Gary Shepard

In this blog I’ve taking some liberty to extend the general definition of full stack, in order to describe a system architecture that lends itself well to full stack development. With the emergence of micoservices as an alternative to monolithic applications and service-oriented architectures; there is need to elaborate in more depth on an architectural […]

Over a number of years, I have had the opportunity to conduct several architectural assessments on SOA, ROA and API Management. The domains and technology stacks have varied, and the engagements have been a mix of post mortems and organizational readiness. What I have found is that there are certain common characteristics of organizational behavior and challenges […]

APIs are certainly in the purview of many organizations today. However, often the promises of unlocking new value streams for the business may be expressed in terms of the IT API Management capability. While the choice of an API management technology is an important aspect of the new API economy, organizations should take precautions to ensure […]

Throughout my career there have been a couple of quips that I have followed when presenting certain ideas; “Eat Your Own Dog Food” along with its close cousin Practicing What You Preach. In the first article of this series I promoted the idea that architecture is about collaboration and communication. I then laid out a […]

After years of architectural engagements and having worked at a variety of companies there are a few things that I have found somewhat consistent when it comes to the practice of architecture. First architecture happens, regardless the maturity level of the organization. Secondly, at some point in the development life-cycle someone will produce some kind […]

Describing a rich EA framework and process using a standard object oriented development approach. Recently I had had an interesting conversation with a solution architect around the TOGAF framework and the ADM. I was asked the following question: “Can you provide a short but reasonable description for tailoring the framework while instantiating the ADM as […]

Building ESB Capability Java EE -vs- Configuring a Datapower SOA Appliance Implementing a Java network infrastructure solution versus network appliance configuration It’s not unusual for a seasoned Java implementer, when exposed to an IBM Datapower appliance for the first time to question the technological advantage of a configurable network device. I feel this question is […]

Introduction When considering testing a Datapower implementation the first tool that is generally mentioned SoapUI. While this is a good tool for a particular aspect of testing, you may need to expand your testing capabilities to include a broader set of concerns. In this blog I’d like to consider an architectural scenario in which I […]

In this article I address some of the the final elements and models in this iteration of the Preliminary phase. At this point I would like to comment about the ADM as an iterative process. In regards to Architectural Definition which includes an ideation / inception iteration. At this point in the role of Business […]

In part 1 of this series I provided a ten thousand foot view of the project relative to the TOGAF ADM. In this post I’ll start with the proverbial peeling back of the onion. Using an integration project FYI Bank has made a strategic decision to address the challenge of their silos of IT systems […]

In a recent blog posting, we provided a guide for standing up and XI52 as an integral component to an enterprise like laboratory environment. This was the beginning several activities, which spawned an idea for a continuing series of articles around IBM SOA appliances, and the use of the The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) […]

One of the interesting IBM offerings in the suite of middle-ware products are the Datapower XI52 and XC10 virtual appliance. Combining these technologies with a few Openware products and you have the foundation for a nice small scale enterprise environment in which you can experiment and test a variety of configuration solutions. With this idea […]