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September 30, 2003
Apache 2.X Ready for Prime Time?
As I set up my new server, I had thought to use Apache 2.X. I've been a long time Apache 1.3.X user, but figured as long as I was going to load up a bunch of software, I might as well get into the new millennium. I've set it up with the built-in SSL (here's an important mod_ssl hint for Linux) and WebDAV support and compiled in mod_perl. Everything works like a charm. I even set up cronolog to rotate the logs. I'v seen some warnings on the net about Apache 2.X not being ready for prime time, but they're over a year old. Anyone know what the consensus is now?
09:42 PM | Recommend This | Print This
eGovernment Interoperability Framework
Britain's GovTalk is analogous to the US Federal Enterprise Architecture PMO. They publish eGIF, the eGovernment Interoperability Framework. The document is a set of standards that agencies of the British government must comply with. The document comes in two parts. Part 1 is framework that contains high level policy statements, management, implementation and compliance requirements. Part 2 is the actual technical policies and specifications. There are five major categories:
- Interconnection - policies for connecting system together
- Data integration - XML standards
- Content management metadata - Metadata standards
- Access - What types of devices should be supported
- Business areas - business specific XML standards
To give you an idea of what it looks like, this is a few of the policy statements from section 4 on interoperability:
4.1.1 departments are to interconnect using IPv4 and plan for migration to IPv6 in due course. See notes on migration to IPv6 below
4.1.2 interfaces for e-mail systems are to conform to the SMTP/MIME for message
transport and POP3 for mailbox retrieval. Within government, the norm will be to use
the intrinsic security provided by the GSI to ensure e- mail confidentiality Outside the
GSI and other secure government networks, S/MIME V3 should be used for secure
messaging security unless security requirements dictate otherwise
Elsewhere in the section are tables that specify, for example, that HTTP will follow RFC 2616.
This kind of standards process is essential to eGovernment. Without it, there is no hope of cooperation. Perhaps the most important thing a public sector CIO can do is establish a governance process for creating standards that everyone can live with and pushing it forward to create usable standards.
When I left Utah government, we were pushing for more of a framework approach to standards. We published a IT Product Standards guide and a stardards review matrix as first steps. There hasn't been much standards work in Utah this year, at least as far as published standards are concerned.
The Zachman Framework has done most of the hard part of creating the framework. Organizations need to localize it to their individual needs. I like the matrix because it gives you a field of play, so to speak. I imagine that if you study it, you'll find two, three, five, or ten of these squares you think you have a pretty good handle on. That tells you where to concentrate you focus and gives you some context. One of the tough parts of enterprise architecture as defined by the federal EA project management office or the state CIOs at NASCIO is that there was so little context that people have a tough time finding a hand hold and figuring it out. There's lots of places in the Zachman framework to grab on and get started.
12:37 PM | Recommend This | Print This
Enterprise Architecture as Extreme Sport
Ray Lane has a post at Always-On called Are Web Services Really the Answer? He compares the current state of Web services with finding your way to Oakland:
The enterprise is very lost. It's as if you came to the Bay Area for the first time and wanted to get to Oakland. You're there at the airport and you stop to ask directions of ten different people, and they are all experts only on their own little locale. So they can tell you how to get anywhere in Atherton or Woodside, but all they know about Oakland is that it's somewhere to the east. What are you supposed to do with that?
Rays point is that what CIOs need is an answer to some very high level problems: how to make structural IT changes and save money and how to create flexibility to respond to changing business needs. Instead what they get is acronyms and partial solutions.
I believe that service oriented architectures and their implementation in Web services are a major step forward. Ray is right: there's still a lot of road left to travel before Web services are mature.
Still I have one major beef with what Ray says. Ray acts like its the IT industry's problem to solve and I don't believe that. I think it is each CIO's problem to solve. Web services provide a good tool, but they won't provide a complete solution or flexibility without an enterprise architecture. The roadmap that Ray's looking for, telling him how to get to Oakland, has to be created internally using the bits of local knowledge picked up from the natives.
You can't outsource this. The process of creating the roadmap is more important than the document itself. The countless meetings, the email flamewars, the hurt feelings, the coming together, the compromise are all part of what makes the enterprise architecture worthwhile when all is said and done. People like me can help you and advise you, but ultimately, this is the CIO's job. Its what makes being a CIO an extreme sport.