Coté's Commonplace Book

This week, news around Microsoft’s Azure Stack drove a lot of private cloud talk around these parts. Also, I’ve been trying to figure out what “Cloud-native Enterprise Architecture” means. Links and notes below.

Also, if you’re into Software Defined Talk, we’ve created a Patreon account. One, if you just want to give us cash, hey, we’ll take it. And two, we’re trying to figure out member only content. I think we’ll try with some bonus episodes where we do extended/extra analysis of white papers, surveys, and other tech industries studies and things. Go check it out and it’d be mighty fine if you helped us out.

Podcasts

Software Defined Talk: Private cloud is the Reuben sandwich of clouds, or, Shafer’s Theory of (Private) Cloud

Microsoft will ship it’s private cloud stack, Azure Stack, in September. Will this work? Will people buy it? What could you even put in that cloud? You can feel that pull people have towards private cloud, so we’re looking forward to what happens. On a related topic, by our reckoning, kubernetes to small to have already fallen.

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Pivotal Conversations: It's private cloud all over again

There’s some exciting private cloud news on the horizon with Microsoft’s Azure Stack coming out in September. We discuss the brief history of private cloud and several models people have tried, along with some other news from the infrastructure software world. With no guest, Richard and I discuss some projects we’re working from cloud-native .Net, enterprise integration, and enterprise architecture.

Also, just for y'all paying close enough attention, here’s a link to a transcript.

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That Moment: “It was essentially disrupting ourselves”

This isn’t a podcast that I do, but it’s a new Pivotal podcast that fits in the same topic area. Check it out!

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A recorded talk from this week

Cloud-native Enterprise Architecture?

I get asked a lot about “enterprise architecture” in a cloud-native/DevOps world. The stock answers are pretty terrible: “HAH-HAH-HAH!”

I’ve been looking at some old sources and talking with folks who work in large organizations on this topic to see what’s happening. Also, I’m putting together a talk on the topic (you know, once I figure it out).

My main theory is that enterprise architects only matter for large scale. “Cloud-native” (and DevOps) changes two things: faster release cycles and automating most all of the infrastructure. I’m not sure these “cancel” out the benefits of enterprise architects, so/but the question is: what does this role need to change about what it does to keep being helpful? Can 100’s of cloud-native teams just operate on their own with no EA support? Does some other team take on the EA function (with the help of automating everything)?

Is it just that the traditional tools and timelines of EAs are now crap, or that the whole function is now crap?

So…settling on a traditional definition of enterprise architecture (based on Enterprise Architecture as Strategy, 2006):

1. First, you diagnose and identify the type of business you have: a bunch of independently operating business units, or more unified.
2. Then, you figure out what IT and IT process can be shared among them, with an eye towards optimizing costs and enabling growth/innovation. Not all organizations care about both.
3. You map the “operating model” of the business to rectangles in IT (see Delta’s model in the book for a pretty good one).
4. This divides up your teams, projects, etc. and allows you to find common tech/platforms/etc. to share, if you care about that.
5. Managing scaling and scaled IT - the constant thing you’re managing is understanding the operating model (how the business operates and how IT can make it more better), and deciding what the standardize and centralize.
6. There are bonus features like exploring new technologies, informing the process to be used on the team.
7. There are “functional” things like ensuring compliance, security, etc. - at the very least, governing that someone is caring about it
8. Other things, and governance.

Links

Continuous Lifecycle London, CFP open

The Register’s DevOps-y conference is May 16th to 18th in London next year. I submitted a talk to it, and, of course, write a monthly column for them. Submit a talk yourself!

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