Launched Vedcraft - A place for Software Architects!

The idea of Vedcraft came into existence a few years back while mentoring a programmer to be groomed as a software architect. In hindsight, when I was working as a senior software engineer, I wished to find a place to get connected with my mentor and share the practical knowledge of software design and software architecture. 

Vedcraft is an honest effort to help in grooming software programmers as software architects. In addition, seasoned architects can help groom aspiring architects and also collaborate, and share their knowledge.

Vedcraft has initially designed with the following focus areas in mind and will continuously evolve as it progresses.

• Architecture – with focus on sharing foundational elements of software architecture as a practice
• Learning Path – with focus on providing a clear path to be groomed as an architect
• Certifications – with focus on providing knowledge, learning, and experience on architecture certifications
• Tech Trends – with focus on sharing upcoming architecture trends and technologies
• Tech Events – with focus on providing information on key industry technology events and sharing learning from those events

 

 Please share your feedback and comments to ensure that this initiative becomes successful and looking forward to your support.

A glimpse of website launched:

 

 

 

5 Essential Tips on Getting Certified as AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (2020)

AWS has launched new version of AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA-C02) in March 2020 and based on my journey of getting certified, would like to share my experience to make you successful. Here are 5 key tips you can follow to make sure your journey also results in success:

• Tip#1 - Complete an online video course by either of these providers (even if you have hands-on AWS experience for 1-2 years, recommend to do the course as it covers broader spectrum of AWS capabilities/services):
• A Cloud Guru Course: https://acloud.guru/learn/aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate
• Stephane Maarek Course: https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate-saa-c02/
• Neal Davis Course: https://digitalcloud.training/aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate-hands-on-course-saa-c02/
• Tip#2 -Prepare a Cheat Sheet for revision and key reminders:
• Refer to cheat sheet by Neal Davis: https://digitalcloud.training/aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate-hands-on-course-saa-c02/
• Though there are many, recommendation is to prepare your own cheat sheet because in my opinion it is very personalized. For examples, based on your interest and what you remember, you might be good in S3 & VPC, but may need more revision of Autoscaling and hence your cheatsheet will have more focus on Autoscaling.
• Key recommendation: In your cheatsheet, keep screenshot of AWS Services, which you are not comfortable with to keep it as a reminder.
  
• Tip#3 - Practice Exam multiple times:
• Refer to Whizlabs AWS Practice Exams or Neal Davis's Practice Exams
• Whizlabs:https://www.whizlabs.com/aws-solutions-architect-associate/
• Digital Cloud: https://digitalcloud.training/aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate-practice-tests-saa-c02/
• Note that practice exams will only prepare you to develop the mindset of how AWS will ask questions - don't think that these will be exact set of questions.
• Tip#4 - Refer to AWS FAQ, User Guide & White Papers:
• You might get overwhelmed by this but here is my recommendation for FAQ:
• Must Read: EC2, Autoscaling, ELB, EBS, EFS, S3, VPC, Cloudfront,  IAM, RDS (specifically Aurora), SQS, SNS, ECS, DynamoDB, Lambda, CloudWatch
  
• Nice to Read: Elastic Beanstalk, Route 53, API Gateway, Elasticache, Redshift, CloudHSM, Kinesis, WAF, Athena, CloudFormation, EKS, Cognito, AWS Directory Service, CloudTrail
  
• Refer to AWS product home pages if you are not able to go through all FAQs. For example, Kinesis Home Page lists all use-cases, key design patterns (of using data streams, difference between Firehose & Data Stream, etc.)
• Refer to User Guide of following services (core of the exam) - if a particular area is not clear to you:
• Auto Scaling, EBS, EC2, VPC, S3, SQS, RDS
  
• Finally, Tip#5 - Practice, Practice, Practice...
• Nothing can beat practicing & using AWS services even if you are experienced as you don't touch all required services on day-to-day basis.
• Use AWS Free-tier as much as possible or use AWS self-paced labs.
• A trick I used, if certain services you don't want to pay for, is to go through all steps of launching the services but don't submit the final review form.
  

Key success path for any certification is to put a target date (1-2 months of preparation) and focus on a daily basis to make consistent progress. Don't over-prepare and don't procrastinate as well.

Best of Luck!!

Disclaimer:
All data and information provided on this site is for informational purposes only. This site makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, correctness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis.This is a personal weblog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer or any other organization.

Using Enterprise Architecture Framework (TOGAF) in an Agile Way

Ensuring your organization follows best practices, frameworks, tools & deliverables recommended by an Enterprise Architecture framework like TOGAF is a daunting task. Often, we start with high-energy and commitment but the journey to get it in practice in your organization is not an easy path.

A pragmatic & progressive way towards building an enterprise architecture capability is similar to Agile methodology where we build the product incrementally. Considering a similar mindset, we can incrementally build enterprise capability and every cycle of TOGAF ADM helps towards achieving the same.

Key idea is to identify the top 3 deliverables or artifacts relevant to your organization and also use TOGAF framework in conjunction with the Agile framework in practice. 

Here is an example of going through various phases of TOGAF and brainstorm on identifying Top 3 Deliverables as an output of the first cycle across various phases.  

In conclusion, starting small and build on top of it is key to the success of getting enterprise architecture practice gets established in your organization.

Reference:  
https://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf9-doc/arch/

3 Key Metrics for Measuring Software Quality

As a software architect, software quality is always on top of the priority and we are measured by the quality we deliver. While we have many tools to measure & control software quality, but before the how part, the first step is to figure out what to measure for quality?

In my experience and expertise, there are three dimensions of quality as part of delivering product/software:

1. Build Quality: Code quality meeting functional & non-functional requirements
2. Delivery Quality: Delivering Code does not always help; business/executive team likes to measure success in terms of cost, time & quality
3. Functional Quality: To ensure code propagated to production meets all testing nuances

For each of the dimensions, having a defined "Quality Index" based on metrics applicable for your organization or product helps to build and deliver a better quality product.

Once the metrics have been defined, automating capturing/measuring these metrics, monitoring regularly and acting based on the information to improve iteratively helps to improve progressively.

Based on above, Software Quality Index needs to be defined, measured and baselined for each product:

To conclude, strategy to define software quality is usually tailored for each organization & does not need to be an afterthought.