How to become a Technology Architect

Almost every developer wants to be a technical architect one day but most are not aware of various responsibilities of an architect & the road-map to become an architect. Fact is the the role & responsibility of a Technology Architect changes and evolve in response to the specific business context, project size, complexity & phase, technical constraints & technology landscape of a particular project. Despite the great variation, that there are certain responsibilities that are common to the role of Technical Architect in a delivery project

• Technology Vision,
• Delivery Focus,
• Technology Skill,
• Customer Relationship.
• Organization & Management 

Technology Vision

There are some important differences between the architect and developer. An architect must take responsibility for the overall technical direction of the project and the product whereas the developer will be given responsibility only at component-level. He or she needs to assure that it will stay open for changes and that these changes can be implemented in a technically excellent and cost-effective way.
This requires a rather different skill, in predicting and anticipating these requirements, and having strategies and plans in place. This isn’t just experience of the development project cycle but a matter of asking the right questions at the right time, most often at the very beginning of projects. The start of a project is generally a critically important phase, because all the decisions that are undertaken during this period can affect the success of the entire project, for better or worse: This is true even of agile projects.
In order to find the most appropriate architecture and components, the team must not only focus on determining the business goals and requirements but also on clarifying the functional requirements. These functional requirements will include cross-cutting concerns like performance, scalability, compatibility, internationalization, branding, security, auditing, diagnostics & logging, fail-over and disaster recovery. The consequences of ignoring any of these topics at the beginning of the project can be catastrophic, though a smart architect can transparently enable some of them later, by creating an architecture that is open for such changes or extensions. .
As part of the task of determining the architecture and components, the technical Architect must identify the most suitable technology stack and frameworks. The architect does some research, finds those third-party solutions that are most appropriate, and proposes how to integrate them. By using third-party components and frameworks, the efforts and energy of the team can be focused primarily on solving those challenging problems that actually require writing code.

Delivery Focus:

Responsibility for the quality and effectiveness of code is, of course, shared by the whole team; however, an architect needs to challenge the team and help it to implement even better code which meets industry standards. This can be achieved by evangelizing and promoting good principles & practices (SOLID, KISS, DRY), tools, metrics – or just by giving a good example in doing regular development tasks. This last aspect is very important because it helps the architect to stay close to the team and technical nuances as well as allowing him to double-check how well the proposed design materializes in code.

Technology Skill Development

An architect is an integral part of a team but, because of his experience, he has a large impact upon a team and imprints his mark on it. While proposing a solution, the architect must be sure that the team he is working in shares the same vision. This vision should be well understood and accepted by the team, so that the solution is correctly implemented. Moreover, the team should be able to take over the proposed solution, develop it and feel and act as is they own it. To achieve these goals a TA needs to work on two fronts: in addition to such obvious aspects as training, code review, daily coaching or a team’s involvement in the application design process, it may be necessary to align the solution to the skills and profile of a team – this applies both to the technology stack as well as to development tools.
Last but not least, as the project grows it is very important to delegate responsibility for some aspects of the application to the team so as to engender a good team spirit, and foster professional growth. At some point in the development cycle this may become a necessity, because the architect is not an expert in all the technologies and techniques that are used in a project.

Positive Customer relationship

The TA role, next to the Project Manager (PM) and Business Analyst (BA), is key in keeping a good relationship with the customer. This might take a different form depending on whether we are relating to the IT department or directly with business people within the client organization. Nevertheless, the most important foundation of this relationship is always mutual trust and understanding. Having the customer’s trust allows an architect to operate effectively with a high level of confidence. It guarantees a proper level of autonomy and shortens the decision-making process, allowing the architect to react quickly to emerging challenges that very often occur in agile projects. Of course, this trust is partially based on the proper records and registries, which make an architect’s job as transparent as possible. Depending on the project, the TA may leverage a decision log, technical debt log, risk & assumptions list, or just a product backlog, on which a TA keeps the key components or actions in the form of product backlog items.
Looking back at the history of the relationships with our customers in various projects, we noticed that the TA, BA and PM act as the voice of the team. They care collectively about the consistency of communication on a business- and technical-level. Proper cooperation of these roles empowers the team and allows it to move to a higher level of collaboration. Instead of just focusing on daily tasks, the team becomes a trusted software and competencies provider, a supplier who shares its practices, processes and values with a customer.

Delivery focus

Of course, all of the actions above should, as a consequence, lead the team and the project to a successful end, bearing in mind that, for the customer, the most important thing is the successful delivery of the project. Therefore, it is crucial for the architect to know the release plan and make certain that the technical vision fits it, by planning related actions (e.g. release support) and deliveries (creating packages, writing deployment scripts) on a project backlog and prioritizing them appropriately.
On the technical side, in addition to proper design, it is also important to take care of operational and infrastructure aspects; without consistently configured environments, a code repository, bug-tracking system, project-tailored continuous integration & deployment flow, the project delivery may be at risk. Obviously, as in previous cases, the TA does not have to do the work associated with the implementation of these aspects with his own hands; he rather collaborates with the PM and Release manager to ensure them and to deliver upon the team’s requests.

Organization activities

As well as all the project-based roles, Technical architects will bear responsibility for several organizational and management tasks. Technical architects in most organizations are organized as a virtual team that is engaged in many working with different tasks at the company level. They are responsible for the company’s technical competences by looking for new technologies and techniques, which are recommended to the developers and it engineers through training, workshops or newsletters. Additionally, experience gathered in many projects of a very different nature, empowers Technical architects to define an internal development infrastructure and standards like source code repository, bug management systems, code quality metrics and coding guidelines, Moreover, depending on Technical architects specializations, they also personally support projects, technology groups & communities and areas of specialization that arise on cross-projects / company level, like performance community, test automation group, Technology Architecture Groups, etc. It is especially important to support and foster this last group; Technical architects are aware how important is the reliable Continuous Delivery infrastructure and so they participate in a process of creating a company wide vision and standards in this area.
Technical architects  also ought to support thought-leadership initiatives in the areas of development and delivery. They provide very important input to the sales process by rendering work breakdown and estimates in all of a project’s winning phases. Finally, they very often act as line managers for developers, or mentors for Technical architects candidates. As the consequence they  play a very important role in the team members’ induction and growth by conducting the training and workshops or organizing coding events.

So get started on , empower yourself with relevant training and certifications that will help grow your understanding of different technologies and architecture and try for opportunities where you can work on small projects/modules that give you can opportunity to work as an architect. Don't be afraid of challenges and be willing to put extra hours to read/research/experiment with your architecture. Your experience will build your credentials which will help you get bigger opportunities and you will soon be on the move!

How to select a BPM (Business Process Management) product?

I have been working on implementing BPM since 2005 and one of my tasks as BPM Architect leading the BPM practice in my company was to do vendor comparison of software products and publish Accenture's  POV (point of view) about the software. As architects we also recommended best fit software to our client and our solution architects. BPM is one of the products that I have evaluated multiple times. I received an email from software engineers on how to select a BPM product and I decided to post my views on 'Software Product Selection' based on how we evaluated software for our clients, most of the clients were one of the Fortune 100 companies.
                     Gartner's Magic Quadrant & Forrester's Wave are 2 popular software vendor evaluations that I usually refer to get an idea of features and offerings of software products. These product evaluation and ranking are purely for reference as they consider many different criteria to position a software product as Leader, Visionary, Niche player or Challenger as Gartner classifies them. 

Here is Gartners Oct 2017 Magic quadrant for Intelligent Business Process Management Suites

And this is the Q1 2018 Forrester Wave Report

In the above chart I would not really worry about the X & Y coordinates of the software as long as they are both are Leaders quadrant or even in Niche Player or Visionaries or Challengers Quadrant if they offer the features that are important for my solution.  In fact, BPM is fast changing landscape and new features are offered almost every quarter.

If you are out to select a BPM product my recommendation is to
1) List key requirements of your solutions (do consider long term requirements as well)
2) Go through vendor comparison reports and product manuals and evaluate each vendors product features, have a look at the demo videos of these vendors
3) Select top 2 products that match your requirement.
4) Implement a prototype, ask your business users to go through the prototype  and then shortlist the BPM product.
5) Some vendors claim to have a various feature but in reality the feature could be part of their future enhancements and you may have to wait for 6 to 12 months to implement the feature. So make sure you discuss all the critical requirements of your solution with the vendor and ensure they are supported in the software version that is you intend to use.

For all you know your architect may recommend Pegasystems , or Appian or  IBM BPMor even TIBCO Active Matrix BPM based on your requirements. So do not blindly go by the Forrester Wave or Gartner Magic Quadrant, do your homework and you will not regret it. 

Getting the best out of your WIFI Connectivity

The most annoying issue of internet experience continues to be WIFI connectivity. There are 100s of Tips on the internet for some complex problems but for a home user THESE 4 tips ARE ENOUGH to optimize wireless settings - they worked for me so I am sharing them! If your Windows 8 or 10 is showing 'Limited WiFi connectivity or 'No Internet Access'  the following steps will help you repair and troubleshoot the situation.

1) Check Windows Update -

Check if you have disabled automatic windows update for some reason. MS Windows update solve the known issues to disabling update defeats the purpose. If there are any pending Wireless or Network related Windows Update download the updates and install them and check they solve the issue.

2) Reset TCP/IP Stack and Auto tuning

Assuming you have performed previous check, resetting TCP/IP stack is the next step. TCP/IP settings can easily be reset or Auto tuned through the Microsoft Windows very own Net Shell utility (netsh.exe). Have a look at the procedures below for the practical implication of this utility.

Click Search icon on the Charms bar and type 'Command Prompt' in the 'Search' box, Right click the search result and choose to Run as administrator

Type the command NETSH INT IP RESET C:\RESTLOG.TXT

and press Enter key

3) Try Disabling Power Saving Mode -

Assuming you have performed previous check, open up Device Manger and within it Network Adapter, right click the wireless adapter you are using then click on Properties, you will have the option to turn off power saving in the power management tab.

4) You can also download & try fix using Microsoft Fixit utility

The self fix utility takes care of fixing Windows setting for optimum internet
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/299357/how-to-reset-tcp-ip-by-using-the-netshell-utility


Most of the times these 4 steps will resolve your issue.

Real estate industry : How to gain competitive advantage with your enterprise mobile app strategy?

The immense growth in the use of mobile technology, specifically consumer-facing real estate technology, means change for Realtors when it comes to communication, research and reporting for mobile-first clients.Most Realtors use mobile technology to send new house alerts, neighborhood reports, and financial information to registered users.Realtors, buyers and sellers are all using mobile technology to navigate the real estate industry.

Mobiles Usage

Stastica.com link - Mobile Usage vs Mobile App Usage

So what is the next game changer for Real Estate?

Multiple 2018 report by analytics firm like Flurry & Nielsen revealed that the average Indian smartphone user spends 90 minutes per day on mobile application and the premium segment spends 130 minutes per day. An average U.S. smartphone user spends 5 hours per day on a mobile device, a 20 percent increase compared with 4Q 2015. An average Of that time, 92 percent (about 4.6 hours) is spent inside a mobile application. Real Estate industry has taken to the internet but they are yet to capitalize the power of Mobile Devices. When potential customer is 'Connected' over mobile device the service provider has to provide service using Mobile Applications to stay relevant and competitive. Period.

How apps have changed the game?

Apps enable realtors across to perform specific tasks on the go, such as viewing data, aggregating buyer queries, scheduling real estate visits and opening lock-boxes. Some mobile applications allows agents to send custom reports to clients via app-based messaging. Realtors can 'PUSH' information to buyers and sellers by customer's preferred electronic channel - email/SMS/Whatsapp/etc. This type of simple, customized communication can save Realtors valuable time. Search is the most used functionality in a mobile application because it allows user to utilize the time while he/she is traveling so well designed search that give accurate, meaningful results and is presented in a user friendly User Interface. Personally I feel there is also a need for behavioral change in Real Estate industry and adapt to the habit of mobile savvy Millennial Consumer and provide information in digital format which reduces frequent personal interaction. Millennial consumers wants the service provider to PUSH the most relevant information to them and they also want to be equipped to PULL information on demand. Internet is about 24/7 business and that means real estate can no longer be limited to their human team working 9 to 9. The industry needs to add a virtual team member in guise of a mobile application that caters to the consumer 24/7.

How real estate professionals can leverage mobile technology?

• For recording voice notes about potential property listings
• For recording video footage and photographs of property
• For sharing video and photograph of property
• For  monitoring appointments & time management
• Running mobile marketing programs
• Promoting company brand using mobile applications
• Secure messaging for image and text communications
• Electronically.signed real estate contracts & document management
• Customer Relationship Management
• To get latest industry news 

The real estate industry is very competitive, every customer can be connected via mobile device so it is important to use mobile to stay ahead of the game. Today’s mobile technologies provide a huge capacity for brand building & marketing services and products to a worldwide audience via email campaigns and online advertising. Traditionally real estate data has not been maintained in digital format. Now real estate agents can establish databases that allow them to target particular properties at specific groups of clients. These agents typically spend a considerable amount of time out in the field, either showing or viewing properties, and mobile devices allow them to stay connected.

Connected Customer, Lifestyle Changes &  Real Estate

• As many as 60 percent of homes in the U.S. and India are purchased by people who are between the ages of 28 and 45, which is the age group that is always connected via computers & mobiles.
• Mobile devices allow potential property buyers access to property images and details 24/7 without having to talk to a real estate agent.
• Websites & mobile applications enable uses to compare property features of shortlisted properties
• Software allows home buyers to store 'User Property Preference' in databases & relevant details of applicable listings can be 'PUSHED' to them as soon as they are available (Real Time).
• Potential buyer, the realtor and vendor are always connected over mobile devices.
• Buyers expect details such as home features, information on school districts and neighborhoods to be available over internet & mobile devices.
• Mobile technology is no longer an edge technology but an essential vehicle to stay connected with potential buyers & delivery of information.
• Mobile app is not just an extension of your website but a tool that help you streamline your business and stay connected with clients.

The advanced 'Mobile Applications' should leverage technologies like Real Time Service, Big Data, Dark Data, Social Analytics, Predictive Analytics, Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning for better understanding of customer requirement, improve recommendations and reduce churn. But first things first, stay connected & keep listening to the customer!

Do you have a Cloud Computing Strategy for your organization yet?

While discussing Hybrid vs Public Cloud with a client I realized that they still did not have an strategy for using Cloud for the enterprise.Cloud Computing has been here for a decade and yet cloud computing issues are still perplexing many CIOs. Studies indicate that less than 10% of enterprises have a well defined Cloud Strategy. All the new applications development in the next few years would have to follow the enterprise Cloud Computing strategy. Having a well planned Cloud Strategy will enable business to apply its tenets quickly with fewer delays, thus speeding the arrival of the ultimate business outcomes. So if your CIO still does not have a Cloud Strategy for your enterprise it's time he should define one. The 1st step in the journey to the Cloud is to understand the multiple aspects & phases of Cloud Computing.

                                            Soon everything will be served on the Cloud !

Cloud computing : 

The average cloud spending across industries is anything between 5 to 10% and most organizations are migrating on premise data center to cloud. The spending is projected to grow every year as legacy applications are migrated and new applications are built. A key benefit of public cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) is to place applications closer to customers to enable a better user experience. Private cloud computing is also being exploited, especially where intellectual property, control, regulatory or compliance concerns, security, performance, and cost of service delivery are differentiated. In such cases, private clouds run on-premises, in co-location facilities or at provider facilities, and they can offer similar benefits to public cloud computing. Organizations are also exploiting Hybrid cloud computing with focus on  integration between the internal and external (or two or more external) environments at the data, process and/or security layers.

Defining a case for Cloud Computing : 

Next step is to define a Cloud Strategy based on the business vision and the digital strategy. Digital business requires speed and agility that cloud computing provides through the use of cloud services – which become available to a broader set of users through a dynamic self-service interface. Users “help themselves” to these cloud services, stimulating creativity and innovation.

CIOs need to educate their organization about the need to invest in cloud as a style of computing that drives greater speed, agility and innovation through this democratization of IT and the benefits they can derive from Cloud Computing. Organization's digital business strategy should justify the investments needed for cloud computing.

Design for Cloud  : 

Just using cloud services is not enough: you must optimize your application design for the cloud. Migrating applications to cloud requires change in application architecture and design. Unless we adapt the design to Cloud Computing we may land into badly designed application with poor scalability and performance with high maintenance overhead. We have to optimize our applications for cloud computing with the explicit purpose of getting the most value at the lowest effective cost. New applications essentially have to be designed for the Cloud and migration of legacy application should also be designed for the cloud.

Finally a picture of a sample Cloud Strategy Road-map for an enterprise.

Securing Mobile Applications

Mobile applications draw the attention of hackers more and more each day because they have something that the attackers want, user personal data. Hard-coded secret keys, personal information stored in plain text on SD cards, usernames and passwords found unencrypted in databases, analytics collected and sent in the clear to remote servers, are just a few cases that make the life of an attacker easier.

So how do we protect data on mobile phones? To protect sensitive data, and ensure confidentiality and/or integrity developers have to use Cryptography. There are many cryptographic libraries that can be integrated into Android applications. Cryptographic libraries can be seen as cryptographic tools that contain tools, such as encryption algorithms, padding schemes, and hash functions.

Few of the common basic cryptography libraries are as follows -
1) AeroGear (Crypto AeroGear) Apache 2.0 license
2) Conceal (Facebook) BSD license,
3) Keyczar (Google) Apache 2.0 license

Once you decide to encrypt appication data you have to decide how to implement it. What encryption algorithm should you use, AES or DES? How long should your key be, 128 or 256 bits? Which encryption mode should you use, ECB or CBC? If you do not have an answer to all these questions, along with a good reason for each answer, then it seems that you have found yourself in a position where, although you probably have all the tools you need, you are not absolutely sure which ones to use and how.

The cryptographic toolkits do not implement any exotic cryptographic functionalities, nor do they intend to replace the cryptographic libraries presented above; they rather built on some of them with the sole purpose of making cryptography easier and safer to use.

These toolkit may supports only a subset of the algorithms, modes, schemes, parameters, and other cryptographic tools that are out there. Instead it provides you with sensible defaults in case you (a) know what you want to do but don’t know how to do it, or (b) don’t really care as long as you end up with a safe solution. Let’s examine some of these toolkits to better understand their role.

There are many good sites to learn more about cryptography & one of the websites I can recommend  is  https://www.garykessler.net/library/crypto.html

How to start innovation? How to build an 'Innovation Culture' in your organization?

In an organizational culture is a system of shared assumptions, values, and beliefs, which governs how people behave in organizations. These shared values have a strong influence on the people in the organization and dictate how they act, and perform their jobs. Organizations today have high focus on innovation & innovative offerings and it is imperative that organization adopts innovation as part of the organization culture.

                                  Innovation culture can be defined as the work environment that organizations cultivate in order to nurture unorthodox thinking and its application. Organizations that foster a culture of innovation subscribe to the belief that innovation is not the province of top leadership but can come from anyone in the organization.

                    Many organizations claim to that they support innovation. Plan are made on how to go about investing in INNOVATION & providing resources towards the innovation work. But when look at the program over months organization's support seems to be lacking in terms of fostering innovation. Their Reward & Recognition systems do not support innovation or they just stifle it. Usually the problem is that companies have review systems designed to ensure only Completed & Successful projects and programs are recognized. True to the service culture organizations only look at today’s results and not towards the future.

                                                          The CTO directive says  “go innovate,” but the organization usually supports taking 'Only Those Risks That Will Ensure Success' and that seems to defeat the Innovation Culture. GE would not be GE if they had no invested a huge amount of talented resources in research & promoting innovation but most organization defer from allocating the most experienced resources to innovation teams.

So what  needs to change? The answer is Possibility Thinking – starting with a clear definition of where you want Solve with your innovation and then spending time trying to figure out what is required to make it happen. Not focusing on the next single improvement, but rather the final picture first. This frees us from the constraints of the current system and processes and allows for a more open field of possible routes to get to a solution.

                                                                                  

                                      A 5 point approach for building Innovation Culture

1. Innovation Strategy:  Company's Innovation Strategy should be a combination of Top-Down & Bottom-Up collaboration of ideas. A lot of organizations want to innovate but the leadership team has no clear strategy around innovation. Instead, employees are given a broad and general remit to come up with great new ideas. This can lead companies to work on a number of unconnected products and services. In addition to this, innovation teams can find that some of the great ideas they come up with have no internal support from managers because they were never on anyone’s agenda to begin with. What companies need is a clear Innovation Vision that outlines the key trends impacting their business and how the company plans to use innovation to get ahead of those trends. This Innovation Vision should provide a simple guide of the types of innovative ideas the company will invest in. Innovation starts with the strategic decision to pursue specific types of ideas. Innovation tools can then be deployed as best practice to deliver on the chosen innovation strategy.

2. Innovation Funding: Corporate leaders can stifle innovation by how they make decisions to invest in ideas. Whether it is investment of money or resources, investment decisions making is perhaps the most powerful lever managers have in transforming a company's culture. If employees are required to write long business plans before they get any money, the company will end up rewarding the kinds of people who are happy to write such plans. Such practices tend to exclude the creatives and leave them out of the process. Furthermore, innovation succeeds through making several small bets and seeing what works. If the Business planning involves five-year projections, detailed delivery plans and an ask for a large amount of investment money then after a large investment is made, innovation teams are then managed by whether their project is on time and on budget. Such large investments based on detailed plans limit the number of bets a company can make. Since most innovative ideas fail, increasing the number of bets is a good method for discovering ideas that work. As such, what companies need is an investment process that allows managers to make Small Investments on a number of strategically aligned ideas, support employees as they test their ideas and then double-down investment on those ideas that demonstrate traction.

3. Collaboration: Innovation is a team sport. It requires excellent collaboration among siloed business and functional units, across geographies. Finding the best resources in your organization and combining them is a hallmark of successful innovation. To find the best solutions, you need to leverage the full range of expertise across your organization. This requires one to pull capabilities from across the company; this doesn’t happen when people are working separately instead of collaboratively. Another important aspect of innovation is involving the customers to create a breakthrough product.

4. Motivators -  Intrapreneurs are the employees who couple an entrepreneurial mind-set with the ability to leverage company assets such as expertise, channels, brand, market and customer base.to innovate.  To enable innovators to succeed, you’ll need to measure and recognize their innovative efforts. Three metrics play special roles. The first are leading indicators such as the percentage of employees and the size & strength of the internal collaborative ecosystem. The second type of metric measures the process. How many meaningful ideas are in your pipeline? Is your portfolio balanced and robust? Are you commercializing your ideas? Thirdly there are lagging indicators, the metrics focus on the revenues from new products, the impact on profit, and the effect of innovation on brand.

5.) Rewards & Recognition : You need to give public recognition to innovators. Bonuses are great, but they’re private — no one in the organization sees the check. However, when you promote someone based on their contribution to and collaboration on successful innovations, it sets a good example and motives coworkers. Public recognition displays management’s commitment to the people who demonstrate truly innovative behavior. All innovation efforts do not succeed  & in order to drive towards innovative thinking, failure has to be an option. Understanding that the lessons that you learn from failure leads to success is the key to any learning organization.Support of these failures is critical to their ultimate success. Leadership should recognize innovators instead of spending time looking for who was at fault and focus on the leanings from the failure and how to overcome it. How can you avoid it in the future and strive for better results? 

Finally, the hardest part of any innovation culture is to simply Pull Back & stop work on an innovation idea. When innovations are not panning out, not delivering the results expected, or driving to the capability you thought, you need to stop the work and simply move on. This is much harder for people and organizations to do as any innovation begins with a passionate individual or group that truly invests in the direction. While very difficult, it is a critical step in managing those critical resources you have directed towards innovation. An organization that has clear vision for innovation, a well thought innovation strategy and  road-map, encourages collaboration will succeed in building an innovation culture that realizes its innovation goals.

"Service Before Self" - From 10 meter MSL to our boys defending the borders at 5000 meter MSL

I have been a fan of Indian armed forces since I was a kid. After 12th standard I did appear for the NDA entrance exam but I did not clear the exam. When I started working I decided I will contribute a small portion of my salary to the armed forces and started contributing to PM fund with  a special note that I want to contribute for the Indian army and I have bunch of letters from Prime Minister that are sent to everyone who contributes to PM Fund.
                        Every time we have a situation where army/navy/airforce are called into action I can't help but feel proud of the selfless service by these young men. I believe as long as a man serves in the armed forces he is young and that's why we sometimes call them 'Our boys' out of our love, admiration & affection for them. Our boys, our brothers & sisters, our sons & daughters who serve with the motto 'Service before Self' are on call 24/7, 365 days and their are no holidays when you serve the motherland. And what can we say about the families of these brave hearts who have encouraged their sons & daughters to join armed forces but to salute them. I get pained when certain politicians and so called human right activist criticize the Indian army without studying the history of Indian army.

History is witness that Indian army has always been called by civilian government to help protect from enemy and there has not been  single instance where army has taken any step without orders from the civilian government. A government elected by the people works on people's agenda and in people's interest so when you criticize the army you are actually criticizing your own vote, the vote of the majority of Indians.
                                 If you do not like army to be called in by the government then you should have voted for a government of your choice that does not take help of army to maintain peace. Assuming people understand this and they should criticize the government decision and not just criticize the government but also educate the government on what alternatives they have. Sadly people who criticize the government do not seem to have any clue to an alternate solution.

Successive governments have deployed army in J&K. Does governments have any option  but to deploy army when they are fighting terrorism sponsored by a neighboring country? Do these critics expect NGOs to fight the heavily armed enemy that is attacking J&K? Or do they expect civilian government to pickup guns themselves and protect the Kashmiri's from terrorists and Pakistani army? Or do these critics want India to give away a piece of our land to enemy country without resistance? Fine if that is what critics want then do these critics have enough numbers to elect a government that supports their mandate to give away J&K? Or are these critics only a handful of jokers who attack the government to get few minutes of TV publicity? Or are these handful of critics funded by agencies who want to break India? I often wonder how the NGOs that talk in support of terrorist get their funds from outside India and why would someone in another country sponsor these NGO is not to cause unrest in India.
                                             
Where were these critics when army gets called to save flood victims & earth quake victims? Is that the job of the army & police or of National Disaster Management Force? When the nation needs them the armed forces (airforce, navy & army) have been asked to help is all possible areas and they have never failed the country - forget about complaining, because complaining is not in the DNA of Indian Armed forces.

These critics are not smart enough to visualize what will happen if we remove forces from J&K or other border state? Before you know the enemy will reach their Airconditioned cabins in Delhi where these critics of India hibernate & protest. Why in the hell should a man do his duty at Siachen Glacier, 5000 meter above Mean sea level if not to protect his country men?

1. These people do not know that Indian army is the biggest voluntary army n the world . We do not force people to serve in army they join of their own will
2.  Unlike other government organizations and institutions in India, there are no provisions for reservations based on caste or religion in Indian armed forces.
3. The Indian Army is not just about guns and bombs . Army has some smartest engineers who have built the highest bridge 'Bailey bridge' in the world. 
4.  The Military Engineering Services (MES) is one of the biggest construction agencies in India. They have built roads and bridges in areas where no other agency would dare to venture.
5. The Operation Rahat (2013) in Uttarakhand was one of the biggest civilian rescue operations ever carried out in the world.
6. The Indo Pakistan War of 1971 came to end with the surrender of about 93,000 combatants and officials of the Pakistani Army. This is the largest surrender of POW after World War2
7. The UN acknowledges that Indian Army is one of the biggest troop contributors to the United Nations peace making operations.
8. Indian army is considered among the very best in high altitude and mountain warfare.
9. Indian army often trains soldiers from USA, UK & Russia as they are considered best in Jungle warfare.

You cannot imagine the life of these men sitting in cozy rooms with AC and room heater so that your body does not face the adverse change in temperature all the year through. So dear critics don't even bother to get out of your rooms you were meant to stagnate & die in your temperature controlled rooms. But when you attack the army or the government you are indirectly attacking the people of India who have voted for the government and who support the governments decision to deploy army to defend India & its citizen. And if you are attacking me for my decision to vote for a government & army that defends India's sovereignty then I am not going to take it lying down. You attack us on social media, TV or on the roads  and we Indians will protest against you and expose your anti-national mindset that makes you criticize your own country men and our army. One cannot help but think who sponsors these critics who dont have jobs but still have money to take care of their family, Who finances the critics who come to TV every day to attack the army & government? Who sponsors their business class air tickets to foreign countries for pleasure and attending conferences to criticize India? What is the motive of a bunch of Indians critics who seem to have single motive of defaming armed forces and governments that are protecting our people and our sovereignty? Why are these people concerned about Human Rights of Terrorist but not concerned about Human Rights of the ordinary citizen killed by terrorist & naxals? And if critics & NGOs are concerned about HUman Rights of ordinary Indian why do we not see them on the road protesting against the terrorist in J&K, against the stone pelters who attack the police? Why don't the critics & NGO's protest against the naxals in Uttarakhand, Maharashra & Andhra or the Pakistani government that is not just ignoring but sponsoring and protecting terrorist?

Some people protested the actions of Major Gogoi. What would you do Mr.Critic if you were the soldier were given duty to protect 15 poll officials and 200 civilians start to throw stones at you? Assuming you would sacrifice your life what about poll officials, would you let them die?  Major Gogoi had presense of mind. He could have opened fire but he chose not to fire as many civilians could have got killed. He chose to use a surprise element by putting the leader of stone pelters on his jeep so that people were taken by surprise and he got opportunity to save lives of polll officials and his men. Why should army not be proud of such officers who show presence of mind? This is a classic case study that should be used to train army on how to deal with a misled mob of your own country men. Mr Critic, while shouting and screaming you have avoided answering the question, what would you do if you were in Major Gogoi's shoes? Answer that and we can have a meaningful debate. If Major Gogoi was your son you would be proud of him, a soldier who chose not to use gun and yet saved lives. Salute to Major Gogoi and the army that imparts training to shape such smart soldiers. Entire world should be proud of Major Gogoi, Indian army and their respect for human life.
                                         I did not see any NGO protesting against Pakistan for the innocents killed in terror attacks by Pakistani terrorist with audio & video proof of handlers in Pakistan. Are these critics just stray dogs who can bark against their own people's interest but are afraid to raise voice against the REAL terror mongers of the world? Or is criticizing government and army become a new business to earn a living and feeding your family? It must be very shameful for their children to tell their friends that my father/mother earn their living by criticizing my motherland and defending terrorist who attack our country! I hope better sense prevails and these critics realize that in the world today, their existence & sleep is possible because of the forces that protect the country. It is in extreme bad taste  to criticize the people who are defending India and if you are so concerned then mobile people, form a government who ratifies your views and then decide the deployment of Indian army or would you rather prefer to live in Pakistan that is controlled by Pakistani army & cannot take a decision without approval of the army?

I salute the army boys ob vigil from 10 meter Mean Sea Level to 5000 meter Mean Sea Level because in them we trust like nobody else. Jai Hind!

What is Technical Architecture ? Understanding Technology Architecture (3) : Layers

We have seen that Technology Architecture (TA) provides the foundation for software applications. We can  There are 3 virtual layers of TA 
1) Application Architecture, 
2) Technical Architecture  &
3)  Infrastructure Architecture.   
A visualization of  a software system with its application & virtual layers is depicted in the following figure

The layering shown is important: because each layer builds upon the layers below it. 

The Applications, fit into the structure provided by the Application architecture & use Application Services'  (a.k.a Common Application Services, such as data access and session management services.   

The application architecture layer, in turn, leverages common technical services provided by the technical architecture (for example, data caching and authentication).  The Technology Architecture also defines how services are packaged into environments, to support development, execution, and operations of the system.  

All of the architecture layers, including the 'Environments' in which they run, reside on the platforms and technologies defined by the Infrastructure Architecture.

What is Technical Architecture? - Understanding Technology Architecture 2

Like a building requires an Architect to understand the requirements and then create the architecture plan before a civil  engineer constructs the building, the role of Technology Architect is critical for software development.

When a company decided to build a new software for its business requirements it appoints a software project manager to manage the software development.. The project manager follows a 5 step process of plan, analyze, design, build, test and deploy. A Technology Architect is a experienced software engineer with experience of executing multiple applications on multitude of technologies and is aware of the latest software technologies and standards.

A technology architect can be part of the project from the plan stage but his role really starts from the analyze phase of the project plan where he understand the Business Requirements and then defines the Technical Requirements for the project. The architect  addresses the architecture concerns and identifies the Development Environment, Execution Environment and Operations Environment for the project.  At this stage the architects interacts with the project managers and the business to further enhance & refine the requirements by asking relevant questions and validate the assumptions. His job at this stage is to ensure that all the stakeholders understand t& agree on the Technology Architecture requirements & assumptions.

Every software application should have defined service level agreements or SLA. The SLA's are crucial because they define