Architecture for the Smarter Planet

You are probably aware by now that IBM’s current ‘theme’ is the Smarter Planet.Their basic message is that organizations (both businesses and governments) should take advantage the fact that we live in a world that is,

• Instrumented – 30 billion RFID tags in supply chains
• Interconnected –Trillions of connected devices, and two billion people on the web
• Intelligent – 15 petabytes of new information created everyday

And to do something ‘smart’ with these resources.

This seems in part a reinvention of the ‘Pervasive Computing’ vision. I authored a lengthy report on this some time ago in 2002. I still don’t think we are fully there yet, but you can sense that we are another step closer to it becoming reality, and IBM provide some good real world examples via the link above.

Architecture Scope

Attending the IBM Rational Software Conference recently at which the smarter planet was the theme of the keynote, it prompted me to think about what sort of business and IT architecture was needed.

One thing that is clear is that architects need to think very carefully about scope in this scenario. You cannot take a narrow inward looking project or even enterprise-wide view when the smartness you seek comes from the interconnectivity and behavior of the ecosystem. My colleague David Sprott has coined the term Smart Ecosystem Architecture (SEA) in reference to this.

I believe the key thing here in relation to SEA vs EA (Enterprise Architecture) is for organizations to understand

• what activities are going to be performed by the ecosystem (or the other participants in it), and what activities they need to perform themselves.
• and consequently, what they have to do – e.g. in terms of service provision – to participate in the ecosystem, and hence what capabilities and resources they need to provide their services, and handle the events that require their response

It also seems critical to me to that it is necessary to understand which capabilities are core vs context, but from an ecosystem perspective. (I need to ponder on that further…)

Architecture Patterns

That addresses scope, but what about the architectural patterns that applies?
I am tempted to say it’s all about Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) – in that federated, interconnected ecosystems are inherently service-based. But smart behavior is in a large part about sensing events and responding to them, so we need to add Event Driven Architecture (EDA) into the mix.

Before long I recognized we need several other architectural patterns in support of the Smarter Planet. I started off trying to draw a layered architecture to support of this, but that seemed inappropriate, so for now I will try to sum it up in a simple textual list.
OK, so the architecture for the Smarter Planet involves

• trillions of connected objects and billions of people accessing petabytes of information via millions of solutions, based on an agile,
• Web 2.0 Architecture – enabling billions of people to mash up rapid, user and community driven solutions, in turn assembled from millions of services, and generating trillions of events,
• requiring Event Driven Architecture (EDA) to determine the autonomic response required to sensors and changes in state,
• that are also placed into context by Business Process Architecture (BPA/BPM) and Information Architecture (IA)
• supported by services in a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) that provides a formal basis for the decoupling of Provider and Consumers resource,
• as well as a Web Oriented, or Resource Oriented Architecture (WOA/ROA) as exchanging information between those trillions of devices in an efficient manner will likely be done in a more lightweight manner than full blown Web Service-based SOA
• with the implementations defined in a Component Based Software Architecture (CBSA) - with the focus on right-grained software enabling federated software delivery, that is running anywhere, anytime on a
• Cloud Based Architecture (CBA) that details the virtualized, federated infrastructure providing scalability, reliability. Which brings us back to SOA, as cloud computing is inherently service-based.

Anything I missed? My point is that architecting for the Smarter Planet is not about choosing one architectural pattern in preference to another – SOA or EDA or WOA or Web 2.0. One of those can't possibly address all the requirements. But rather how to use SOA+EDA+WOA+Web 2.0+xyz together, and understanding how they relate, not compete.

Enterprise Architects will argue these are all just components of EA, and to some extent that is correct. However, the scope now needs to be broadened to SEA.

What we need to avoid is any sense that things just got more complicated thanks to the Smarter Planet. With the application of sound architecture, it ought to get a whole lot simpler.

Some of CBDI Forum's Architecture mashups,

• Extending SOA with Web 2.0 (free access on registration)
• Web 2.0 and Enterprise Architecture (subscription required)
• Event Driven Service Architecture (subscription required)