Industry Day – August 27

The Industry Day at ECSA 2014 brought together researchers and practicing architects from local, European and worldwide communities who shared best-practices, pitfalls and their professional experiences in designing, implementing and reviewing software architectures. Keynotes and invited talks featured lessons learned and best practices from enterprise-scale industry projects; furthermore there were interactive formats such as a panel discussion and an open space session.

With this program, Industry Day at ECSA 2014 helped bridge the gap between academia and industrial practice by establishing an open communication and discussion environment. The ECSA 2014 Industry Day offered researchers and practitioners the opportunity to get in touch with fellow professionals and go home with new ideas and skills for industrial problems, research proposals, or validation opportunities.

Program Grid

08:45-09:00 ECSA 2014 Industry Day – Architecture Modeling, Modernization and Management (HS1)
Welcome, Agenda Overview, Goals
Uwe van Heesch, Capgemini, Germany
Olaf Zimmermann, Hochschule für Technik Rapperswill (HSR FHO), Switzerland
09:00-10:00 Keynote 1 (HS1)
Architects, Design for Digital!
Uwe Dumslaff, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Capgemini Germany
10:00-10:30 Coffee Break
10:30-12:00

Breakout Session 1: (HS1)
Application Modernization and SOA Management

P1.1. Enriching Legacy Systems. A Field Report about the Architectural Work on Performance Critical and Long-Living Software
Robert Sorschag, Zühlke Engineering GmbH

P1.2: Service Development and Architecture Management for an Enterprise SOA
Thomas Kriechbaum, RACON Software GmbH
Georg Buchgeher, Software Competence Center Hagenberg, Austria
Rainer Weinreich, Johannes Kepler Universität Linz, Austria

Breakout Session 2: (HS2)
Modelling for Change

P2.1 Adaptable Software Architecture
Reto Carrara, actifsource GmbH

P2.2 Modeling Principles – A Survey of Current Modeling Approaches in Industry and where the Journey May Go
Horst Kargl, SparxSystems Software GmbH

12:00-13:00 Lunch Break
13:00-14:00 Keynote 2 (HS1)
Language Shapes (Architectural) Thought
Markus Völter, independent consultant
14:00-15:30

Breakout Session 3: (HS1)
Architecture Management

P3.1 API Management: A new Model for Delivering Applications in a Multi-Device World
Reto Kohlas, [ipt] Innovation Process Technology AG

P3.2. Continuous Architecture Validation
Wolfgang Gottesheim, Compuware APM

Breakout Session 4: (HS2)
Big Data

P4.1: Reference Architectures for Enterprise Big Data Use Cases
Romeo Kienzler, IBM Germany, Austria, Switzerland

P4.2. The Next-Generation BPM for a Big Data World: Intelligent Business Process Management Suites
Kai Wähner, TIBCO

15:30-16:00 Coffee Break
16:00-17:00 Presentation 5: Methodical Improvement of Software Systems and Architectures: The aim42 approach (HS1)
Gernot Starke, innoQ Fellow
17:00-18:00 Panel: Architecture Design Processes and Modeling Practices – Quo Vadis? (HS1)
Facilitator: Bedir Tekinerdogan, Bilkent University, Turkey
Panelists:

  • Henry Muccini, University of L’Aquila, Italy
  • Peter Sommerlad, Hochschule für Technik Rapperswill (HSR FHO), Switzerland
  • Markus Völter, independent consultant
  • Rainer Weinreich, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria
18:00-19:00 Open space and/or Birds-of-a-Feather sessions (self-organized by attendees of industry day) (HS1)
19:30-22:00 Conference Social Event (Banquet at City Hall)

Speaker Information

Keynotes: See http://ecsa2014.cs.univie.ac.at/keynote-speakers/

P1.1 Enriching legacy systems. A field report about the architectural work on performance critical and long-living software.
Slides
Continuous development and redesign of software with a multi-decade product life cycle is always a challenge. However, the situation gets worse for performance critical software that runs on a multitude of platforms including high-end servers, modern smart phones and embedded devices. Whilst working on such a project, namely the integration of an open-source rendering engine into the (remote-)display software of construction machines, we gathered interesting findings that are of practical importance for software architects. These findings incorporate design transitions from procedural development to object-orientation, compile-time configuration versus runtime configuration, and the harmonic integration of new features into embedded software systems without breaking the old ones.

Dr. Robert Sorschag, Software Engineer, Zühlke Engineering (Austria) GmbH

P1.2 Service Development and Architecture Management for an Enterprise SOA
Slides
We report on service development and architecture management practices in an enterprise SOA for the financial domain. We first describe how services are currently developed by one of the largest service providers for the financial domain in Austria. We then show how we have introduced various practices and tools for architecture management over the last years. Specifically we focus on support for architecture analysis and review as a means for quality control on this area. Finally, we report on lessons learned both in the area of service development and architecture management as well as on existing challenges and future work in this area.

Thomas Kriechbaum, RACON Software GmbH, Austria
Georg Buchgeher, Software Competence Center Hagenberg, Austria
Rainer Weinreich, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria

P2.1 Adaptable Software Architecture
Slides
Change lies at the heart of software. That is a given no one in the field would dare to conquer. Why then is so hard to adapt a software and its architecture when business requirements change?
There are various definitions of what software architecture is, and none of them offers any helpful advice on how to build true software that is robust and open to change: “Architecture is about the components that comprise a software system, and the relations among them.” “Architecture is a framework for change.” “Architecture is about decisions that are hard to change later.“
The truth is that change happens on every level. And since you don’t know what might possibly change, you must be prepared for fundamental changes at any time.
So, how do we deal with change – change that is ubiquitous, change that can range from small to large scale, change that can shake the foundation of your whole software system, change that doesn’t stop at the architecture that you crafted so meticulously?
In this session Reto Carrara talks about the challenges of building and maintaining software systems that are adaptable to change without decay and software rot. He lays out why even the most fundamental components of software systems commonly referred to as software architecture change over time. He offers insight on how to deal with such changes by leveraging the benefits of Domain Specific Modelling and automatic code generation, a proven way to build and maintain adaptable software systems.

Reto Carrara, CEO and founder, actifsource GmbH

P2.2 Modeling Principles – A survey of current modeling approaches in industry and where the journey may go
Slides
Modeling is nothing new, languages like UML, SysML and BPMN are already well known and used in the industrial practice. However, there is a huge gap how modeling is applied in the industry. Models are used just as pictures and providing a documentation. On the other hand, models became first class citizen and are the main artifacts to generate code or even complete systems.
This talk gives an overview of the current state of the art in modeling approaches used in the industry. It gives insights what is currently going well, what is still missing in the industrial practice and gives an outlook of how modeling approaches may look like in future.

Dr. Horst Kargl, Senior Consultant, Trainer, SparxSystems Software GmbH – Central Europe

P3.1 API Management: A new Model for Delivering Applications in a Multi-Device World
Slides
API Management stands for a new, flexible approach in IT. The main idea is that enterprises deliver technical services (APIs, web services) rather than ready-to-use applications. These services provide access to business assets such as data or functionality (e.g., payment or messaging service). Developers can use these APIs to build innovative applications like apps, internet platforms or B2B integrations in a relatively short period of time. One important component of an API Management platform is the developer portal; a social platform allowing developers to explore, use and learn APIs and to exchange ideas and solutions with other developers.
Examples such as Google, Twitter, Twilio (Telecommunication Services) and the Openbankproject show the power of APIs; currently other industries and companies are adopting the approach as well. In this talk, we present API Management main concepts, technologies and standards. Its use is illustrated on different case studies.

Reto Kohlas, Principal Consultant, [ipt] Innovation Process Technology AG

P3.2 Continuous Architecture Validation
Slides
Continuous Integration allows us to not only verify functionality of our code — it also allows us to verify that we adhere to architectural rules such as, “Do not call the same SQL statement 100 times per transaction”, “Do not transfer more than 50k per Web Service call”, or “The frontend must not access the database directly”. In this talk we discuss how you can leverage your existing test automation (Unit, Integration and Performance Tests) to also validate these architectural rules in your C/I. Validating these rules and letting violations of these rules fail your builds allow you to prevent typical architectural and performance problems to make it into test and production.

Wolfgang Gottesheim, Technology Strategist, Center of Excellence, Compuware APM

P4.1 Reference Architectures for Enterprise Big Data Use Cases
Slides
BigData technologies evolved from mostly unknown open source players to a broad range of applications, tools and methods.
In this talk we give an overview on the key pain points which lead to the development of this vast ecosystem, we state current and future requirements and illustrate lessons learned from practical client examples.
We finalize with a proposition of a BigData Reference Architecture and on how the data scientist’s workplace of the future has to look like based on the previously discussed use case scenarios.

Romeo Kienzler, Data Scientist, Advisory Architect, IBM Germany, Austria, Switzerland

P4.2 The Next-Generation BPM for a Big Data World: Intelligent Business Process Management Suites (iBPMS)
Slides
Business Process Management (BPM) is established, tools are stable, and many companies use it successfully. However, today’s business processes are based just on “dumb” data from relational databases or web services. Humans make decisions based on this information. Instead, the value of big data analytics should be integrated into business processes, too. Besides, user interfaces are inflexible. Modern concepts such as mobile devices or social media are not integrated into business processes. That is status quo. Companies miss a huge opportunity here!
This session explains the idea behind next-generation BPM, which includes big data analytics, social media, and mobile device support. The talk will focus on real world use cases. The audience will learn how to realize intelligent business processes technically by combining BPM, integration, big data and analytics.

Kai Wähner, Technical Lead at TIBCO

P5 Methodical Improvement of Software Systems and Architectures: The aim42 approach
Slides
The presentation outlines AIM42, the architecture-improvement-method, a systematic yet pragmatic approach to improve productive systems. AIM42 relies on a small number of domain concepts and works in three phases (analysis, evaluation, improvement) supported by crosscutting activities. For each phase, AIM42 proposes a number of proven and established practices and patterns. The method addresses both business and technical stakeholders of software systems. aim is developed by an active community in open-source style, backed by extensive industrial experience and scientific research. It has proven to work under time- and budget constraints in various industries.

Gernot Starke, innoQ Fellow

Speaker Biographies

Robert Sorschag studied applied informatics at the Alpen-Adria University of Klagenfurt and did his PhD at the Vienna University of Technology in the field of video retrieval. He worked about 5 years at the applied research company Joanneum Research and participated at national and international projects in the areas of object recognition, media monitoring, and distributed multimedia systems. Since 2012 he is a member of Zühlke Engineering Austria, an industrial partner for the development of innovative products and customized software solutions.

Thomas Kriechbaum is an IT Architect at the RACON Software GmbH. He has been working in the area of JavaEE, SOA and BPM for more than 10 years. Currently he is responsible for the technical reference architecture for service- and process-oriented applications as well as for the software architecture of the core banking system. His main interests are software architecture evolution, agile software engineering methodologies as well as emerging technologies and open source frameworks in the area of web- and service-oriented applications.

Georg Buchgeher is research team leader for software architecture and evolution at the Software Competence Center Hagenberg, one of the largest independent research centers in Austria in the field of software. He has more than 8 years of experience in applied research with industry. His current research interests are software architecture analysis, architecture extraction and documentation, and software architecture knowledge management.

Rainer Weinreich is an associate professor of Software Engineering at the Department of Business Informatics / Software Engineering, Johannes Kepler University Linz (Austria). He is also a senior research associate at the Software Competence Center Hagenberg (Austria) and has more than twenty years of experience in applied software engineering research. His current research focuses on various topics related to software architecture, including architecture models, extraction, management, analysis, and knowledge management. More information about his current and past research activities can be found at www.weinreich.at/research.

Reto Carrara is managing director at Actifsource GmbH, Switzerland. He is working as a consultant for complex industrial software architectures for almost two decades. Reto is specialized in generating software systems from machine readable specifications. More information can be found on www.actifsource.com

Horst Kargl works at Sparx Systems central Europe as trainer and consultant. He teaches UML, SysML and BPMN and supports companies in the introduction of modeling approaches. Before he joined Sparx Systems in 2008, he was a research assistant at the Vienna University of Technology. He worked for different research projects and received his PhD in business informatics. When he is not at the customer site, he is still involved in research projects and supports the company LieberLieber in their development of Model Driven Engineering tools.

Reto Kohlas is a Principal Consultant at [ipt], a Swiss IT consultancy focused on integration, BPM and cloud. In the last years, he was engaged as a security architect in many different software engineering and API projects. Before joining [ipt], he was working as a scientific collaborator in information security and cryptography.

Wolfgang Gottesheim has several years of experience as a software engineer and research assistant in the Java enterprise space. Currently he contributes to the strategic development of the dynaTrace enterprise solution as a Technology Strategy in the Compuware APM division’s Center of Excellence. He focuses on monitoring and optimizing applications in production.

Romeo Kienzler works as Data Scientist and Advisory Architect at the IBM Innovation Center Zurich and is specialized in Large Scale Data Integration and Analytics. With his academic background in Distributed Systems, Information Systems, Life Science and Applied Statistics he supports Clients and Partners in the Architecture and Implementation of Large Scale BigData solutions.

Kai Wähner works as Technical Lead at TIBCO. His main area of expertise lies within the fields of Application Integration, Big Data, SOA, BPM, Cloud Computing and Enterprise Architecture Management. He is speaker at international IT conferences such as JavaOne, ApacheCon or OOP, writes articles for professional journals, and shares his experiences with new technologies on his blog (www.kai-waehner.de/blog). Find more details and references (presentations, articles, blog posts) on his website: www.kai-waehner.de