Category Archives: Thoughts on the World

I’ve recently been catching up on the Microsoft Architecture Journal. This is an occasional MS publication, which can be downloaded from the

.NET Architecture Center. It’s got a lot of good articles, with a software architecture and process focus.

Of particular interest, there’s an article in the first edition by Cap Gemini on “Enterprise Architecture Design and the Integrated Architecture Framework”. Obviously every consultancy has their own architecture framework, and they all share some features, but what makes this one a bit different is the strong focus on the contextual (business context), conceptual (vision) and logical (solution independent capability) aspects, with technical details relegated to a bottom physical layer. It also has one of the best discussions I’ve seen on the relationship and differences between enterprise and project architectures.

Inspired by an article on Richard Veryard’s SOAPBox Blog, this piece considers the business equivalents of expansion capabilities like the spare slots in a desktop PC.

Sometimes formalised modelling techniques like UML are not the best solution. Microsoft have recently started talking about “Domain-Specific Languages”, specialised modelling techniques for specific tasks. My Domain-Specific Modelling Techniques page outlines some useful DSLs I have developed or discovered.

Is IT architecture about the “hidden bits of plumbing”, or should it focus on the “visible design” delivered to users, developers and other stakeholders? Read this paper, and consider your view.

Musings on whether an architect can fit neatly anywhere in a traditional IT organisation hierarchy.