Web vs Mobile Apps

Microsoft, Apple and Google first shared the digital marketplace in 1998.  Since that year,their history has featured one battle after another for dominance and the top position in specific market segments, notably search engines, digital music, smartphones and tablets.

In 1998, Microsoft had the upper hand in the software market. This was due to founder Bill Gates’s specialized technical skills and personality. Apple founder Steve Jobs focused on users’ experience with his organization’s devices. Jobs was aiming to produce the best machines in a limited number of categories rather than emulating Microsoft’s wide reach. Google, which famously derives its name from misspelling a math term denoting an enormous sum, began when founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin explored the need for a search engine that would help users categorize and navigate the growing number of Internet resources.

Next war/revolution will be "Handheld" smartphone - designed to “act like a handheld computer.”  Attached is the industry data on web vs mobile applications development during 2010-2011. It clearly indicates the growth rate on mobile apps than web.

EnterpriseArchitecture

Enterprise is any collection of organizations that has a common set of goals.  The purpose of enterprise architecture is to optimize across the enterprise the often fragmented legacy of processes into an integrated environment that is responsive to change and supportive of the delivery of the business strategy.

In simple terms, an enterprise architecture addresses this need, by providing a strategic context for the evolution of the IT system in response to the constantly changing needs of the business environment.

If you have a good enterprise architecture, it can bring important business benefits as listed below:

• More efficient IT operation
• Better return on existing investment, reduced risk for future investment.
• Faster, simpler and cheaper procurement.

An architecture framework is a tool that can be used for developing a broad range of architectures.  It contains a list of recommended standards and compliant products that can be used to implement the building blocks of the firm's architecture.

As per Simon Townson, the benefits of enterprise architecture derive from the better planning, earlier visibility, and an more informed designs that result when it is introduced

Open Group

I'm back.  Yeps, held up in few personal commitments and disturbances. Thanks for queries from some followers to motivate for quick return. As inked last time, our focus will shift towards Architecture.


ISO/IEC 42010:2007 defines “architecture” as: “The fundamental organization of a system, embodied in its components, their relationships to each other and the environment, and the principles governing its design and
evolution.”

The Open Group is a vendor-neutral and technology-neutral consortium, whose vision of Boundaryless Information Flow will enable access to integrated information within and between enterprises based on open standards and global interoperability. The Open Group works with customers, suppliers, consortia, and other standards bodies. Its role is to capture, understand, and address current and emerging requirements, establish policies, and share best practices; to facilitate interoperability, develop consensus, and evolve and integrate specifications and Open Source technologies; to offer a comprehensive set of services to enhance the operational efficiency of consortia; and to operate the industry’s premier certification service.

The Open Group has over 15 years experience in developing and operating certification programs and has extensive experience developing and facilitating industry adoption of test suites used to validate conformance to an open standard or specification.

TOGAF is developed and maintained by The Open Group Architecture Forum. The first version of TOGAF, developed in 1995, was based on the US Department of Defense Technical Architecture Framework for Information Management (TAFIM). Starting from this sound foundation, The Open Group Architecture Forum has developed successive versions of TOGAF at regular intervals and published each one on.


 The Open Group public web site at www.opengroup.org.

IIS7 WinAuthentication

Some times ago, we developed a thick client application with windows login authentication.It was successfully running under IIS6 without any special treatment. On migrating this existing application from IIS6 to IIS7, Windows authentication was not working at all. Theroot cause is that IIS 7 misses the Windows Authentication provider on Windows Server 2008.

Windows authentication (formerly named NTLM, and also referred to as Windows NT Challenge/Response authentication) is a secure form of authentication because the user name and password are hashed before being sent across the network. When you enable Windows authentication, the client browser sends a strongly hashed version of the password in a cryptographic exchange with your Web server.

Windows authentication supports two authentication protocols, Kerberos and NTLM, which are defined in the element. When you install and enable Windows authentication on IIS 7, the default protocol is Kerberos. The element can also contain a useKernelMode attribute that configures whether to use the kernel mode authentication feature that is new to Windows Server 2008.

In general Windows authentication, which includes both NTLM and Kerberos v5 authentication, is best suited for an intranet environment.The default authentication configuration for IIS 7 enables Anonymous authentication only.

To install the missing Windows Authentication, you need to Open up Server Manager (one way to do this is by right clicking the computer node from within the start menu and choosing Manage). Expend the Roles node. Right click the Web Server (IIS) and choose Add Role Services. You will get the attached wizard, just scroll down a bit and check Windows Authentication under the security node. If you've done everything right, you should get the Windows option in IIS authentication panel.

Hat-trick hits

A hat-trick or hat trick in sport is the achievement of a positive feat three times during a game, or other achievements based on threes. The term was first used in 1858 in cricket to describe HH Stephenson's feat of taking three wickets in three balls.

Month of March 2012 is suitable for number '3' in my life.

Here are few interesting professional facts:

• Blogged the first 3 technical hits in IIS 7 for last 3 weeks, based on work experience
• Earned 3rd position for the first time in CodeProject's Top Experts this month
• Chief Guest for the national conferences 3 in a row in this month
• Positioned 3rd in CodeProject Top Expert in last 24hrs
• 3rd year, since the loss of dream team 'RUFUS'

On the lighter side, March is 3rd month of the year and Today popular 3 movie (kolai veri) release. Interesting magic number '3'.

Fun apart, will be back with the technical contents to clarify the black box of 'Architecture', as the foot steps of industry legends like Martin Fowler.

Third Hit IIS7

Here is the hat trick (3rd hit) problem on upgrading the internal/tool application from IIS 6 to IIS 7 version. In the classic ASP pool, when we run the ASP page, IIS 7 throws the below error:

Error 500 :There is a problem with the resource you are looking for, and it cannot be displayed.

It made me to try a lot of permutation as the error in the tool code. However, it doesn’t tell me the line number the error was found on. After searching the web, it has been found out how to turn on the more detailed error reporting for classic ASP in IIS 7; but you have to do it on the webserver.

We need to turn the below changes in the web.config file. I know this can be turn on for ASP.NET in the web.config file but as far as I know, not classic asp.

configuration
  system.webserver
    httperrors errormode="Detailed"
    asp scripterrorsenttobrowser="true"
  system.webserver
configuration

Hat trick wickets on opening spell of IIS 7. At the same time, itz happy learning!

SecondHit in IIS7

As the continuation of first hit IIS 7 experience, learnt another interesting lesson on second hit of IIS 7.0

After the successful fix of the first issue (as mentioned in last blog), started browsing my service. Another hit! This time, got the error as:

Could not load file or assembly 'XXXXX' or one of its dependencies. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format

Guess what! The error is due to the upgrade in development environment from 32-bit to 64 bit system. On opening the particular project, it has been discovered that the project configured to target x 86 platforms. As the application is running on 64-bit platform, it will have such ‘incorrect format’ error.

To fix it, perform the below steps:

· open project properties window.
· select Build tab
· Change it to ‘Any CPU’
· Save your changes.
· Compile your project and run :)

Another tip. Let us say you have a VS project that has the build configuration set to Any CPU but still getting the same error for an assembly. In that case, please make sure you have did so for all dependencies your website uses. You can also enable 32-bit mode on IIS and adjust your website and its dependencies to target x86 platform. Interesting technology hits on migrating to IIS 7.0