Manas Sarkar

“Modernization,” or “Legacy Transformation / Modernization” is one of those catchy business propositions that everyone agrees with. Who does not want to modernize? The term “legacy” connotes rigid, difficult to maintain, and almost impossible to change without a long highly costly engagement. Legacy pertains to systems and applications that are either home-grown or point solutions that were acquired and extended. Legacy also deals with the increasingly aging baby boomers that are approaching retirement age. Maintaining legacy systems will become increasingly expensive as the knowledge to upkeep legacy solutions is also retired with the workforce. Costs, as well as agility for change, are the main driving forces for legacy modernization and transformation. Yet, many modernization efforts in the private and public sectors fail. For example, a recent memorandum by Pet... (more)

Is XMPP Still A Relevant Messaging Platform For Middleware?

The recent news on Google stopping further development on their offering Google Wave did create mixed responses. Thousands of fans even registering support for it and critics liked it. However my interest was on the messaging platform that it used. Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) has finally come of age and given its high profile usage such as Google Wave and Talk, there is a thought process if XMPP can be used within organizations for middleware or EAI. It might sound surprising on how a protocol that is used in Internet Messaging services could be used in EAI,... (more)

Civil Architecture and Technology Architecture

Wish you all a Happy New Year and hope this blog reminds us of the fundamentals of Architecture. The Hoover Dam, The Golden Gate Bridge, German Auto-Bahn, The Empire State Building, The Leaning Tower of Pisa are all historical marvels. But the Leaning Tower of Pisa stands as the odd one out as it is an example of an Architecture gone wrong. Just like how the leaning Tower of Pisa has been made to survive with counter lead weights and digging up a side to tilt the balance, there are fixes made to an IT solution that has already been delivered. In such cases the costs of fixes an... (more)

The verdict is out - BPM wins over SOA

With recent acquisition in BPM and SOA space, it is clear that those vendors who positioned themselves SOA vendor is feeling the pinch without a solid BPM offering. Now that IBM has acquired Lombardi and Progress has acquired Savvion it will be of interest to see how both of these companies going to use these product to position themselves in BPM space. However it is better to leave the roadmap definition with IBM and Progress. However the discussion point out here is; are these vendors responding to market need... I guess the reality is; they are doing so. Over the last few years ... (more)

Enterprise Mashups – Recovering Value from SOA Investments

Industry analysts have repeatedly pointed out that technology is a beguiling proposition and businesses invest expecting to save money or increase revenue, but rarely realize either benefit. The rapid investment over the first half of the nervous nineties have placed the CIOs under enormous pressure to  become “Value Creators” and  produce or increase profit from existing company property rather than investing further.  This may be connecting the enterprise's data in new ways to give new insights and improve decisions. However, there is an added mandate to be thrifty and manage ... (more)