API gateways and the dangers of creeping middleware scope

23 March 2016

An API gateway can solve many generic problems in an API infrastructure, but you do need to define a clear remit and protect against creeping scope.

Data design for event-driven architecture: autonomy, encapsulation and ordering

1 February 2016

When you’re implementing an event-driven architecture, the design of your events is absolutely critical to realize the benefits of loose coupling.

Informatica Cloud development best practices

18 January 2016

Informatica Cloud is a powerful environment but a pretty unforgiving one. Here are some best practices that I have picked up from implementing the platform.

Pragmatic REST: APIs without hypermedia and HATEOAS

12 December 2015

If you’re not using HATEAOS then you’re not using REST. That’s true enough, but in many cases adopting HATEOAS doesn’t deliver much value beyond architectural purity.

Comparing nServiceBus and MassTransit: Do we still need .Net integration frameworks?

26 November 2015

Both nServiceBus and Mass Transit plugged an important gap in Microsoft’s integration landscape, but do they have a role in a future that is likely to be dominated by diverse technologies and autonomous agile teams?

REST APIs don’t need a versioning strategy - they need a change strategy

27 September 2015

Change in an API is inevitable. Attempting to manage this change through version numbering usually creates more problems than it solves.

Most software architecture diagrams are useless

11 August 2015

The best architecture diagrams act as a map - if an architect can’t express a system clearly and concisely then they probably don’t understand it properly.

Can cross-cutting concerns really exist between services?

25 July 2015

You might be able to identify cross-cutting concerns in a monolith, but in a service-orientated world they should melt away into specific implementations.

Comparing Gartner’s cloud integration leaders: Informatica, Dell Boomi and Mulesoft

2 July 2015

Gartner’s definition of enterprise integration as a service is so wide that it can be difficult to draw any meaningful comparisons between the platforms in the “leaders” space.

Deploying a Windows Service remotely with Powershell

12 June 2015

As with any deployment automation, there’s a fair amount of duct tape and chicken wire involved in deploying a Windows Service remotely.

Refactoring monoliths to microservices: the pragmatic reality

5 May 2015

Large scale rewrites of systems are loaded with risk. You can address this by preparing the ground in advance and adopting an incremental approach, but a willingness to be pragmatic is essential.

Microservices, REST and the distributed big ball of mud

20 April 2015

The “big ball of mud” describes a system architecture that is sprawling, sloppy and haphazard. That’s precisely how you’d describe some emerging microservice architectures.

How big is a microservice?

9 March 2015

We know that micro services are small and focused by design – just how small is this in practice?

Why REST is not a silver bullet for service integration

4 January 2015

REST is sometimes described as the next evolutionary step in service integration. The problem is that REST provides too much of a dumb pipe to support genuinely decoupled, fault-tolerant service integration.

Don’t assume message ordering in Azure Service Bus

16 December 2014

Azure Service Bus can provide first-in-first-out messaging in theory, but this is not the same as guaranteeing the order in which your messages are processed.