Ian Loe

How to start Enterprise Architecture

01 September 2024 Filed in: Architecture

terprise Architecture has always had a rocky existence in Asia (more so than any other region). While most people I spoke to acknowledge some need for it, it is usually the 1st group to be cut when the economy doesn’t go so well.

When I look back at my experiences, I think it is because many “Architects” have evolved from engineers and solution designers and have some trouble making the leap to “architecture”.

Therefore I decided to see how I can help in my own way. There are many books on modelling techniques, framework implementation and even certification guides, so i shall not duplicate those information. I decided to go back to basics and write about an overview of EA, how it got to where it is, cover some important frameworks, and most importantly what are the areas of architecture that make up a complete EA view and help folks starting out building up EA teams to understand the various perspective of EA.

I also cover some important concepts on architectural thinking (moving from engineering to architecture ) and how to get started on architecture documentation, which I find pretty lacking these days.

So, if you know anyone looking to understand the structure of EA, the basic concepts and how to document architecture decisions, do point them to my latest book.

Link to my book on Amazon here.

Argument for Certification and Licensing of IT Architects and Engineers

14 August 2024 written by: Ian Loe

In an era where technology underpins nearly every aspect of modern life, the role of IT architects and engineers has become increasingly critical. These professionals design, implement, and maintain the complex systems that power our businesses, governments, healthcare, and personal lives. Given the profound impact of their work, I believe it is time that IT architects and engineers are certified and licensed.

Building architects and engineers have long been required to hold licenses to practice their craft due to the critical importance of ensuring structural safety. The collapse of any building or infrastructure can have catastrophic impacts on public safety, making it essential that only qualified and licensed professionals are entrusted with these responsibilities.

Today, the same can be said for IT systems that affect lifes (hospitals, airports, utilities management systems, etc). I think the industry needs to start thinking about qualifications of IT professionals designing and implementing such critical IT infrastructures.

Here are several compelling reasons why certification and licensing should be a standard requirement in the IT profession:

1. Ensuring Competence and Professionalism: Certification and licensing serve as formal recognition of an individual’s knowledge, skills, and competence in their field. By requiring IT architects and engineers to undergo rigorous examinations and continuous education, certification ensures that they possess the necessary expertise to perform their duties effectively. This process helps maintain high standards of professionalism and ensures that individuals are up-to-date with the latest technological advancements and best practices.

2. Enhancing Security and Risk Management: The systems designed and maintained by IT professionals are often critical to the functioning of organisations and society at large. A single error or oversight can lead to significant security breaches, data loss, or system failures. Certified and licensed IT professionals are more likely to be aware of and adhere to stringent security protocols and risk management practices. This reduces the likelihood of costly and potentially catastrophic incidents.

3. Promoting Accountability and Ethical Standards: Licensing IT architects and engineers can help establish a framework of accountability. Licensed professionals are bound by a code of ethics and professional conduct, which promotes integrity, responsibility, and ethical behaviour. This accountability ensures that IT professionals prioritize the public good and the interests of their clients, fostering trust and confidence in their work.

4. Standardising Skills and Knowledge Across the Industry: Certification and licensing create a standardised benchmark for skills and knowledge within the IT industry. This standardisation benefits employers, clients, and the professionals themselves. Employers can be confident that certified and licensed individuals meet a consistent level of expertise, reducing the risk associated with hiring and project execution. For IT professionals, certification and licensing can facilitate career mobility and recognition across different regions and industries.

5. Addressing the Increasing Complexity of IT Systems: As technology continues to evolve rapidly, the complexity of IT systems grows accordingly. IT architects and engineers must navigate a constantly changing landscape of technologies, frameworks, and methodologies. Certification programs ensure that professionals are continually updating their knowledge and skills, enabling them to effectively manage the complexity and drive innovation within their organisations.

6. Improving Quality and Efficiency of IT Projects: Certified and licensed IT professionals are more likely to follow industry standards and best practices, leading to higher quality and more efficient project outcomes. By ensuring that IT architects and engineers are well-trained and competent, organisations can reduce project delays, cost overruns, and failures, resulting in more successful IT initiatives and better return on investment.

7. Protecting Public Safety and Welfare: In many sectors, IT systems directly impact public safety and welfare. For example, healthcare systems, transportation networks, and critical infrastructure all rely heavily on sophisticated IT solutions. The certification and licensing of IT professionals in these areas ensure that only qualified individuals are entrusted with the responsibility of designing and maintaining these crucial systems, thereby protecting public safety and welfare.

The certification and licensing of IT architects and engineers are not just beneficial but essential in today’s technology-driven world. These measures ensure that IT professionals are competent, ethical, and accountable, thereby enhancing the overall quality, security, and reliability of IT systems. As technology continues to advance and integrate further into all aspects of society, the importance of certification and licensing will only grow, ultimately safeguarding the interests of businesses, governments, and the public.

DataOps Revolution: Transforming Data Management

07 January 2024

DataOps, a portmanteau of "data" and "operations," is a set of practices, principles, and tools aimed at streamlining and automating data operations, ensuring the rapid and efficient delivery of high-quality data to end-users. It draws inspiration from DevOps, which emphasises collaboration between development and IT operations to accelerate software delivery and improve its quality. DataOps extends this collaboration concept to data-related processes. It involves cross-functional teams of data engineers, data scientists, data analysts, and other stakeholders working together to enhance data pipelines, reduce latency, and ensure data reliability.

As I am building up my data engineering team, I am adopting many of the things I have learned from building DevSecOps teams. Learning from application development and support, what matters these days are "Speed and Agility". With DataOps, just like DevsecOps, I can build or change data pipelines to respond quickly to changing business needs and market demands. By automating data pipelines and reducing manual interventions, data can flow seamlessly from source to destination, allowing for faster decision-making.

Unique to data, is the concept of "Data Quality". High-quality data is crucial for accurate analytics and business insights. DataOps practices can ensure that data is cleansed, transformed, and validated before it reaches its intended destination, this is not unlike automated code testing in DevSecOps structures.

Next we have "Collaboration". DataOps fosters collaboration between different teams within an organisation. Cross-functional teams can work together to define data requirements, build data pipelines, and address data-related issues promptly. This is probably harder than DevSecOps team as many users of data are not familiar with the IT world and would need a lot of help to onboard into the DataOps teams.

Lastly, we have the concept of "Risk Mitigation". By automating data operations and implementing robust testing and monitoring processes, DataOps helps mitigate the risk of data breaches, errors, and downtime. Prior to the implementation of DataOps, these functions were very ad-hoc in nature and can cause significant delays in decision making.

To successfully implement a DataOps team, there were a few learnings:

Collaboration: Foster collaboration between different teams involved in data operations, breaking down silos and promoting knowledge sharing.
Automation: Automate repetitive tasks, such as data ingestion, transformation, and testing, to reduce manual intervention and increase efficiency.
Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD): Apply CI/CD principles to data pipelines, allowing for continuous integration of new data sources and continuous delivery of high-quality data.
Version Control: Implement version control for data artefacts and pipelines to track changes and enable rollbacks when needed.
Monitoring and Feedback: Establish robust monitoring and alerting systems to proactively identify and address issues in data pipelines.
Data Governance: Define and enforce data governance policies to ensure data accuracy, security, and compliance with regulations.

The hardest part was putting together a robust Data governance structure and framework. Many organisation are not mature in this area and it would take time to identify the right resources, educate the teams, and enforce the discipline needed to govern the data lifecycle.

DataOps represents a transformative approach to data management, aligning data operations with the principles of speed, quality, collaboration, and automation. As organisations continue to grapple with the challenges of managing and leveraging their data effectively, embracing DataOps can be a game-changer. By streamlining data operations and fostering collaboration among diverse teams, DataOps paves the way for data-driven decision-making, enabling businesses to stay agile and competitive in today's data-driven world.

Assume Breach Mindset

04 January 2024

There is a lot to learn from history. Cyber warfare in many ways reflect old fashion physical warfare, so one of the things I tend to look at is how we can learn from previous generations in this aspect. In this post, I took a look at the evolution of naval warships and how they have evolved over the years and got to today's modern design.

Instead of writing a long text, I made a video to show some of these points and how ships today are built with an "assume breach" mindset and some of the lessons learnt in the implementation.

Systems Thinking

04 January 2024

In today's world, we are getting more and more connected and thus many things in our life are made up of complex systems. When we look at how complex these systems of systems are, we can easily see that the way we have been taught to "isolate" problems and work on it, sometimes can have outcomes we did not want.

I have been actively teaching system thinking classes and I wonder why this is not more widespread in our education systems. Simple tools like the causal loop diagramming technique and the iceberg models are great toools to equip everyone with. We need to educate more people to look beyond the obvious and go deep when troubleshooting problems. I have added a short video i made on the iceberg model which I find simple and easy to adopt.

Quantum Computing

09 March 2023

Since 2018, I have been creating classes on Quantum Computing. Started out with basic IBM Q Composer workshop (drag and drop gates visually) to the current 2-day class I conduct with Dr Lua Ruiping (my partner in crime :D ). The can person class has a lot of labs and examples we build using Qiskit on IBM Q and explores various aspect of quantum computing application like codify Shor's algorithm to crack encryptions using factors of 2 prime numbers (e.g. RSA).

Today I decided to see if I can make the class into short videos and here is chapter 1 in the new series: