Mark Richards
TechLeader Summit
Clearwater · December 5 - 7, 2018
Independent Software Architect, Author of Fundamentals of Software Architecture
Mark Richards is an experienced, hands-on software architect involved in the architecture, design, and implementation of microservices architectures, service-oriented architectures, and distributed systems. He has been in the software industry since 1983 and has significant experience and expertise in application, integration, and enterprise architecture. Mark is the founder of DeveloperToArchitect.com, a website devoted to helping developers in the journey to software architect. He is the author of numerous technical books and videos, including the recently published Fundamentals of Software Architecture, Microservices AntiPatterns and Pitfalls, Microservices vs. SOA, the Software Architecture Fundamentals video series, The Enterprise Messaging video series, Java Message Service, 2nd Edition, and contributing author to 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know. Mark has a master’s degree in computer science and is a regular conference speaker at the No Fluff Just Stuff (NFJS) Symposium Series. He has spoken at hundreds of conferences and user groups around the world on a variety of enterprise-related technical topics.
Presentations
Do You Need Enterprise Architecture?
A recent Gartner survey found that 40% of all enterprise architecture efforts were failing or had failed. One of the primary reasons for these failed attempts at enterprise architecture is a lack of understanding about what enterprise architecture is and whether the high cost of creating an enterprise architecture practice produces any business value or business results. In this session we will explore why enterprise architecture is so important to business (especially today's businesses) and how to either restart or revitalize you enterprise architecture effort to produce results.
Enterprise Architecture Strategies
Choosing the right enterprise architecture strategy is essential to not only make enterprise architecture a successful venture, but to also help the company move forward in its goals. In this session I will describe 4 different strategies for enterprise architecture and show you which strategy fits which business model. Do you have the right EA strategy in place for your organization? Come to this session to find out!
Developing Initiative Roadmaps
Are you merging with another company? Acquiring new businesses? Moving to a new line of business? Transforming your enterprise? Engaging in cost-cutting efforts? Fully Automating your pipelines? Retiring old and expensive mainframe systems? These are initiatives that most businesses are engaging in. While there are dozens of activities within an enterprise architecture effort, there is only one primary outcome, and that is to develop an enterprise architecture roadmap. Roadmaps describe what efforts (i.e., projects) need to be done to meet a specific objective, the dependencies between those efforts, and the prioritization of those efforts. In this session I'll cover some of the models that make up an EA roadmap and show you techniques for how to identify projects, classify projects, prioritize projects, and finally illustrate these efforts through consolidated roadmap views. By the end of this session you'll have a clear view of why enterprise architecture is needed and how to create an effective and clear enterprise architecture roadmap.
Archived
Software architecture is hard. It is full of tradeoff analysis, decision making, technical expertise, and leadership, making it more of an art than a science. The common answer to any architecture-related question is “it depends”. To that end, I firmly believe there are no “best practices” in software architecture because every situation is different, which is why I titled this talk “Essential Practices”: those practices companies and architects are using to achieve success in architecture. In this session I explore in detail the top 6 essential software architectural practices (both technical architecture and process-related practices) that will make you an effective and successful software architect.
Microservices for Tech Leaders
Microservices is one of the latest software architecture styles that promises to deliver benefits such as ease of testing, fast and easy deployments, fine-grained scalability, fault tolerance, and overall agility. It is undeniably one of the latest trends in the software industry, and most companies seem to be jumping on the bandwagon to quickly embrace and adapt this new architecture style. Unfortunately, as many companies are painfully experiencing, microservices is a fairly complex architecture style that is not suited for all applications and environments. In this session I will show you a high-level architectural view of the microservices architecture style so you can gain a high-level understanding about how it works and what challenges exist with this complex architecture style.
Modern Approaches to Enterprise Architecture
The traditional approaches to enterprise architecture have worked well for many decades. However, adherence to the traditional approaches of EA is one of the leading reasons why most enterprise architecture efforts fail. In this session I discuss the 2 primary classical approaches to enterprise architecture and why they no longer work in today's market. I then discuss several modern approaches to enterprise architecture that are increasingly showing promise for both small and large organizations.
Why Technical Agility Matters for Business
It seems like all anyone talks about these days is making our architectures more modular and whether microservices is the answer. The question is, should your business embrace microservices and similar highly modular architectures or stick with what you have? In this session I will describe the business value, business benefits, and drivers associated with moving towards architectural modularity. Once you understand the drivers for architectural modularity, you can them make an informed decision about whether you should embrace architectural modularity in your company or run away from it as fast as possible.
The Art of Problem Solving
As Tech Leaders, we are presented with problems and work to find a way to solve them, usually through technology. In my opinion this is what makes this industry so much fun. Let's face it - we all love challenges. Sometimes, however, the problems we have to solve are hard - really hard. So how do you go about solving really hard problems? That's what this session is about - Heuristics, the art of problem solving. In this session you will learn how to approach problems and also learn techniques for solving them effectively. So put on your thinking cap and get ready to solve some easy, fun, and hard problems.