been warning organizations that real -- and growing -- security dangers aren't from intruders, but from threats inside the organization. To that end, a group of researchers at the Software Engineering Institute have modeled these possibilities using the System Dynamics methodology.

The model and its results have been published in a paper entitled Comparing Insider IT Sabotage and Espionage: A Model-Based Analysis, written by Stephen R. Band, Dawn M. Cappelli, Lynn F. Fischer, Andrew P. Moore, Eric D. Shaw, and Randall F. Trzeciak. The paper examines the psychological, technical, organizational, and contextual factors that contribute to insider trust betrayal. In particular, the report focuses on insider sabotage against IT systems, and espionage.

The study found parallels between the two categories of trust betrayal, including the:

• Contribution of personal predispositions and stressful events to the risk of an insider committing malicious acts
• Exhibition of behaviors and technical actions of concern by the insider preceding or during an attack
• Failure of their organizations to detect or respond to rule violations.
• Insufficiency of the organization’s physical and electronic access controls.

The researchers make recommendations that are based on the study.

Posted by Jon Erickson at 12:16 PM  Permalink |