elemental links

Streambase continues to stack the deck with CEP Pioneers

If you are of the opinion that organizations with the most talent tend to win the day, and you have a business need that could benefit from Complex Event Processing (event-driven architecture, business event processing), you should keep an eye on Streambase.  In January, Colin Clark of Kaskad joined Streambase as VP for Customers, and this week, Mark Palmer of Apama joined Streambase as President and COO. 

For those that follow the CEP space, you'll find these hires interesting because both Colin and Mark are (colorfully) on the public record stating an SQL approach is not the only way to do CEP.  However, an SQL approach is at the core of Streambase.  So, obviously something compelled Colin and Mark to Streambase.  In my recent conversations with Colin, he has called out Streambase's customer base and his self-made mandate to demonstrate value every month of 2008.  Perhaps Colin will invite Mark to join our April call.  I'm definitely intrigued...

[Disclosure: Neither Streambase or Progress Apama are clients of my company, Elemental Links.  Kaskad was a client of Elemental Links]

SOA Consortium and CIO magazine Case Study Contest

Do you have a SOA story to tell?  One that speaks to business value generation, rather than the singular pursuit of technical nirvana?  If you answered yes to both, consider participating in the SOA case study contest from the SOA Consortium and CIO magazine.   Ripped from my own post on the SOA Consortium Insights blog:

"The goal of the SOA case study contest is to highlight business success stories and lessons learned to provide proof points and insights for other organizations considering or pursuing SOA adoption.

Case study submissions must be for completed projects that used a SOA approach to deliver business value.   In keeping with our charter, we are not looking for dissertations on the technical beauty of the architecture and implementation. Rather, we are interested in the business story, the business value generated, the degree of cross-organizational collaboration, and the usages of SOA approaches and supporting technology.

For more information on the contest and participation, please go here."

[Disclosure: The SOA Consortium is a client of my company, Elemental Links]

Jack van Hoof's IT Services Stack collaboration experiment

Jack van Hoof contacted me about his IT Services Stack collaboration experiment.  Jack, as many know, is an enterprise integration architect and author of the popular eda-soa blog.  In his email, Jack asked if I would let my readers know of his experiment and offer my feedback.  Since the work will remain in the public domain, I'm happy to do both.

The Initiative

The best way to describe the work, is to excerpt from Jack's post and show his picture in progress.

"It is not always easy for an enterprise IT architect to keep scope and hold the complete picture. As we have several architects with different competences I felt the urge to develop an IT Services Stack. The IT Services Stack is a picture of a layered view on all aspects of IT from a component perspective."

 

"I would like to make this premature IT Services Stack more consistent and supply an extended view on every component mentioned in the picture. The model should be defined one level deeper, with the following attributes:

• Function of the component

• Relationship with other components
       
• Sub-level components and models
       
• Related open standards
       
• Innovative products in the market"
   

Jack then asks for community help, that's us.  So, if you are inclined, jump over to Jack's blog and offer your comments.  Or, as I'm about to do, post your comments and link to Jack.

My Three Cents

I suggest the addition of a new (leftmost) column, IT Business Management.  This column would contain components related to the 'business of IT'.  Top of mind components are:

   
• Business & IT Collaboration: Strategy, Architecture, Planning
   
• IT Offerings - the products and services IT provides to the business.  The supplier might be a third party.
   
• Demand and Supply Management
   
• Portfolio Management - Budget, Project and Asset
   
• Talent Development

The Hardware section caught my eye, only because I wonder how much hardware will continue to be under direct management of IT.  Beyond interaction devices (laptops, keyboards, mice, pdas) and networking equipment, does hardware ownership and management by IT organizations become obsolete?  Do we care about the hardware?  Or, just the technical infrastructure services at the next layer up?

In respect to the SOA box, the SOA Consortium's community of practice is working on a planning framework.  I sense some sharing in our future.

[Disclosure: The SOA Consortium is a client of my company, Elemental Links]