El prisma del management de IT

JBoss Drools 5 videos

2009-09-24T21:00:00.000-07:00

Great new features

Iniciativas de comunidad en la argentina

2009-09-24T20:16:00.000-07:00

En Argentina ya tenemos Jboss User Group! Es importante que nos unamos para hacer una comunidad vibrante y llena de actividad en beneficio de todos: Compartir experiencias y hasta modificar el rumbo de las aplicaciones para que contemplen las realidad latinoamericanas!

Did you know?

2009-09-24T00:43:00.000-07:00

This kind of videos are useful for updating on the latest trends (which change every 6 months now ;)

Brainstorming efectivo

2009-08-23T10:54:00.000-07:00

Un buen brainstorming es la base de cualquier innovacion. Aca van 10 tips para hacerlo mas eficiente.

Open Source and Social interaction

2009-08-19T23:31:00.001-07:00

facebook architecture

2009-04-14T21:21:00.000-07:00

Nice to watch how to support 200 millon users :) (Sorry cannot embed this one)

La definicion del exito

2009-04-09T21:05:00.001-07:00

Un vistazo a lo que el futuro nos puede dar

2009-03-12T20:00:00.000-07:00

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-GB&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:a517b260-bb6b-48b9-87ac-8e2743a28ec5&showPlaylist=true&from=shared" target="_new" title="Future Vision Montage">Video: Future Vision Montage</a>

Firefox 3.5 , cada vez mas parecido a un CLI de browsers

2009-03-06T19:47:00.001-08:00

En esta presentacion pueden ver lo que se viene con firefox 3.5 (antes 3.1). Puedo atestiguar que es MUCHISIMO mas rapido en gmail por ejemplo. Gmail hace un uso intensivo de JavaScript.

Firefox 3.5 and Beyond, At Portland Web Innovators

View more presentations from dietrichayala. (tags: portland mozilla)

Proyectos

2009-02-20T18:37:00.000-08:00

Estoy decepcionado. Cuando creemos que todo esta dicho en la gestion de proyectos y que los best practices ya forman parte de la jerga diaria; nos encontramos con proyectos que fallan en lo fundamental.

Buscar y encontrar el sponsor correcto, definir el alcance estrictamente y comunicar a todas las areas involucradas son maximas basicas de gestion de proyectos.

Sin estos hitos fundamentales los proyectos tienen a tambalear y caerse: Un alcance mal definido o difuso nos pone en problemas con usuarios y proveedores. Sin un sponsor con poder cualquier cambio es nadar contracorriente. Sin comunicacion sobre el proyecto tus involucrados pierden interes, sacan al proyecto de su mapa mental y pueden sabotearlo.

El gestor de proyectos no debe olvidarse que todo proyecto de IT es fundamentalmente un cambio, mas alla de la aplicacion, la capacitacion y documentacion.

Ahora me siento mas aliviado. Hasta la proxima.

A very good for dummies introduction to the credit crisis

2009-02-20T18:25:00.000-08:00

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Copyright in Software and Open Source licensing

2009-02-15T18:02:00.001-08:00

Muy interesante para los que desarrollamos sobre licencias open source.

View more presentations from Rowan Wilson.

Drools won the bossie awards!

2008-08-05T13:35:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to the drools team for the hard work!

If you want to make a buck in your spare time

2008-08-03T22:29:00.000-07:00

Sign up at GetAFreelancer! There's always some interesting projects to work on. This benefits a lot to Argentinians due to the difference in money exchange. You'll find Java, PHP and C projects along with anything non information system related such as virtual assistants, etc.

Dumping threads for debugging pourposes

2008-07-30T18:04:00.000-07:00

If you don't have a profiler application in production environments you can check out the thread stack on the fly by using this JBoss JMX console MBean to do a very verbose thread dump.
It's a JVM feature, you can do it using jconsole too.

Multicore programming on .NET

2008-07-30T17:58:00.000-07:00

One of the guys in my team handled me this article. It's definitely worth sharing. You can obtain huge amounts of performance from using this simple framework into your applications. It's very similar to the util.concurrent package from the Java language.

FAQ: Should I synchronize the access to the HttpSession object?

2008-07-03T19:25:00.000-07:00

No, from the Servlet spec 2.5 and upper but you should take care of the objects put on the session in a thread safe manner.

BPM Certification

2008-06-30T18:45:00.001-07:00

I've been invited by a friend to take the new OMG's OCEB certification beta test exam. This new certification is exciting for BPM professionals all around the world. It'll set a baseline for every BPM professional. The exam's contents are challenging, from business objetives of process improvements, to the BPMN modelling notation and some process improvement frameworks such as APQC.

New performance tool for IBM JVM

2008-06-30T18:40:00.000-07:00

(Un)Fortunately I have to work with a IBM Java environment (PPC64 hardware), and I have to say that the big blue provides several tools to diagnose problems. One of those tools is the Java Lock Analyzer. It allows a developer to detect and diagnose lock and monitor problems such as deadlocks or unnecessary wait states.
BTW, it only works with IBM JVMs AFAIK.
Hope it helps.

As real time as you can get

2008-06-29T15:25:00.000-07:00

The people from Orbitz (the popular travel site) open sourced their real time monitoring application called Graphite.

It uses an specialized database to store the time series data. This allows to quickly retrieve the monitoring information. Other approaches like storing directly to a SQL database are slower because of the engine´s overhead.

Graphite has a very slick and elegant UI to browse the monitored metrics and a CLI for faster administration.

I´m currently using Zabbix at the office, but it needs lots of maintainance from the operations people and has some glitches when it comes to gather the metrics. It also interpolates data when it's inexistent. A critical flaw for a monitoring application. We are planning to replace it with another tool ASAP.

Documental increible sobre los tiempos que vivimos

2008-06-14T21:41:00.001-07:00

JavaOne 2008

2008-05-05T19:00:00.000-07:00

This is my third year attending JavaOne. I'm so excited to hear the news about Sun! Keep you posted, this time I promise!

JBoss World 2008

2008-02-14T06:25:00.000-08:00

I'm attending the JBoss World 2008 conference in Orlando, FL. Great news from our friends at Redhat, very interesting products and innovations. Keep you posted.

Crazy Enough

2008-01-28T19:09:00.000-08:00

I'm crazy enough to buy ALL the 65 books of the Personal MBA collection from Amazon. I can't wait for them to arrive!

New article about Shoal

2007-12-10T18:48:00.000-08:00

I've written another article: this time about project Shoal. Juan Pedro Danculovic helped me out with it. Thanks to him.

Google Charts API

2007-12-07T19:56:00.000-08:00

Another great toy from Mountain View, CA!. Google Charts API has born.
I like to call it Code As A Service (CAAS). Just a HTTP invocation with a few parameters are need to render beautiful charts.



http://chart.apis.google.com
/chart?cht=p3&chd=s:hW&chs=250x100&chl=Firefox|IE

Linux 2.6.24

2007-12-07T19:13:00.000-08:00

New features of the kernel

IE8 announced, what a joke!

2007-12-07T18:45:00.000-08:00

People are raging about the spectacular announce of IE8. I'm not an MS hater, but come on ! IE is the worst piece of software to come out of Redmond.

PostgreSQL partitioned index tip

2007-12-06T19:29:00.001-08:00

Did you know PostgreSQL can make use of a partitioned index? That is an index with a WHERE clause. For example:
CREATE INDEX bigidx1 ON TABLE bigtable1 WHERE bigfield1 < 10000

That effectively creates a better index than a whole column index. The planner can check the WHERE clause of the SELECT and choose a smaller index. Smaller means faster :)

Use with caution and ALWAYS benchmark the new indexes. This type of index is truly useful when you have a good part of the column data (say 70%) with a unique value and the rest with a very disperse value set. And the table is very big, obviously.

Hope it helps.

Great tips for bloggers

2007-12-04T17:25:00.000-08:00

Thanks Jon Mountjoy for your great advice on blogging! This is a must read for every blogger.

Who needs PhotoShop? Not me!

2007-12-03T20:17:00.000-08:00

For those in need of a free replacement of PhotoShop, check out The Gimp. This is a free alternative, as powerful as PS and extremely flexible.

Tidy up your HTML pages

2007-12-03T18:46:00.000-08:00

Usually you have to submit clean HTML for technical articles in sites such as java.net. Writing clean HTML is very difficult and error prone. Thanks God, HTMLTidy exists.
Just run it over your pages and look at the warnings. Perphaps you want something more automated? Run it with file override to create a complaint HTML.

The greatest book about writing style ever

2007-12-03T18:21:00.000-08:00

William Strunk wrote the bset compilation of writing tips. As a foreign language author I can only say THANKS.
If you are writing in English, such as articles or documentation, be sure to read at least once a month!

Paypal para argentinos

2007-12-03T11:04:00.000-08:00

Me agrada comentarles que el servicio de Paypal "Withdraw to you credit card" funciona perfectamente para tarjeta argentinas.
Paypal nos permite enviar dinero a nuestra tarjeta de credito, en la forma de un descuento. Es decir en el resumen de cuenta nos aparece -U$D 200,00 por ejemplo.
Paypal se lleva 5 dolares por cada envio, lo cual me parece justo.

Esper:The power of events at your fingertip

2007-12-02T21:07:00.000-08:00

Events are everywhere, in massive amounts , containing information you never imagined and in real time. But can you handle them all?
You are not alone, Esper allows you to process streams of events. A continous flow of events you can query and detect patterns.
The patterns are the real power of Esper, you can make use of sequencial and time patterns.

For example: If after the ocurrence of a Stock with more than 5 dollars, arrives a new Stock with less than 4 dollars, notify me!

Esper only notifies you, and leaves the rest to you.

Patrick Lightbody comments about my book

2007-12-02T18:48:00.001-08:00

Thanks Patrick!

Javalobby interview

2007-12-02T18:46:00.000-08:00

The guys at javalobby asked me a few questions.

A great article about consultancy

2007-12-02T18:39:00.000-08:00

http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/be-consultant.html

New process scheduler for linux

2007-11-29T17:19:00.000-08:00

There's a new "completely fair scheduler" for linux. I'm eager to see some benchmark or interactivity improvements over the old one.

IBM JDK tools

2007-11-28T20:34:00.000-08:00

I'm not the only one with problem in the lack of profilers for the PPC64 IBM's Power platform.

Disable Explicit Garbage collection

2007-11-28T19:10:00.000-08:00

You can disable explicit garbage collection (System.gc) by using the following switch:

-XX:+DisableExplicitGC

This week in various stress tests, many Stop the world collections are triggered by ServiceMix. This switch disables this behavior.

Stay hungry, Stay foolish

2007-11-28T18:55:00.000-08:00

Google's architecture

2007-11-28T16:46:00.000-08:00

Following with the technical video sessions, I'm fascinated by the clear introduction to Google's architecture in this video.

GFS, MapReduce and a modified version of Linux are the base of the empire :)

JBoss stupid configuration errors

2007-11-28T16:37:00.000-08:00

Why on earth the JBoss people doesn't warn about connection pooling? The stale connection are very common. What happens when the server has a smaller timeout time for the connection than the application server?
Answer: the connection becomes stale. It doesn't work anymore. Some drivers such as jTDS or DB2 jcc have this behavior.
The best thing you can do is add the following tag to your datasource XML:

<check-valid-connection-sql> SELECT 1</check-valid-connection-sql>

The SQL statement can be anything useful to you. Be sure not to do something crazy such as a join. The only requirement is that the SQL must execute OK, otherwise JBoss creates a fresh connection.

WS-Discovery

2007-11-27T18:57:00.000-08:00

Today I researched WS-Discovery. This is a protocol of the WS-* family and is very similar to a p2p architecture. But instead of using a propietary or binary messages to discover peers or services it uses XML and SOAP.
I don't agree that the WS-* stack is bloated, the interoperability is great, when you have communicated two applications written in two completely different languages such as Java and ASP, then you know that Web Services are paradise.
If you complain about bandwidth just use compression, and if you don't understand the protocols, do your homework :)
Returning to the subject of my post, WS-Discovery identifies clients and services. The clients send multicast "probe" SOAP messages asking for services. Then the services answer in unicast to the client, using WS-Addressing to indicate the client the service address. Also services can say hello or goodbye to the whole network in a multicast way. All in all it is a very simple protocol and really useful in mobile enviroment where connectivity is limited.
A good way to dynamically obtain a SOA service catalog too.
AFAIK there is no Java implementation, but a .NET one in Windows Vista, but i haven't checked it out yet. Perhaps it's a good addition to Apache Muse.

Open Source Code metrics

2007-11-26T18:01:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, I found Ohloh. The Ohloh site checks out an open source project code and display several useful metrics like LOC count, the number and geographical location of developers, and an estimated project cost based on an average programmer salary. Check out the Ohloh page for one of my favorite project ServiceMix
You can also embed the metrics into your blog like this from the Shoal project:

Microsoft Surface

2007-11-26T17:57:00.000-08:00

Es increible lo que se puede hacer con un touch screen, sin mouse y sin teclado. El Microsoft Surface no es solamente eso, sino que tambien es multi-touch como el iPhone y tiene 5 camaras para reconocer objetos.
Quiero uno!!!

Youtube architecture and scalability

2007-11-26T05:38:00.001-08:00

I'm fascinated by the talk given by Cuong Do about the YouTube architecture, its issues and maturity phases. The trick for getting the mysql replication faster is an incredible example of lateral thinking.

It blows my mind!

Architect forum from Microsoft

2007-11-26T05:33:00.000-08:00

I've been invited to join an architect forum organized by Microsoft. Fortunately is open minded and technology agnostic not Microsoft centric.
Kudos to Martin Salias and Ezequiel Glinsky for the great discussion topics. Highly recommended to attend if you are a software architect.

OSWorkflow book review

2007-11-26T05:27:00.000-08:00

The book is selling well and getting positive reviews both from peers and reviewers like Geertjan

Java application clustering made easy

2007-11-26T05:22:00.000-08:00

Ever wanted to share the state and emit signals between two applications? and how about a variable number of application instances? you know how hard it is to do it efficiently, in a multicast way, etc.
And how about recognizing an instance failure? All those features are hard to write and harder to test.
Shoal comes to the rescue. This framework derived from the GlassFish project, provides cluster communication, join and failure signals, messaging and data sharing.

My latest technical article in java.net

2007-09-06T20:22:00.000-07:00

http://today.java.net/pub/a/today/2007/09/06/instant-user-tracking-with-clickstream.html

OSWorkflow book now published

2007-08-28T20:15:00.000-07:00

Take a look!

Strategic business process management at IAE

2007-08-25T22:06:00.000-07:00

After finishing the two day course at the beautiful Pilar IAE campus, i was disappointed by the little content and information the course gave me.
After a little theory and history on the business processes approach and business process management, we were onto studying four case studies. On the second day a rally of vendors crowded the course, attacking each other's product of not being "pure BPM". That course was a fiasco, it was the first time I paid someone to sell me.
A stain the IAE's curricula.

Change management

2007-08-25T22:04:00.000-07:00

My team's getting a reorganization, so my interest in change management increased. This is a very interesting subject and every leader has to master the basic principles. Check out this great article on change management.

36 Jaiio

2007-08-13T20:34:00.001-07:00

Vamos a estar hablando en las JAIIO. Es a fin de agosto en mar del plata.

IAE

2007-08-13T20:31:00.001-07:00

A fin de Agosto voy a estar cursando en el IAE un programa focalizado llamado "Gestion Estrategica de los procesos de negocio". La idea es salir con un mindset de procesos y la mejora de la compañia a traves de la mejora de sus procesos.
En el mes de Julio estuve en el IAE cursando el programa "Dirigiendo Personas". Altamente recomendado por las actividades outdoors, ejercicio de autoconocimiento y los casos de Harvard.

Gartner BPM Summit

2007-08-13T19:04:00.001-07:00

I'll be attending the Gartner BPM Summit in Orlando next September.

Opensymphony's ClickStream article

2007-08-13T18:24:00.000-07:00

I'm writing a new article for java.net about OpenSymphony's ClickStream. ClickStream's is a traffic path logger to embed inside your web applications. This traffic paths information is useful for analyzing user trends, and web site usage statistics. We'll keep you posted when it's on production.

Argentina: A hacerse conocidos!

2007-08-12T21:26:00.000-07:00

Estoy contento porque mucha gente me está preguntado el como y el porque de la autoría de libros de Open Source.

Desde mi optica, es muy importante darse a conocer al mundo como técnicos de gran calidad; no solo técnicos baratos.

Un paso importante es que se comiencen a escribir mas papers, articulos y libros sobre cualquier rama de IT. Es muy forma muy eficiente y con gran llegada en los mercados importantes.

Cualquier que esté interesado en escribir temas técnicos en castellano o en ingles (preferentemente) no dude en contactarme a través del blog o en privado.

Muy util para los que estan negociando sueldos!

2007-08-12T21:25:00.001-07:00

http://www.cuantocobro.com/

MBA en el CEMA

2007-08-12T21:16:00.000-07:00

Estoy cursando un MBA en la universidad del CEMA. Estoy realmente muy contento con la calidad de los profesores y el nivel de los compañeros de estudio. La atención administrativa en la universidad es la mejor que tuve, sencillamente trabajan para cada uno de los alumnos con muchisimo esmero.

Integra an OSWorkflow based open source BPM

2007-08-11T14:18:00.001-07:00

https://integra-bpm.dev.java.net/

OSWorkflow book front cover

2007-08-08T05:36:00.000-07:00

ServiceMix book

2007-08-08T05:29:00.000-07:00

I've started to write a ServiceMix book for Apress with a teammate. I'll keep you posted on the content shortly.

OSWorkflow professional support

2007-08-08T05:24:00.000-07:00

I've decided to put my skills to the services of others who are initiating in the open source arena. My first offering is professional support services for OSWorkflow, a product I know very well.
International clients are welcome!

OSWorkflow book!!!

2007-06-09T19:53:00.000-07:00

I'm so happy! Only one step left to publishing!
OSWorkflow book

Nerd score

2007-05-21T23:55:00.000-07:00

OSWorkflow book - first draft finished

2007-05-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

Finally, I've completed the first draft of all the chapters! My upcoming OSWorkflow book will show you how to create a completely open source BPM suite.
It will be published by Packt Publishing www.packtpub.com

JavaOne 2007 - Day 1

2007-05-08T20:06:00.000-07:00

Dia 1 : Martes 8-5-2007

Como el año anterior; JavaOne? comienza oficialmente el segundo dia; (el primero se dedican a evangelizar y capacitar a la gente en el Java University); con toda la fanfarria y parafernalia puesta en escena comienza la General Session. La charla de apertura del evento y la que más sorpresas trae; este año empieza muy cool; con una DJ en escena.

Mientras más de 14.000 personas se acomodan en sus asientos, hay grupos de brasileros que gritan a sus compañeros y agitan sus banderas: son cientos; todos de los distintos JavaUserGroups de Brasil.

Se apaga la música y entra en escena John Gage, saludos a los brasileros y nos muestra los límites de Java y de la energia: Dispositivos móviles más baratos que las PCs y paneles solares de mano.

Este es el JavaOne número 12 y quiere felicitar a la gente de la vieja guardia, que asistieron a todos los JavaOne - de las miles de personas quedan expuestas 4 o 5 que son aplaudidas con fervor. Mi único pensamiento fue: 12 x 3k = 36k les dejo las conclusiones a Uds.

Entra Rich Green, que el año pasado tomó la conducción del grupo de software de Sun; como primera acción felicita al equipo y a la comunidad por la apertura del códifo de Java el año pasado y nos convoca a unirnos a la comunidad OpenJDK?.

Rich trae a muchos invitados en escena: VPs de Yahoo, Nasdaq, Sony, Ericsson.

La parte más interesante técnicamente es la charla de la CIO de Nasdaq, una gordita muy simpática pero con poca onda para hablar en frente de una troupe de 14.000 bestias en busca de formas femeninas.

Nos cuenta que Java le permite procesar miles de transacciones por segundo (obviamente en hardware de Sun) y que pudo soportar el pico de 150.000 transacciones por segundo en el ápice del efecto Shangai o como quiera que se llame. No puedo dejar de preguntarme que tipo de transacciones, pero el numero me resulta increible.

La gente de Sony nos quiere inyectar una dosis de BluRay?, la cual la audiencia no toma con mucha ganas (tal vez recordando VHS vs BetaMax?), minutos mas tarde, la gente de Ericsson nos cuenta que van a abrir su software para switches telefonicos, tal vez con la intención de que algún programador del este europeo, encuentre un bug smile

Yahoo, es ahora Yahoo y Flickr, y nos dan las herramientas para buscar desde nuestro telefono movil de una manera mejorada (es decir mejor que google mobile) y de subir fotos a Flickr desde nuestro celular (quien no se tentó en sacar una foto con el celular a alguna parte interesante de alguna desconocida y compartirla).

Terminando la ya hora y media de bla bla; sube el mítico James Goslin y un peladito que me hizo acordar a Edward Norton en American X (rapado y toda la pinta de skinhead) a mostrarnos JavaFX y JavaFX scripting. Tembló Flash y Silverlight: JavaFX Script es ActionScript para todos los Javeros.

JavaFX Mobile me pareció un sistema operativo en Java para mobiles, lo interesante es que Sun propone detachar el hardware del software; de los celulares. Una movida parecida a la de IBM en el 81, habrá que esperar para ver los resultados.

Por último, sube Jonathan Schwartz, que se alegra de no tener que dar la keynote este año. Jonathan es un tipo que me simpatiza y luego de leer su biografía me parece increible como un matematico y economista puede encontrar lugar en la presidencia y gerencia general de Sun: un lider brillante. Nos cuenta de las ganancias de Sun en billones de dolares y trae a un directivo de las naciones unidas. Vamos a jugar con los estereotipos: Como se imaginan a un directivo de las naciones unidas? ... ... Bueno, este directivo es un africano de aproximadamente 50 años, muy mandelesco, que trae una túnica verde hasta el piso, flaco, de 1,90 de alto, sudor en la frente y con un íngles peor que el mio. Acartonado, parece el sintetizador de la vieja Sound Blaster. Esto no es todo, nos comienza a hablar de su programa de educación global, con la ayuda de Sun; pero el tono no es amigable y parece reprocharnos tener los 3.000 dolares para la entrada a JavaOne?; y que hayan chicos que se mueren de hambre en el mundo. Pero más allá de las palabras, es el tono de voz: exaltado, con una cadencia propia de los políticos y sindicalistas. Este fue el punto debil de la charla.

Otra vez John Gage en escena para cerrar. Me voy corriendo porque me espera la primera technical session , Domain Specific Languages.

Habrá mas noticias del Frente.

Naya = en ei wai ei

Information Integration at work

2007-05-06T09:44:00.000-07:00

There's an incredible IBM TV commercial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy7MCu-FhKk

How do you integrate all the information in your company to literally "connect the dots".

Impressive even for IBM.

At last! San francisco...

2007-05-05T20:22:00.000-07:00

After almost 20 hours of flying and waiting i've finally arrived to SF again..twice in a year, i feel as i've never left.. this city is beatiful.
Flyers from the ezeiza airport: Beware! The aircraft to Dallas waited 3 hours to depart, as the radar is BROKEN!!! Our only international airport and the radar is broken!!
Well' i'll keep you posted on Monday when the training day begins in JavaOne.

Personality test result - not surprising....

2007-05-01T21:45:00.000-07:00

You Have A Type A Personality

You are hyper, energetic, and always on the mood

You tend to succeed at everything you attempt

And if you don't succeed at first, you quickly climb your way to the top!

You could be called a workaholic, but you also make time for fun

As long as it's high energy and competitive, you're interested

You have the perfect personality for business and atheltic success

Do You Have a Type A Personality?

JavaOne 2007

2007-04-17T21:58:00.000-07:00

Great news! I'm going to JavaOne this year too. Thanks to the CIO for the support!

SF

2007-03-24T20:20:00.000-07:00

Finally I'm here in San Francisco with my wife. After 15 hours of travelling throught the United States, i-m resting on the couch in the cartwith hotel. Not much of a big hotel, but a low cost one. We greatly miss our child, that stayed in Buenos Aires, he's too little to travel such big distances. Next Monday beings SF Summit 2007 at the Moscone Center, along the VS Live conference.
As usual, all my money goes to new books about architecture: The IT Architecture toolbox and Data Strategy. $100 bucks in two books, that's a lot for an Argentinian!
Will report next monday!

Hellish day

2007-03-16T19:57:00.000-07:00

Today was a difficult day. Two crashes from our biggest Java application, made our team work at full speed. The IBM JVM crashed with a SIGSEGV and then core dumped. I've learned that different linux distributions and kernel make the java thread implementation variable. If you use LinuxThreads or NPTL, every thread is a process. So check your process limit!.

OSWorkflow developer

2007-03-15T19:09:00.000-07:00

I'm glad to announce that i've become one of the main developers of OSWorkflow. Hani Suleiman, the project leader, invited me after submitting many patches. This is an honour and great responsability to keep to great quality and features of OSWorkflow.

Enterprise architecture mapping tool

2007-03-12T23:42:00.000-07:00

Enterprise architecture needs tools! No commercial vendor tools convinced me. Instead I'm using Protege, the open source knowledge management tool that's a defacto standard. It allows me to build an enterprise architecture metamodel, to create an inventory of our current architecture situation and to model the ideal architecture.

Enterprise architecture team

2007-03-06T11:48:00.000-08:00

My architecture team is made up by the following profiles:

- Enterprise architect
- Data Architect
- Software Architect
- Integration Architect
- Infrastructure Architect
- Usability
- Project Architects pool
- Architecture demand manager

The department is about 25 people, including the architects and programmers. All the department's demand from the projects is managed by the architecture demand manager. He assigns the project architects to one or more projects.
Each of the architects, data, soft, etc. manages several others architects. Only one enterprise architect program is defined, covering improvements in the architecture for several areas.
I only need a business architect, for better aligning the Enterprise architecture to the business strategy and processes.

I'm back

2007-02-18T18:40:00.000-08:00

After 2 months of inactivity i'm back. A lot of water under the river, a new position in the company is consolidating, about two thirds of my OSWorkflow books are finished and my baby is almost 5 months old.
I've taken over the Chief Architect position in the company. My ex-boss moved to a new department called Quality of Service. Kudos to him for teaching me a lot about architecture, politics and patience.
With the new position, comes new responsabilities and more people to manage. More than twenty people in the enterprise architecture department....what a mess...
I'll post soon with the details of the team i've assembled.
I wanted to tell you my goals for the 2007: TOGAF architecture certification, PMP and the most desired of all: IT Architect certification from the Open Group!!! I would be the only one in Argentina to posses such skills, my boss should be very happy and proud :)

SAS 2007

2006-12-27T16:43:00.000-08:00

I'm planning to attend the Software Architecture Summit in San Francisco this year. For more info check http://www.ftponline.com/conferences/sas/2007/ See you there!

GEAO and WWISA

2006-12-27T16:40:00.000-08:00

I'm a member of the GEAO a global organization for the development of enterprise architecture. Be sure to check out its web site, you can find useful information in the case you want to be a architect.
I'm also a member of the WWISA, so check both sites for information.

Word massive templating systems

2006-12-27T16:35:00.000-08:00

We are building proof of concepts around Officewriter a .Net component that automates Microsoft Office tasks such as mail merging. By building a web service around we can share this services between different applications (mainly Java).
The end user writes a standard word document with fields, then a client application calls the service, sends the template and a data source. The service performs the merging of the template with the data from the datasource. After that it returns a merged Word document for the user to approve or modify.

I highly recommend OfficeWriter.

Grid computing

2006-12-26T20:42:00.000-08:00

I have a special fascination for Grid Computing. Today i got my first chance to architect one grid application. I'm currently researching Globus toolkit among others.

Another choice is to use common open source infrastructure such as ActiveMQ with a JMS Classloader. I built a proof of concept, publishing "grid work" into a JMS topic, and several dumb clients "listening" for tasks. When the task arrives to the client; with the help of a custom classloader it downloads the java class bytecode of the task. TADA instant mobile code.

This enables all our company servers to have this dumb client and process grid work when idle.

Training new architects

2006-12-25T15:15:00.000-08:00

Recently i was given the task to train and mentor new architects for different applications. I've never thought about how i became an architect, so i wandered about my carrer growth, and the following points stood out:

1. Have a vision for the application. Dream about it, lead the developers, show them your vision.
2. Understand the domain and know the principles that guide the business.
3. Creativity. All the restrictions and constraints are the mothers of invention. Explore your limits, always.
4. Know your developers. Develop a good relationship and a strong link with them. Know each of them, their profile, background and dreams. Help them grow inside and outside the organization. There's nothing more gratifying to see one of them reach personal goals, and obtain more responsabilities.
5. Last but not least, research the field of architecture, develop proof of concepts, be an explorer of the unknown. Knowledge of the technology, infrastructure and operations always help.

I'm training the developers on these points, and eating my own dog food, i created a profile for each of them. Some want to be data architects, application architects and others enterprise architects. Some are analytical and rational, some are intuitive. Others are people based and some are task based. This knowledge enables to build a customized career and learning path for each of them.
I'm very proud of them, to take the risk of becoming an architect.

2006-12-24T22:44:00.000-08:00

Feliz navidad a todos!