@ random times, the laws of physics do not apply to me ...

My Blog featured on WordPress.com

eyekay — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:14:06 +0000

Featured Blog on WordPress

My blog recently appeared as a featured blog (http://wordpress.com/tag/enterprise-software-architecture/) on WordPress on Enterprise Software Architecture. Thank you WordPress for the mention !

Connected with Grady Booch on Linkedin!

eyekay — Wed, 28 May 2008 03:13:32 +0000

I thought, this event needs its own place on my Blog. I am indeed, very honored and obliged that the visionary Grady Booch graciously accepted to add me on Linkedin and we are both connected now. In case, you didn’t know, Grady Booch is the Chief Scientist and IBM Fellow at IBM. He is the inventor of Rational Unified Process and Object Oriented Programming. I religiously follow his blog and try to incorporate his teachings in all my Enterprise Architecture initiatives.

I am looking forward to Grady’s keynote at the IBM Rational Software Development Conference 2008, next week, where I am speaking on behalf of Lockheed Martin.

SOA – Service Oriented Architecture or Snake Oil Architecure

eyekay — Mon, 12 May 2008 00:35:21 +0000

I thought I should post on what I think about Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), the most hyped-about term in the enterprise these days. I recently posted an answer on this topic on Linkedin also.

Service Oriented Architecture is an Enterprise Framework, which if implemented correctly, can act as an enterprise refactoring tool. Once your core business services are identified and implemented, you can then use these services to create new business processes without much pain.

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a way of designing a software system that can provide discrete services to either end-user-applications or other services through published and discoverable interfaces. It is an architecture that breaks traditional applications into multiple fully functional coarse-grained services that work together to support a business process. New applications, thus built to consume these core-services, are termed as SOA Applications.

The Myth: Too much of the press about SOA makes it look like it’s the best thing since punched cards. Furthermore, if you follow many of these pitches, it appears that you can do so with hardly any pain: just scrape your existing assets, plant services here, there, and younder, wire them together and suddenly you’ll be virtualized, automatized, and servicized …

The Real Fact: SOA is, first and foremost, about the A part of the acronym (architecture). Organizations who already have a solid approach to architecture will likely do reasonably well with SOA; organizations who already have a broken architecture and/or a broken architectural governance practice will likely fail with SOA and then blame SOA on all their problems.

Key Points:

1. Clear abstractions, separations of concerns and all the usual fundamentals of architecture – the ‘A’ part of SOA.

2. Flawed Bottom-up approach: look at a system, identify potential services, publish them and weave them together

3. Start with scenarios, business needs, and play those out against the current system, zero in on the points of tangency, and then plan a flag for harvesting meaningful service.

Speaking on ‘Enterprise Ruby and Rails’ @ The IBM Rational Software Development Conference ’08

eyekay — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 02:49:32 +0000

Florida must love me … I am indeed honored to have been invited to speak again at the IBM Rational Software Development Conference - ’08 at the Walt Disney World Swan & Dolphin Resort in Orlando, FL. This year, I am speaking on ‘Enterprise Ruby and Rails’, an open source web development language and framework that has taken software development by a storm. My abstract and further details will be posted on the conference website soon.

I spoke on ‘SOA-based Web Application Development for the US Dept of Defense – from vision to execution’ during the ’06 IBM Rational Conference. If you plan on being at this year’s conference, drop me a line …

DCMA ITCSO Symposium 2008 Updates

eyekay — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 04:18:19 +0000

My appologies for not updating the blog ‘live’ as I promised. The Symposium was both interesting and overwhelming. The four day event kicked-off in the sunny and beautiful St. Petersburg, FL at the Marriot Renaissance Vinoy Resort on Monday, Jan 7th and it ended Thursday, Jan 10th. As I posted earlier, I was a speaker this year. I spoke on “Integrated Enterprise Program Management“ followed by a live product demo by Primavera Systems. The presentation and demo were very well received and I am extremely happy with the responses, I have received so far. Some pictures from the conference are here, If you need to look at my presentation, you can email me.

How do you stream wirelessly ?

eyekay — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 04:57:31 +0000

I use TVersity Media Server that runs on my Windows XP Laptop. TVersity supports the industry standard UPnP protocol to stream any media over a WLAN. The Laptop acts as a primary media provider over my home Wireless N network. My Player is a 80 GB PlayStation 3 and I have a 52″ Samsung LNT5271 LCD with Kenwood VR-615 5.1 surround sound. I love this setup where I can stream anything without any wires to my PS3 and the enormous flexibility it provides. I would love to find out how my readers stream, or if you are planning on doing a similar setup, I would be more then happy to help you …

Merry Christmas!

eyekay — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 05:51:52 +0000

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and A Very Happy and Prosperous New Year to all you readers out there! Its going to be an exciting 2008 for me and I couldn’t wait to welcome it!

Speaking on “Integrated Enterprise Program Management”

eyekay — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 21:26:53 +0000

I am very honored to have been invited to speak on “Integrated Enterprise Program Management” at The Defense Contract Management Agency ITCSO Conference in St. Petersburg, FL – Jan 7 ~ 11, 2008. I will be talking about Enterprise Program Management Best practices and the accute need to bring in an EPM tool that will enable DCMA CIO, Directors and Program Managers to have a live look into the web application development process, resource management, change of priorities impact tracking, automated earned value generation and vendor collaboration at the agency level. More updates to this, as we approach the dates …

Khowaja.com secured !

eyekay — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 14:42:49 +0000

I was finally able to secure back “Khowaja.com“. In-case you didn’t notice, that’s my last name. I was the first owner of the domain. I first registered this domain in early 2000 but then lost it down the road. I am very happy, I have it back. For now, Khowaja.com is pointing to this blog and now you can reach me at Iqbal@Khowaja.com

I was surprised to find out that you can find out the history of what was hosted on a domain name (aka Whowas). Like, I used to host my first resume on Khowaja.com, go check it out here …

We never forget who we’re working for …

eyekay — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 02:32:39 +0000

Yes, you guessed it right ! After 5 years at BearingPoint, I have officially switched and am moving on to Lockheed Martin - Enterprise Solutions and Services, as a Program Manager, leading multiple teams and multiple projects on a key US Dept. of Defense Engagement. I am very excited and am looking forward to the challenge.

More updates to follow, stay tuned …