Episode

Armchair Architects: Architectural Erosion and Technical Debt

with David Blank-Edelman, Uli Homann, Eric Charran

Azure Essentials Show

Changes in requirements, infrastructure, or customer habits, plus other technical and business disruptions, can lead to differing levels of architectural erosion, which in turn can cause technical debt, depending on how you react to the changes. In this episode of the Azure Enablement Show, David Blank Edelman discusses with Uli and Eric, our Armchair Architects, how to identify when architectural erosion requires a fresh start, and what technical debt can be acquired when implementing quick fixes.

Chapters

  • 00:00 - Introduction
  • 00:51 - Architectural erosion as defined by Eric
  • 02:30 - Uli adds the concepts of technical and business disruption to Eric's definition
  • 04:55 - Uli mentions his 2006 paper “A Business-Oriented Foundation for Service Orientation” (link below)
  • 05:34 - Architectures should have half-lives
  • 07:18 - Eric discusses three levels of erosion: large technology disruptions, slow erosion, and living architecture
  • 09:12 - Keep in mind that business models take much longer to change
  • 10:43 - Uli paraphrases Alan Kay “the best way to predict the future is to invent it”
  • 10:58 - Research organizations help to identify signals coming from outside sources, like academia
  • 12:11 - How do identify if you're in a situation that requires a fresh start

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