IEEE Computer special issue on Data Intensive Computing

Some exciting news – I’ll be a co-editor for a special issue of IEEE Computer on Data Intensive Computing. The deadline for paper submission is October 15th, and you can find a copy of the call for papers here.

The official call will appear in the August Issue of Computer.

Data Intensive Computing @ PNL new web site

We’ve now got a web site on our Data Intensive Computing Initiative for those of you who are interested in finding out about the work I’m involved in. The web site should get regularly updated as the progress on the initiative is really starting to gain momentum, which is great news and a lot of fun to work on.

Some nice Software Architecture teaching ideas

Greg Wilson at the University of Toronto has been using my book and fellow Aussie John Reekie’s to help him teach a Software Architecture course. In his blog, he describes how he got the students in the course to compare and contrast two open source software products that on the surface do similar things (e.g. two editors, two JavaScript engines), but under the covers are built very differently indeed.

Some of the student reports are posted, and the outcomes look really positive. I’ve always suspected that open source technologies could provide a rich set of examples for teaching various aspects of software architecture and design, and Greg has demonstrated this to be possible. If I were teaching a subject like this (which I’d really like to), I’d be emulating this approach.

On a broader note, it’s a shame that architecture isn’t more widely taught, as it’s absolutely key to building successful software products. Over the years, I’ve found the lack of understanding and appreciation of architecture issues to be often alarming. In particular, when assessing the capabilities of superficially similar technologies (e.g several workflow engines, several content management systems), the ‘if it walks like a duck and sounds like a duck, it’s a duck’ principle is widely applied.

Well, I’m sorry, but in software terms, this type of thinking just doesn’t work. It might (figuratively) walk and sound like a duck, but under the feathers it’ll have a different architecture, be built to perform and scale to meet particular usages and loads, might be easy or hard to configure, manage and operate in a fail-safe manner, and so on. When people buy a car, they understand that all cars are different under the covers, and compare and contrast accordingly. Why this thinking doesn’t carry over to software technology assessment, I really don’t know?

But I suspect it has to do with the amorphous qualities of software. You can’t easily assess its design by lifting the hood and poking around. You have to dig deep and do serious analysis. Just the sort of analysis that Greg is getting his students to do in their course.

Nice work, Greg. I’d be keen to think about how we can encourage others to use such innovations in their software architecture courses.

SATURN 2007 in Pittsburgh

Just got back from attending the SATURN 2007 workshop in Pittsburgh. And what a thoroughly enjoyable workshop it was. The quality of discussions was the best I’ve heard at a workshop for many a year.  Presenters and audience all seemed more or less on the same page, with a common understanding of where the field of software architecture stands, and what challenges lie ahead.

It was fascinating and illuminating to hear the experiences and issues that many attendees raised. And it was an equally excellent opportunity to catch up with some of the latest work from the SEI architecture folks – they’re always worth listening to.

I gave the opening keynote on Tuesday, which was fun. It seemed to be reasonably well received, but the audience is the only true arbiter of that. Jeromy Carrière’s keynote on Tuesday was entertaining, beautifully presented and a fascinating and insightful tale of his experiences of the last 15 years. It seemed to resonate strongly with the mostly industry-based audience, and generated some interesting questions. This is the kind of talk that researchers in architecture should hear to give them a deep appreciation of the practical problems faced in industry and the ingenuity practitioners employ to address them.

And it was a pleasure to be in Pittsburgh for the first time in 6 years. It’s a place I really quite like, reminding me of Sheffield, where I spent many years at college. A medium sized city with plenty of fun to be had and without the chaos that reigns in its metropolis-like counterparts. I hope I get back there soon, especially as I didn’t get to the Penn Brewery – a place whose beer I used to love. Next time …

Another review of Essential Software Architecture

ACM Computing Reviews has published a review of Essential Software Architecture at:

http://www.reviews.com/

It certainly brought a smile to my face. And I should mention that without my wonderful chapter contributors, Jenny Liu, Liming Zhu, Mark Staples, Paul Greenfield and Judy Thomson, this wouldn’t have been possible.

For those without an account to view the whole thing, here’s an excerpt:

Gorton has produced a well-done, thorough work. Writing such a book on software architecture is a daunting task. One of the reasons for this is the difficulty in covering all aspects of software architecture in adequate detail without getting into a specific problem space and losing focus from the required generality. Very few texts on this subject have been able to achieve the delicate balance between generality and specificity. Essential software architecture does this. It will be most appreciated by practicing or aspiring software architects looking for good material to use as a reference. …… This is a readable, example-based, succinctly presented book. If I were a software professional interested in becoming a software architect or even a practicing software architect looking for reference material, I would definitely have this book on my shelf.

Boston in summer – Quality of Software Architectures 2007

The 3rd International Conference on the Quality of Software Architectures (QoSA 2007) will be held in Boston, MA on July 12th and 13th. I’ve been to the first two QoSAs, and they were fun, informative and excellent opportunities for interating with the software architecture community. I can’t think of  a better place to be next July, so get writing those papers. Submission deadline is February 16th.

Dr Dobbs “Essential Software Architecture” book review

My old colleague Liming Zhu alerted me to this review.
Can’t complain about that one

SIFT goes public

More good work news – the paper we submitted to the International Conference on COTS Based Software Systems 2007 (ICCBSS) was accepted. It describes the latest work on a project at PNNL that I sort-of started in 2003, and since has evolved nicely (without my ideas to pollute it ) to create an infrastructure for the kinds of analytical systems we build here.

The technology is called SIFT (Scalable Information Fusion and Triage), and it’s based on the open source Mule enterprise service bus. We’re building at least three demonstrators using SIFT right now, and a serious one will be rolled out in November for public viewing. This requires high throughput and scalability, and will be a real test of the technology. No doubt I’ll blog about it once it’s properly tested . We’re nearly there right now, actually, jusy some stress testing to go.

ICCBSS 2007 is in Banff in late February. It promises to be an interesting conference in a beautiful setting. Bring your woollies and I’ll see you there.

WICSA, Mumbai Jan 2007

The review process for the Working International Conference on Software Architecture has just been completed. We accepted 17 full papers and 14 short papers, and overall I think we’ll have an excellent program. Scott Ambler will be opening the conference with a keynote, no doubt to do with all things agile-y and RUP-y. Scott’s an excellent speaker, so expect an interesting and hopefully somewhat controversial talk.

Dan Paulish has also put together an exciting tutorial program for the first two days of the conference. So this is an excellent opportunity for researchers and practitioners to hang out together, discuss hot architecture issues and indulge in Indian food and beer in Mumbai in 2007.

Registration is open, and the programme will be on the web site real soon now!

Finally – a work entry

Actually a somewhat self-indulgent one, actually.

I just searched to see if there were any new reviews for my book, Essential Software Architecture, anywhere on the web. The wonders of Google quickly revealed a blog entry from Greg Wilson, which brought a big smile to my face. I won’t bore you with the details, but I can’t resist quoting the following:

"Essential Software Architecture is head and shoulders above other books on the subject that I’ve read."

I’m seriously hoping Greg has actually read more than one other book on software architecture! If so, I’m grateful for such a kind review, especially as I didn’t have to buy any beer to get it .