Adding Metadata for Reporting

Metadata and Modeling. These seem to be two topics that are intertwined today. Modeling used to be just about a pretty picture that i could talk the business people into authorizing a project plan. Today, most architects are trying to impact how developers are creating applications while verifying the inputs from the business are correct.



In that vein, there are also some additional needs for the architect and IT in general, so let me cover a simple extension/collection metadata example.



The information architecture that I was working with in PowerDesigner was very complete, and we used PD to update our scripts and generate new database objects, like tables, procs and indices. The customer i was helping in this area had a new requirement to track some compliance information on what data they are storing. For an architect with 3000 entities and over 400 tables, this was a daunting request.



So, with PowerDesigner, we can extend the meta model of the Table object to collect additional information. Here is a pic showing the extended model definition and the addition of some compliance attributes.



This picture also shows the creation of a new Tab in the Table properties sheet in PowerDesigner. Now this is the cool part. I can change the user interface in PowerDesigner to allow for this collection directly in the tool.



anyhow, will come back to this, running out of time today.

How do I use Enterprise Architecture?

I have been realizing that Enterprise Architecture is starting to turn into the next misused IT term, rather than a catalyst for change... This blog is focused on EA and PowerDesigner, true, but i wanted to keep this in perspective that we are also trying to help our business to be successful. so in that context, i wanted to show a sample EA diagram.






This Application architecture diagram was grabbed from the PD15 beta that ended last month. Anyhow, you can see how Enterprise Architecture is bringing together Application Architecture, like UML, with more traditional Process Modeling, like BPMN. pretty cool huh?

WWWWWEEEELLLLL, what is this diagram going to HELP me with? i mean really? can i use to answer some questions?

You bet.
If Application A goes down, what business functions are affected?
What areas does Application A leverage to accomplish its job? What parts of this infrastructure can go down without interupting service?
Does a specific site or location depend on any applications functioning to be successful on daily basis?

There are lots of answers in this diagram to those questions. Maybe not complete answers visually, but there is metadata behind each image on this canvas, unlike Visio :)

Anyhow, lets look at Meta data next week, until then.

Enterprise Architecture Seminar

Hi All

wanted to let everyone know about the Sybase Roadshow on Enterprise Architecture that is coming soon to a city near you.

http://response.sybase.com/forms/nao08octeventpdroadshow?mc=blog

Head to this link to see the city list and register. Seems to have more education and information in it than most roadshows.

enjoy!

PowerBars are all gone... :(

Such a sad day... While at Techwave 2008 this year, they had a snack station with PowerBars! I snagged a few each day, so a nice stockpile by the end of the week. WELL, today i ate my LAST ONE! eek!

On the Techwave note, I had a great time there this year, even got to speak in the PowerDesigner Plenary!

Davidi Dichman discussed the Enterprise Architecture focus that PD is taking for the 15 release and Matt Creason Demo'd it. Looks pretty solid and should help me keep using PowerDesigner in a more business aligned way.

My DoDAF project is closed now, so I am starting to look for the next project, which is most like supporting a VA initiative our Professional Services is starting and will need a FEAF outline for support. Sounds like agonizing pain, or fun :).

Anyone know a good overview of FEAF, let me know, cause i need to create it in PowerDesigner.

Composite Diagrams...

So this is a more academic discussion today...

I am used to Physical Data models or Logical Data models which are pretty rudimentary. Are these composites? In a diagram sense, Yes.

What does that mean? They combine a list of information:
classes, entities, attributes, columns, tables, etc...
whatever terminology you use in your modeling tool. These lists are then organized into visual representations, which become composites. So why am I talking about this...

The basics lists that are created are VERY important, and I see architects forgetting that all the time. They will use two diagrams and create the SAME attributes over again, rather than using the shared or copied attribute from a base list. Now their new diagram is going to differ from the other one since they can change the Definition of the new attribute without having some basic understanding of how that information, or object, should be bounded... UGH>

anyway, will chat on this more later and maybe get a few screenies for the post.

Our use of a Framework really needed some Guidance from a Methodology

While i have been in software programming for years, there has never been a real well stated framework that i have had to follow down at the implementation level. How many other programmers are like that? Code and Fix is what i ahve been doing for two decades now...

In the last three years I have started managing more than programming, and leading out some of the PowerDesigner initiatives has really opened my eyes to a different world.

Who knows what a framework is?
*programmer responds*Something to waste my time.
*project lead responds*Something to make my programmers document what they are doing.
*IT Director responds*A Tool for structuring deliverables that helps me show the business we are accomplishing their requests.
*Business user responds*A set of documents I can help IT create that lets me help inform them of what I want to help with my job.
*Executive Leader responds*This is going to cost a lot of money, so there better be some ROI.

In the end, a framework, like Zachman, or DoDAF, is a list of artifacts that a team has to produce in the efforts to create a new software system. If that team completes all of the documentation, models and spreadsheets, the system will be far easier to create and maintain. Now that I have experienced this from a Department of Defense Architecture Framework perspective, I know this is only partially true. Fulfilling the proper artifacts is the key. As the architect on this latest project, there were over 20 models that needed to be created. What i found was a huge redundancy between models, so the majority of them will never be used. So why did I complete them? To be compliant with the Government requriment that we completed all artifacts for DoDAF and a computere system for message handling. Oh well, we are paid by the hour times the weight of paper used...

So, why did our framework implementation produce a bunch of extra stuff... Because DoDAF is an implementation framework with very little guidance on exactly what i needed to methodically produce a required result. Methodology is a key ingredient to how we act on a framework. The really sad part is that most methodology's do not encompass a software development life cycle. In our project, we found that the programmers were steaming ahead full tilt while we were reverse engineering their classes and database with team meetings to create process maps. What a waste of time. If we had spent the first few weeks creating the process flows, data flows, application architectures, physical database diagrams, etc... this project would have take a two, maybe three months, rather than six months. Is this a result of hourly based consulting? I am starting to wonder...

hopefully this little chat is worth reading...

Design and Software Architecture

I wanted to start putting some of my thoughts together around designing software and using architecture to do that.

This blog will hopefully allow me to do this, so keep checking back for what i come up with.

Cheers
Jeff