Design Paper 9

A Guide to Architecture and IT

Mike Bachrynowski (last revised June 2001)

Architecture means the science of building. We build software applications using the best software engineering practices applied to the deployment of the best software elements.

We view the software world as comprising two closely coupled interlinked areas.

1. Software for browsers and intelligent devices.
2. Software for servers and back office applications.

Communications at the right time and place is essential to the success of any architecture. Requirements will not only be met but will be exceeded if the design fully addresses all communications needs at every level.

Good design is helped by understanding as much as possible about the task to be solved in the widest sense. Software applications need to work in a wide variety of organisations each successful through their unique corporate cultures.

Organisations need to be flexible and responsive. The software used by organisations needs to enable flexibility and responsiveness. The introduction of new software in most cases challenges consensus and the status quo. Records of activities of customers (Internet visitor analysis) and of the people and systems that meet the needs of customers provide vital insights into what is really happening.

Software for browsers and intelligent devices

The implementation technologies are numerous and continue to evolve and extend. The following are the ones we believe are most widely supported.

Cross Platform Supported HTML HTML with JavaScript HTML with VBScript HTML with CSS HTML with CSS and JavaScript Java / Java Beans / Java RMI	Microsoft Supported ASP ASP with VBScript / JavaScript ASP with CSS ASP with CSS and VBScript / JavaScript DHTML XML with XSL (and JavaScript) and CSS Agents Chat Netmeeting Direct-X
Script Classes Browser sniffer Screen sniffer (640 x 480, 800 x 600, 1024 x 720) Navigation Validation / Confirmation Event handling / Timer Help and guidance Call back / Call centre	Browser Classes IE6, IE5, Opera - CSS v2 NN6, IE4 - CSS v1 NN4, IE3 WebTV - CSS v1 WAP / WML Interactive digital TV
Multi-Media Image - GIF Image - JPEG Video and audio - MPEG Image - PNG Image - SVG 3D - VRML 3D - Java ebooks	Proprietory Microsoft - Office Microsoft - Windows Media Player Adobe - PDF Macromedia - Flash, Shockwave Real - RealPlayer
Telephony WAP DoCoMo (nttdocomo.com) i-mode Bluetooth (wireless)	Smartcards personal records fast payment authentication remote control

Software for servers and the back office

These are some of the main elements that interact with the software used for browsers and intelligent devices.

Web Servers HTTP, FTP, SMTP, SNMP IIS / Index Apache Netscape Java Search	Security SSL SET MD5, OTPW Blowfish PGP
CGI Perl TCL /TK ASP / VB / Visual Studio JSP Java / Java Beans / Java RMI	Database ODBC JDBC ASP - DCOM - SQL

Research and the future

It is important to monitor research work as these give valuable insights into the way software will evolve. Of the current areas of research the following are a list of those which seem nearest in impacting the software products of today.

• Active learning agents
• Aesthetics
• Affective (emotions)
• Rational behaviour (expiry dates for offers and end dates for auctions)
• Search engines which link digital elements to particular times and places
• Useability
• Visualisation
• Wearable computers