Rational Straddles Java and .NET (Continued)
Role of Architecture in Enterprise
Q: Only 6 percent of developers use high-end tools like modeling products. You have a vision of bringing modeling to all developers. How can you make this happen and what will it take to get more teams to use these approaches?
Devlin: Part of the XDE initiative was to integrate modeling with the IDE. The developer can get the benefits of modeling without even realizing he is using modeling.
Q: They start with code and that gives them a model.
Devlin: Correct. They can use just as much UML as they want to visualize and communicate with their teammates.
We are also expanding the value developers get from modeling. The preview we're doing this week integrates testing into the model. Test cases are generated from the model.
In the high end of the market, which will drive down to the rest, we are building up industry sets of architectural sets and patterns that make it a lot easier for people to use these quickly instead of creating them themselves. An example is the telecom industry, which is already one of the broadest users of modeling, where standards are now implemented in UML 2.0.
Also, we're broadening to include data modeling and business process modeling, so that will provide more value.
We never expect to completely replace all handwritten code, but over time we believe we can make it a much larger percentage.
Q: This is what will convert the missing 94 percent?
Devlin: Yes. It will happen incrementally. It won't happen in one quarter or one year.
Q: Why is architecture important in the software development process? What role does architecture play in UML and Rational Unified Process (RUP)?
Devlin: If you have an architecture, it not only helps you get the product done, but the framework also helps team members coordinate the components they are developing so they actually work when you plug them together.
The quality of your architecture also determines the quality of the resulting system. If you have a low-quality architecture, you can test it all you want but you won't fix the architecture in the final stages of the product.
But most importantly these days, a well-designed architecture is resilient in the face of change. If you put in place the right architecture, it is relatively easy to implement new features and new capabilities. If you have the wrong architecture, it is much more expensive.
Q: Discuss Rational's architectural practice.
Devlin: As you would expect, our approach is driven off object orientation, component-based development, and services-based architectures—all areas we have been leaders in.
IBM has a similar view of architecture and has done a good job of evolving in that direction across product lines.
So, to the extent that we need to add security, we can leverage work in Tivoli; for persistence we can leverage DB2. You'll see examples of this in our next releases.
Q: How will Rational leverage IBM Research?
Devlin: One of the pleasant surprises in the merger is how much benefit we're getting from IBM Research. It has been doing a lot of work in our areas, which can now come to fruition.
Q: We see an emerging category of Enterprise Architects within IT. How do you see the relation of software architecture to the bigger issue of enterprise architecture? How is it relevant to aligning business and technology objectives?
Devlin: Very good questions. Within an enterprise there is the architecture of the different elements—the applications themselves, the data models, the database architecture, the business process modeling, and the technical modeling.
The Enterprise Architect is in the position to look across all of them and capture an enterprise architecture.
The EA is the reservoir of the best practices for that business—what works in this industry and for this customer. So, Enterprise Architects are the people we need to work with to extract those design patterns, or to work with to capture their best practices to customize the RUP for them.
We've always recommended an architectural approach to the customer, and now the EA is professionalizing that.
Q: Do you see this changing or emerging?
Devlin: Yes and no. There is a shortage of good people. Also, there have been people that did this informally, but the emergence of this job function gives them the authority they didn't always have and makes the role of architecture more visible to management.
Q: How can enterprises promote and maintain standard architectures while also retaining flexibility to adapt to changing business and technical conditions?
Devlin: The characteristics of a well-designed architecture are that it is componentized and modular. You can't avoid change, but you can at least encapsulate those changes. There are normal benefits of encapsulation and abstraction.
There will still be changes across those boundaries that alter the whole design pattern. Those will still be more expensive. What we're doing is making sure the inexpensive changes stay that way. For the larger changes, we want to at least make them well-contained so you know what the impact will be.
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