Paul O'Connor

I never quite fathomed the software development methodology craze that was gripping enterprise computing when I came onto the scene in the early '90s. In those days development teams were managing complexity and enforcing quality via draconian software development life cycles (SDLCs). A lot of big enterprises were using SDLCs that they had purchased as mindshare from system integrators or tool vendors. The ones people paid for came to be known as big-M methodologies, to denote their hegemony in the field. There was even a meta-process to measure how refined your methodology was. It was called CMM - the "Capability Maturity Model." CMM had five levels of "maturity" to which enterprises aspired, with each level adding an increasing number of artifacts, expensive tools, con... (more)

SOA Product Review: Managed Methods JaxView 4.0

Whether you work for a very large company with thousands of services in production or a small company with only a couple, visibility into the performance and uptime of those services is critical. Before you start investigating the myriad of governance products on the market, many of which will set you back a great deal of money, let me save you some time (and money). You can get up and r... (more)

SOA Product Review: Intel XML Software Suite 1.1

The one thing that unifies the distributed computing style known as SOA, in most of its manifestations, is self-describing data via the Extensible Markup Language (XML). The benefits of XML over opaque message formats in data interchange are well established. No matter if your focus is SOAP, REST, POX, or syndication with RSS or ATOM, your applications will revolve around XML processing.... (more)

Eight Things SOA Is Not; What Not To Do In Your Next SOA Web Services Rollout

Sometimes when we're faced with addressing a complex engineering problem it's helpful to reflect on antipatterns. Doing so does more than track wrong solutions to common problems; it also focuses the mind on the interaction of the most important elements of the problem domain. This is true for all engineering, not just software engineering. Suspension bridge designers know to be on the l... (more)

Solve Your Application Security Issues

I'm sure I'm like many of you in this respect: I got into engineering because I love the idea of being able to address complex problems with a combination of my talent, my friends' talent, and the tools that I can come up with to make our work as easy as possible (work smart not hard!). It is this approach that has guided me in my work as an application and technical architect. I come to... (more)