SATURN 2013 Governance and Education Session (notes)

Notes by Ian De Silva

Software Development Improvement Program: Enabling Software Excellence at a Hardware Company
Sascha Stoeter, ABB

ABB has historically been a hardware company, but it has been slowly increasing the amount of software development it does since the 80s. It is a distributed company (in 34+ countries) with software embedded into products such as controllers. Each team has its own set of tools to support development efforts.

SATURN 2013 Architectural Evaluation Session (notes)

Notes by Brendan Foote

All Architecture Evaluation Is Not the Same: Lessons Learned from More Than 50 Architecture Evaluations in Industry
Matthias Naab, Jens Knodel, and Thorsten Keuler, Fraunhofer IESE

Matthias has evaluated many systems’ architecture, ranging from tens of thousands of lines of code to tens of millions, and primarily in Java, C++ and C#. From this he distills out commonalities in the various stages of the evaluations. To start with, the initiator of the evaluation was either the development company or an outside company, such as a current customer or a potential one. The questions being asked also varied—whether wondering if the architecture is adequate for one’s solutions, what the impact would be of changing the system’s paradigm, or how big a difference there was between a system and the reference architecture.

SATURN 2013 Web and Cloud Architecture Design Session (notes)

Notes by Frank M. Rischner

The Design Space of Modern HTML5/JavaScript Web Applications
Marcin Nowak and Cesare Pautasso, University of Lugano

Whenever we create a web application, we have to decide where the application runs, either on the server side or on the client side. When using HTML5, we push everything but the data to the client.

In the example scenario, the server is treated as the database, and the browser is seen as a terminal. There are several Model View interaction patterns: Model View Controller Pattern, Model View Presenter Pattern, and Model View ViewModel Pattern, which is the most flexible one of the patterns. Most recent movements apply the “Model View *” pattern, which leaves out the controller.

SATURN 2013 Method Tailoring and Extensibility Session (notes)

Notes by Brendan Foote

Design and Analysis of Cyber-Physical Systems: AADL and Avionics Systems
Julien Delange and Peter Feiler, SEI

Architectural decisions affect nonfunctional requirements, which are critical to the safety of systems. Rework costs increase the later a defect is detected in the software development life cycle. In Delange’s experience, a $10,000 architecture-phase correction can save $3 million! These errors can be caused by mismatched assumptions in embedded software. One anecdote is a train on which the doors wouldn’t close, so the conductor stepped outside to push them closed. But the system assumes the conductor is inside, so the train automatically took off. Dual core laptops also violated many assumptions that developers had made up to that time. To put it glibly, if we can’t get iTunes right on dual core machines, how are we supposed to make safe airplanes with even more complicated hardware?

SATURN 2013 Program Highlights from Conference Program Chairs

As program chairs for SATURN 2013, we would like to provide you an overview of the presentation program (note: information about keynotes by Stephan Murer, Scott Berkun, and Mary Poppendieck, the invited talk by Philippe Kruchten, and tutorial highlights is already available in other blog posts).

We received many high quality submissions covering the topics of front-end architecture, back-end architecture, methods and tools, and technical leadership. In total we got contributions from more than 40 companies and organizations across three continents.

On Wednesday morning you have the tough choice to decide between three great sessions. For example, Harald Wesenberg from Statoil speaks about architecting for the long term in Session 1. In Session 2, Chris Armstrong presents ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 in action, while Session 3 deals with agile practices at scale.

SATURN 2013 Super-Early-Bird Registration Expires March 10

If you are a practicing or aspiring software architect, the SEI Software Architecture Technology User Network (SATURN) 2013 Conference offers courses, presentations, tutorials, and talks providing technical advice and knowledge around four architectural themes:

• Front-end architectures: impact of living on the edge
• Back-end architectures and application hosting: go to the cloud or stay on the ground?
• Methods and tools: go with the flow or go your own way?
• Technical leadership: hard skills and soft skills

SATURN 2013 will be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 29 through May 3, 2013. Register for the SATURN software architecture conference before March 10 at  to save $300 off the regular registration fee.

SATURN will feature thought-provoking and inspiring keynote and invited talks from leaders in the fields of software architecture and software development:

• Stephan Murer, Credit Suisse: 15 Years of SOA at Credit Suisse: Lessons Learned and Remaining Challenges
• Scott Berkun, author and frequent contributor at publications including Harvard Business Review and Business Week: WordPress.com and the Future of Work
• Mary Poppendieck, author and expert on Lean development: Learning to Surf
• Philippe Kruchten, leader and innovator in the field of software architecture for 35 years: Games Architects Play: On Reasoning Fallacies, Cognitive Biases, and Politics

Discounted SEI Courses Offered at SATURN 2013

Attendees at SATURN 2013 will have the opportunity to take two popular two-day SEI training courses, Software Architecture Design and Analysis and Advanced Topics in Service-Oriented Architecture, at $500 off the regular course-registration fee. These two-day courses are offered on April 29 and 30, 2013.

Still Available to View: “Use of Architecture-Centric Engineering for Improving a Software System”

On Thursday, October 17 from 1:30 to 2:30 Eastern time, Felix H. Bachmann of the SEI presented a free SEI webinar, titled “Use of Architecture-Centric Engineering for Improving a Software System.”

This well-received and informative webinar is still available for viewing here.

SEI Blog: Reflections on 20 Years of Software Architecture (Linda Northrop)

One of the most compelling and engaging events at SATURN 2012 was a panel discussion on the theme of “Reflections on 20 Years of Software Architecture.” The session was moderated by Rick Kazman of the SEI, and panelists were Linda Northrop of the SEI, Doug Schmidt of Vanderbilt University, Ian Gorton of Pacific Northwest National Lab, Robert Schwanke of Siemens Corporate Research, and Jeromy Carriere of X.commerce/eBay.

Today we began a series of blog posts at the SEI blog that will provide lightly edited transcripts of the remarks of our distinguished panelists.

Read the first in the series, Reflections on 20 Years of Software Architecture: A Presentation by Linda Northrop.

SATURN 2013, Minneapolis MN April 29-May 3: Call for Submissions

In 2013, the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Architecture Technology User Network (SATURN) software architecture onference will celebrate its 9th year. Each year SATURN attracts an international audience of practicing software architects, industry thought leaders, developers, technical managers, and researchers to share ideas, insights, and experience about effective architecture-centric practices for developing and maintaining software-intensive systems.