Inside Architecture

Notes on Enterprise Architecture, Business Alignment, Interesting Trends, and anything else that interests me this week...

Preparing for Indigo -- an addition

Craig McMurty, in his recent posting on Indigo indicates a couple of different scenarios for folks...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 07/25/2005

Agile also means fall early and get up

I was discussing the notion, the other day, that a defect in design may be expensive, but a defect...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 07/21/2005

Considering: Temporal database relationships

I suggest that we add temporal foreign keys to relational database design. Programs move data....

Author: Nick Malik Date: 07/16/2005

Atlas = Ajax = asp.net 2.0 script callbacks and more

The marketplace of ideas is an amazing place. When Microsoft came up with the notion of Remote...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 07/08/2005

Having a High Bus Factor

A friend of mine pointed out an interesting post by Scott Hanselman that used a clever phrase:...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 06/28/2005

SOA: Introducing the Business Event Schema

We have an easy notion of the data dictionary: a description of the data at rest in a OLTP system....

Author: Nick Malik Date: 06/27/2005

Interesting problem in VS 2003 and how to fix it

A team member and I found an interesting problem yesterday that I thought I'd share. We found the...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 06/21/2005

Nick's Law of Agility

Adding only management to a flawed software development process makes it worse.

Author: Nick Malik Date: 06/08/2005

Does SOA create a new class of defect: passive-agressive behavior?

I was having a discussion the other day about the reasons for using SOA. If the liklihood of defects...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 06/04/2005

Maintaining the ACID test in long running transactions

I was reminded recently of the fact that long running transactions, especially those involving...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 06/02/2005

Feedback Requested: Are groups responsible for business processes?

I'm specifically looking for feedback on a workflow component I am working on. We have implemented a...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 05/05/2005

Feature Driven Development vs. Traditional Project Planning, part deux

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about an experience I had that allowed me to directly compare...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 04/30/2005

Draw the distinction between a message bus and a services bus

Many different products claim to be effective for Enterprise Application Integration. There's about...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 04/14/2005

Feature Driven Development: Dev is different than PM

I'm seeing the difference more clearly than before: how a team can use Feature Driven Development...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 04/13/2005

A direct comparison between FDD and Traditional WBS

Reader ROI Readers of this post will find a "case study" that allowed this author to directly...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 04/10/2005

How to get rid of circular references in C#

A refers to B, B refers to A, Why can't we all just get along? Every now and again, I see a posting...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 03/18/2005

On Security in Workflow

It's been ages sinces I've blogged on workflow. I've been wildly busy implementing a workflow engine...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 03/12/2005

C#: a way to get around the lack of multiple implementation inheritance

I run across this question from time to time: why is there no multiple inheritance in C# like there...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 12/31/2004

How is workflow different from a Finite State Automata?

After showing a workflow diagram to a co-worker, he asked me if I could tell him how this is any...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 12/28/2004

On XML Models of Process

XML is an interesting language, but is it a useful one for describing a process? We have multiple...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 12/27/2004

steps to transition a client server VB6 app to .Net

Every now and again, I get a question that I've seen many times before. I saw this one recently and...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 12/26/2004

On being offered MVP status

Back when the MVP program first started, I was a developer at American Express. I was writing code...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 12/21/2004

How to learn Object Oriented Programming

Do you understand what encapsulation means, but don't know why in the world you would want to use...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 12/21/2004

Storing configuration settings for your DLL to use

One common complaint about the .NET framework is that there is only one config file for the...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 11/25/2004

Three levels of abstraction in BPM - Part 1: Business Unit Level

I identified, in an earlier post, that I believe that there are three levels of abstraction in...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 11/16/2004

SOA and BLOBs -- using SOA principles for block-oriented data transfer (Updated)

Abstract: What happens when a business transaction, in Service Oriented Architecture, is too big to...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 11/01/2004

Stateless is to service as commandless is to data

Abstract: This article provides a counterpoint to Pat Helland's most recent article by describing...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 10/25/2004

Using Service Oriented Architecture concepts for database replication

Is SOA really useful for database replication? Yes and no. This posting will discuss a dilemna that...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 10/21/2004

How to encourage your outsourcing partners to avoid waterfall processes

Wrote an article a few days back and posted it here:...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 10/21/2004

Agile Vendor Management - removing waterfall from outsourced projects

The Tyranny of Waterfall in RFPs When I was in consulting, we would routinely bid on RFP (Requests...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 10/16/2004

Workflow patterns - so much more left undone

I have been following the progress of Dr. Wil van der Aalst in his efforts to create a patterns...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 10/15/2004

The infancy of workflow diagramming standards

I did something foolish recently... I criticized someone for an analysis diagram that, I felt,...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 10/05/2004

Document Management as a foundational technology for Workflow

I like the term "foundational technology". It sounds so much cooler than it is. I have no idea if...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 09/27/2004

YAWL -- must see TV for Workflow practitioners

YAWL - Yet Another Workflow Language I suppose the name would be funny, if the idea for the name...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 09/24/2004

Is workflow best represented by something other than a graph?

A few days ago, I blogged about the three layers of abstraction for workflow items. Now, I'm going...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 09/20/2004

Messages vs. Documents in a Workflow System

Using workflow systems can be interesting. Everyone has a good idea of how to solve the "workflow...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 09/16/2004

Three levels of abstraction in Business Process Management

I've been thinking about the levels of abstraction that Martin Fowler defines in software...

Author: Nick Malik Date: 09/14/2004

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