Customer Reviews

Beyond Software Architecture: Creating and Sustaining Winning Solutions

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

There must be hundreds of books on the software developmental process, but I have yet to see a book that covers the business, technical marketing, sales cycle, deployment cycle, release cycle, licensing, installation, upgrade cycle, and everything in the middle all in one compact book. This book TRULY covers the life of a software application and everyone involved in it.

For us techies, this book starts with what we are familiar with: "Why software architecture matters?" The author starts with a general overview of the topic, but it goes much further into the non-technical details software architecture, such as the Social Structure aspect:

"A good architecture works for the team that created it. It leverages strengths and can, at times, minimize their weaknesses. ... Once created, the architecture in turn exhibits a strong influence on the team. No matter what language you've chosen, you have to mold the development team around it because it affects such as things as your hiring and training policies."

New comers to the architect world don't really think about such aspects, or at least it's not really high on priority on many people's lists. The author puts such things right next to profitability, stability of the architecture, and defining the technical boundaries. Granted that Social Structure aspect of the architecture is as important as the others, you can't really find many books out there that treat it as such. Personal experience teaches us that, but there are cases, many cases, that one doesn't have the luxury of "trial and error". The author takes great pride in his experience and has written this book like a personal assistance to a newbie to the job, and to the expert architect with topics such as branding issues, licensing affects on the overall architecture and more...

Tarchitecture and Markitecture are two words/concepts that are used frequently throughout this book. The author starts with the inception of software applications and explains the important rule that Market Architecture (Markitecture) and Product Management have in the overall picture of a software lifecycle. Why Business plan is important and how it should be written, how to release version 1.0 and subsequent versions, how customer input and interaction with the markitects play the most important rule in the subsequent releases of your software, and other such important questions are covered in chapters 2 and 3.
The chapter Software License and Licensing models is probably one of the most valuable chapter (chapter 4) in the entire book. The author describes the concept of licensing and how it fits into the overall architecture and how it affects the architecture very elegantly. Various licensing models and their pros and cons are described:
· Time based
· Transaction based
· OEM bases
· Metering style
· Hardware based
· Services based
· Revenue Obtained/Costs saved.
The author explains why it is important to select the right licensing model, and how and why it could have a negative effect on your architecture if the wrong one is chosen. Various options for choosing a model are then explained such as the Honor System, the homegrown license managers, and the third party tools available.

Another important aspect of software architecture - the-after-development-has-been-done-now-what aspect, is covered throughout the rest of the book. Deployment, installation, configuration and upgrades are the key topics. Other topics such as extensions to the current architecture, logging and branding are also covered in detail.
The chapter on installation is another well-covered chapter that talks about a topic not covered at all or well in other books out there. Various deployment architectures are covered; Customer site installation, ASP, Managed Service Provider, and Web services models make up the topics for this chapter. This chapter, just like all the other chapters, relates the topic at hand to the overall system architecture, and why and how it can have an effect on the overall architecture of the system.

Throughout the book, one theme screams out to the reader: "How every decision an architect makes affects the rest of the software life cycle, and what the architects need to think about and consider before coming up with their design?" The cycle - software life cycle, and how it is affected by the end user/customer, why it's the job of the market architects and business managers to gather the key points from their customers, what are some of the concerns that are common with any architecture (deployment issues, upgrade concerns, installation difficulties, logging and error reporting, security concerns), and tone of the most important aspect of all: Social aspects and how they have an important affect on the tarchitects, markitects and the overall application. I think the author says it best in the preface of the book:

"You need to move beyond software architecture and move toward understanding and embracing the business issues that must be resolved in order to create a winning solution"

One of the first things authors are asked by their agents, editors, or prospective publishers is to present an analysis of the other books in the genre that cover the same material as their books. Here, Luke must have had it very easy. He addresses a truly unique market niche (the interaction between technical architecture and marketing) in a way that really no one has done before or attempted to do since.

A book that handles both market segmentation and software product management in 300 odd pages is going to cover a whole lot of real estate and risks spreading the information pretty thin. Things important to folks in product management are not always the same things that are interesting to marketers. This facet of writing a book, target audience identification, is also frequently the subject of discussion with editors and publishes. Not having a clear target audience is where this book comes up a bit short.

Luke attempts to address such a breadth of software product concerns that it's hard for any one target group (technical architects or marketers) to get really interested. Although this book might be good for an entrepreneur or someone new to the field of software product management, it is, at best, a catalog of knowledge for tarchitects and marchitects and is unlikely to include anything that they haven't stumbled across in the field. A number of my colleagues have agreed with my final assessment that this is an easy book to peruse and become familiar with, yet a tough book to dive into and love.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but it seems that while this book might provide a nice skeleton for managers straddling the line between development (techitecture) and business strategy (marketecture), the meat is simply not present. So many opportunities for REAL examples went either unaddressed completely, or worse, were answered with meaningless little 2-paragraph sidebars filled with sentences like, "then we sat down to talk about things and we decided to approach things from a different angle, blah, blah, blah." Thanks. I can't say this book was a complete waste of time but it certainly wasn't the best use of my time, either, sadly. And the coining of these ridiculous terms like "techitecture" were truly hard to take.

Hohmann presents a fair amount of useful folk wisdom on enterprise software architecture. IMHO, this information is useful enough to try to struggle beyond the annoyances that Hohmann needlessly creates: (a) inventing annoying buzzwords like "tarchitecture" and misusing perjorative slang like "marketecture" (synonym: vaporware); (b) politocorrectoid smarm (all people in positions of responsibility are "she" and all low-level drones are "he"); and (c) Hohmann's very high opinion of himself.

I wish this book was on softcopy so that I could edit this stuff out. I'd have had an easier time reading it. As it is, I've had to take the book in small doses.

I had great hopes for this book, but for any industry veteran it is basically a repackaging of what many other "experts" have written before. The book is needlessly verbose, but yet glosses over key points with literary hand waving. The lack of significant examples, business cases, and real world process development gives one the feeling the book is merely the presentation of a thesis or philosophy devoid of concrete real world application.

For someone just starting out in the industry they may glean some basic concepts, but there are so many more publications that do a better job and do it cleaner.

This book delivers on its promise to discuss the larger business realities of creating software products. If you're a software architect, or dream of being one, this is a must read book.

Appropriately, it eschews the details of implementation, and focuses mainly on the business issues an architect must focus on to succeed. It works from the assumption that the reader has done a fair bit of design work, and now wants to create software architectures that will last for multiple releases. Luke expands your horizons to include new areas you probably have not have considered.

The book is nicely segmented into logical chapters, making it an excellent reference. Although it covers classic architecture issues such as portability, usability, performance, layering, API design, and security, the truly valuable material is on the business and product management side of the fence, which often get ignored, or left till late in the process. For instance, the installation "out of the box" experience, planning your upgrade strategy, technology licensing, branding, and user community discussions are incredibly valuable, as they bring together the benefit of a lot of experience in the commercial software market. It is this focus on non-traditional architecture issues that makes the book so valuable.

My only issue with the book is the tone. I find it a little too academic, and I think that it detracts from the pragmatic advice given. However, the content more than makes up for this minor lack. If you're ready to move to the next level of architecture or pondering a new software product design, check this book out.

By exposing the many practical connections between business and technical architecture, this terrific book illuminates in lucid detail how software products can transcend code to become successful solutions. It should be required reading for architects and product managers alike working on any software-related product.

Many technical architects master (or at least aspire to master) technical construction, abstract design patterns and principles, languages, platforms, and methodologies; yet even the true master architects among us often remain weak at understanding the business models that must be crafted alongside the technical artifacts that we produce. As a result, the architect's brilliantly-crafted technology too often fails to become a winning solution.

Luke's practical experience with business models and technical models -- and more importantly, for how they intersect -- has led to a vision that is sharp and wise, and he shares this vision in a remarkably friendly, lucid manner. This book is simply a must-read for all those who build software, if that software aims to become a successful and winning solution.

Real software takes a lot of work to build and ship. This book covers the parts of your team's work that doesn't fall under either the umbrella of your development processes or your gritty technical details. The myriad of issues around involving marketing, understanding releases, determining security, logging, and configuration requirements are introduced nicely.

Missing were some coverage of accessibility and a lot of the people issues that creep up when working on these issues. It would've also been nice to see encouragements to get more real-people validation for your systems through alpha and beta programs. They're a great way to make sure that your configuration, logging, versioning, and support infrastructure is able to handle what you think you will need to do.

Overall, though, it's definitely worth giving this a read, particularly if you're in a role that requires you to have a broader set of responsibilities for your product (architectural, management, release, etc.) to make sure you're thinking of the right things. This is stuff that you just have to get right.

This book delivers on its promise to discuss the larger business realities of creating software products. If you're a software architect, or dream of being one, this is a must read book. Appropriately, it eschews the details of implementation, and focuses mainly on the business issues an architect must focus on to succeed. It works from the assumption that the reader has done a fair bit of design work, and now wants to create software architectures that will last for multiple releases. Luke expands your horizons to include new areas you probably have not have considered.

The book is nicely segmented into logical chapters, making it an excellent reference. Although it covers classic architecture issues such as portability, usability, performance, layering, API design, and security, the truly valuable material is on the business and product management side of the fence, which often get ignored, or left till late in the process. For instance, the installation "out of the box" experience, planning your upgrade strategy, technology licensing, branding, and user community discussions are incredibly valuable, as they bring together the benefit of a lot of experience in the commercial software market. It is this focus on non-traditional architecture issues that makes the book so valuable.

My only issue with the book is the tone. I find it a little too academic, and I think that it detracts from the pragmatic advice given. However, the content more than makes up for this minor lack. If you're ready to move to the next level of architecture or pondering a new software product design, check this book out.

Beyond Software Architecture should be required reading for anyone starting a software company - that is unless one prefers the school of hard knocks!

Luke does a fabulous job of going beyond the many books written on software and technology and beyond the many books, classes, and seminars addressing how to create a successful startup and get funded.

Hohmann's keen insight and practical advice can make an enormous difference for any group of bright and knowledgeable software engineers and/or visionary entrepreneurs with the "killer" application - a difference that can mean success. He clearly defines the space between the technology and the market and draws them together so that technologist and business person alike can gain a necessary understanding for what it takes to bring to market and sustain a successful software product.

I wish that this book had been available ten years ago and that I had read it!