Book Review (Book 11) - Applied Architecture Patterns on the Microsoft Platform

BuckWoody — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:50:34 GMT

This is a continuation of the books I challenged myself to read to help my career - one a month, for year. You can read my first book review here, and the entire list is here. The book I chose for April 2012 was: Applied Architecture Patterns on the Microsoft Platform. I was traveling at the end of last month so I’m a bit late posting this review here.

Why I chose this book:

I actually know a few of the authors on this book, so when they told me about it I wanted to check it out. The premise of the book is exactly as it states in the title - to learn how to solve a problem using products from Microsoft.

What I learned:

I liked the book - a lot. They've arranged the content in a "Solution Decision Framework", that presents a few elements to help you identify a need and then propose alternate solutions to solve them, and then the rationale for the choice. But the payoff is that the authors then walk through the solution they implement and what they ran into doing it.

I really liked this approach. It's not a huge book, but one I've referred to again since I've read it. It's fairly comprehensive, and includes server-oriented products, not things like Microsoft Office or other client-side tools. In fact, I would LOVE to have a work like this for Open Source and other vendors as well - would make for a great library for a Systems Architect. This one is unashamedly aimed at the Microsoft products, and even if I didn't work here, I'd be fine with that. As I said, it would be interesting to see some books on other platforms like this, but I haven't run across something that presents other systems in quite this way.

And that brings up an interesting point - This book is aimed at folks who create solutions within an organization. It's not aimed at Administrators, DBA's, Developers or the like, although I think all of those audiences could benefit from reading it. The solutions are made up, and not to a huge level of depth - nor should they be. It's a great exercise in thinking these kinds of things through in a structured way.

The information is a bit dated, especially for Windows and SQL Azure. While the general concepts hold, the cloud platform from Microsoft is evolving so quickly that any printed book finds it hard to keep up with the improvements.

I do have one quibble with the text - the chapters are a bit uneven. This is always a danger with multiple authors, but it shows up in a couple of chapters. I winced at one of the chapters that tried to take a more conversational, humorous style. This kind of academic work doesn't lend itself to that style.

I recommend you get the book - and use it. I hope they keep it updated - I'll be a frequent customer. :)

Head in the Clouds–Eyes on the Books

BuckWoody — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 19:43:00 GMT

I normally post technical topics here on this blog, but I’m extending this post a bit to include a little professional development. Don’t worry; there’s some tech (and Distributed Computing tech, no less) in this post as well.

I recently presented a few sessions on a “SQL Cruise” to Alaska (more on that here) and one of those sessions was on professional development. As part of that, I had everyone do some exercises on career building, and we created some deliverables we would be accountable to each other on. After all, one of my favorite business quotes (my version, others have said something similar) is:

What gets measured gets done.

One of the deliverables was to establish our career goal(s) for the next year, and then come up with a list of 12 books that would help us get there. We promised to read one book per month, and report back on our blogs a review of the book and how it applies to the career. So in no particular order, here is my list – I’m telling you all, so call me on it if I don’t post a review on one of them. I reserve the right to change my list as I learn more, but 12 books is the rule:

Programming Windows Azure by Siriram Krishnan: Learning about how to select applications suitable for Distributed Technology. (June )
Rhetoric, by Aristotle: I read this long ago, but I would like to re-read it to learn how to more clearly formulate my arguments and help my writing skills to improve. (July)
Favorite Folktales from Around the World, by Jane Yolen: Storytelling is at the heart of presenting well. ( August )
Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, by Dan Ariely: Understanding the actions of others is key to my success. ( September )
The Cloud of Unknowing, Anonymous: The role of faith in life. ( October )
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, by Don Tapscott: I’ve heard a lot about this, and I’m not even sure I agree with it. But I want to see what it says about collaborative efforts and how I can leverage them. ( November )
Think Stats: In my studies of "Big Data", the skill I find missing most of the time is Statistics - as part of the "Data Scientist" role I'm investigating, this is part of a kit you can get from O'Reilly. I actually replaced another book with this one. ( December )
The Elements of Persuasion by Richard Maxwell and Robert Dickman: Another "storytelling" book. ( January )
Designing Data Visualizations by Noah Iliinsky and Julie Steele: Part of my "Big Data" focus. ( February )
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick: This is a book I've heard a lot about, and it's in a similar vein as GEB, one of my favorite books. ( March )
Applied Architecture Patterns on the Microsoft Platform: Using Microsoft products to solve a given problem. It includes Cloud strategies as well. ( April )
20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias: Stories and themes are part of software, presenting, and working in teams. This book claims there are only 20 plots, ever. Let's see. ( May )

As part of keeping each other accountable, I hereby tag a few of my fellow travellers – and you, of course, are invited to play along. Link back to this blog post and put your link in the comments below if you want us to follow your journey:

Tim Ford: http://thesqlagentman.com/
John Halunen:
Dev Nambi: www.devnambi.com
Grant Fritchey: http://www.scarydba.com/

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Book Review (Book 11) - Applied Architecture Patterns on the Microsoft Platform

Head in the Clouds–Eyes on the Books