Hey, I have been out of the loop so forgive you me if this is old news. :-$

The Microsoft Patterns an Practices team has had two really interesting releases lately. The purpose of them both is to help you avoid writing monolithic applications. In true agile spirit, the aim is to write only as much as necessary at the time.

First out, the Composite Application Guidance for WPF. I attended a briefing on this by Dotway's George Bolsch, who is on the advisory board of this particular CAG. The idea is to provide software development teams with the tools needed to build their WPF apps in a highly modular way. The focus in this case is not the application itself but the construction process. By applying CAG for WPF, you can split the development across multiple teams and then seamlessly compose those pieces into an application.

The second release on my mind is the Managed Extensibility Framework. Unlike CAG for WPF, which focuses on composition, MEF provides application extensibility. Team vs. application focus in other words. MEF can, in its simplest form, be considered a generic plug-in mechanism but from my perspective, it provides an enhanced support for agile development principles. If you make sure that you have implemented the proper extension points and that the application's core features are in place, you can then add functionality in the form of extensions without having to recompile the core. There is also an MSDN Code Gallery Area for MEF.

I really didn't think of it before I started writing but the apparent direction of thoughts after mentioning these two releases would be to also consider implementing some kind of Dependency Injection / Inversion of Control framework. Obviously, the minds of the P&P team wandered that way as well and they have subsequently released their first attempt at a DI container, called Unity. Coincidently, CAG for WPF comes with out-of-the-box support for Unity.

These are all techniques that you should consider using when you develop .NET and in particular WPF applications. The minimum engagement is to at least know as much about them that you can make an well grounded decision to leave them out of your solution rather than just missing them by accident. 

Obviously, I will be there.

Daniel Akenine, the IASA Sweden chairman, will visit Gothenburg to bootstrap a local chapter of the International Association of Software Architects.

If you happen to be in the Gothenburg area, I think you should join us this evening. November 4th at 18:00. Sign up at the IASA Sweden web page now.

Just a quick note to let you know that InfoQ has released Patterns of the book Agile Practice Adoption by Amr Elssamadisy of Valtech as a non-printable PDF. This is a must-read for (prospective) agilists. Head over there to download your copy now.

Ever since I mentioned that I will be speaking at Software Architect 2007, one buddy after another has kindly sent me emails to inform me that the concept formerly known as Microsoft Motion now has a production name: Microsoft Business Architecture or MSBA for short.

For future reference, I actually am aware of this but the proposal for these sessions were written a while back when there only were a working name. I may actually contact the conference team to have that corrected one of these days.

For those interested, Microsoft actually provides a guide to a concept called Motion Lite on the MSDN site. Motion Lite is supposed to be the external, 'free' version of the MSBA methodology. At this moment, I am still a bit curious about the licensing model around Microsoft Services Business Architecture since it is actually a product that has been developed and is owned by Microsoft Services, the consultancy branch of Microsoft corp.

At the end of May, I was hosting the final pilot MCA Review Board before the program went public. I spent a few great days in Copenhagen in the good company of Andy Ruth (Program Manager for the MCAP) and the Review Board members.

During the days at the Microsoft campus in Vedbaek, I was sitting in with the board during the candidates' presentations and the interview process and thought I'd share some of my experiences from this time for those interested in the program.

The Microsoft Certified Architect Program was announced on June 12th at the Boston Teched. Since the fees associated with the program are quite hefty, it's a good idea to make sure you know what you are getting yourself into. Believe me, this is not an average Microsoft certification.

Some factoids:

• This year, Microsoft is accepting 250 candidates for the MCAP
• The application fee alone is $200, non-refundable.
• If you are accepted to the program, you will have the pleasure of paying an additional $10,000.
• Even if assigned a mentor at the start of your program, you are not guaranteed to succeed, risking loosing your $10,000 investment.
• Actually, you are more likely to fail! The fail-to-success ratio at the Review Board is amazingly high, even after a long time of mentoring. As I mentioned - this is not you average MS certification. The Review Board will turn you inside out.

The specification that you are expected to meet is quite exhaustive. Before being accepted to the program, you must submit various documentation, proving your professional history. You are expected to document your employment history including the different roles that you have had, write down your level of expertise in the 7 competencies that you are expected to possess and finally attach an abstract of an architectural case study.

This case study will be the base for your work throughout the certification so it is vital that you put your soul into its preparation. As a first, it will be critical in the MCAP application team's assessment of whether you are suitable for the MCA Program. Later, at the Review Board, you will first give a presentation of the case study, after which you will be interviewed byt the board members on the topic. Review Board members know their stuff and if you hesitate on your answers, you'd better be prepared for some hammering. You will be bombarded with questions during the entire interview process and if there are weaknesses in your story, they will surface.

The breadth and depth of the board's knowledge is impressive! In order to make the Review Process a little bit less Microsoft dominant, each Review Board is made up of two Microsoft employees and two non-microsofters. The team is put together in such a fashion that, per my feeling, they cover pretty much any product and every aspect of the architectural domain. I know that this is not the case, but they are really close.

Once the exhausting interviews on the case study have finally ended, you will be given a grace time of 5 minutes before the hammering resumes. This time you will have to prove your skills in the required competencies. You are no longer in the driver's seat and this is the Review Board's turf. You'd better be prepared to stand up for your competence.

Read through all documentation carefully. Make sure that you meet the requirements before even applying in the first place. I can't stress enough that this certification is for real. The nice thing is, that for those that pass, it will actually make a difference. The Microsoft Architect Certification will be a good way to measure your value; both when it's time to talk salary and when it comes to ensuring the quality of your personnel.

The application process will close on July 14th or when 250 applications have been submitted, whichever comes first, so if you feel that you have what it takes there is no time to hesitate!

Acknowledging that OO is not always the sole solution, a full 339000 blog entries states that it is more important to do it right.

This time, we will have the opportunity to enjoy Paul Preiss, the President of IASA, giving the key note. Venue will be centrally located at Cornerstone's in Gothenburg and the date is 7-8 April.

I just took part of a presentation by Paul Preiss, President of IASA, on the upcoming F&T material. This is really going to rock the software development industry!

Terms under review at this moment, as stated on the F&T site:

• Architecture Style
• Architecture Pattern
• Architecture Methodology
• Architecture Toolset
• Architecture Framework

I have still only seen pre-alpha material but am nothing short of amazed! As it seems, the F&T working group have set their minds on providing the software industry with a complete taxonomy of software architecture. This means a glossary of terms, role- and object descriptions, definition of tasks and relations between all of these.

You will find both Microsoft, IBM and many other large corporations committing to the output of this IASA working group which means that the F&T definitions are terms that you eventually will be using in a not so distant future.

I suggest you keep an eye open when IASA releases this material on public review near the summer.

During the second session of the Architecture Symposium, the guys kept evangelizing Agile Architecure. The plan is to run as short iterations as possible and involve necessary resources as soon as possible. For instance, there could be a lot of input from the Operations guys that could affect the basic structure and design of a system's architecture.

After this, the discussions moved more into good Web Service implementations patterns. WS-Security is one of the recommended implementations in the WS-* package, for instance. I'm pretty sure that there will be lots of blogging around this at http://pdcbloggers.net/Default.aspx.

Harry Pierson is hosting the PDC Architecture Symposium this last day of the conference. Harry keeps bringing one outstanding Microsoft architect after another up on stage, roleplaying their way through the architectural process, from defining the value chain to defining the service oriented implementation.

At this moment, Beat Schwegler is stressing the importance of Contract First modeling for the service implementation. By using VSTS, modelling the implementation of your SOA is a piece of cake! By modelling the application- and service designs in VSTS, you get an immediate relation between the model and the implementation. You can also use regular properties pages to add constraints to the web services that you intend to implement.

Simon Guest explains the operations- and deployment models in relation to the Dynamic Systems Initiative. From Beat's presentation, Simon referred to the SDM Document that should be a deliverable from the work Beat did during his part of the presentation. Using the Logical Datacenter Designer, Simon lays out the zones for his datacenter setup.

During an email conversation with Rickard Öberg the other day, we stumbled onto the topic of what the Architect title is worth. We both agreed that the title has undergone some heavy inflation over the last few years, which made a recent blog entry from Jimmy Nilsson jump into mind.
- How much is being referred to as an Architect really worth?

Rickard claimed that most 'Architects' are really self-proclaimed such, and that they more likely are high-level developers, or Software Engineers if you like. Willing or not, I had to agree. In Sweden, there aren't really that many opportunities provided for a focused Architect role. The collection of software projects simply aren't of that size.

A letter from Lars Wiktorin (swedish) made me aware that the swedish organisation Datorföreningen as of today has provided in excess of 900 IT Architect certifications (swedish). 900! Sweden is a country of 9 million people, most of who are not even in the software business!

Oh, and by the date 31 Mars -05, Microsoft Sweden has provided some 31 'Microsoft .NET Architect' certifications through Sundblad & Sundblad (uhm, yes, still swedish). Does that make this particular Architect Java ignorant? I must say that when you come to a level that you certify yourself as a .NET [anything], you have lost the architectural perspective. .NET System Engineer? -Hell Yeah! .NET Architect? -No, I don't think so.

The solution?
You guessed it. It's coming...

• I will provide an in depth presentation of the IASA organisation, mission and objectives - on international as well as on chapter level.
• There will be an opportunity to volunteer for active positions within the swedish chapter. We need:
  • Sponsors
  • Marketing
  • Presenters
  • Networking
  • General volunteer work