Integration Key to Customer Experience - Common Architectural Elements

Part 2 - Common architectural elements.

In my previous article from this series we introduced a use case around integration being the key to transforming your customer experience.

The process was laid out how I've approached the use case and how I've used successful customer portfolio solutions as the basis for researching a generic architecture. The only thing left to cover was the order in which you'll be led through the architectural details.

This article starts the real journey at the very top, with a generic architecture from which we'll discuss the common architectural elements one by one.

AppDev in Cloud - How to put Red Hat Decision Manager in your Cloud

Red Hat Decision Manager easy installation on
OpenShift Container Platform

It's been some time since I last talked with you about business logic engines and using them in your application development cloud architecture.

At that time, I showcased running JBoss BRMS in a container on OpenShift Container Platform (OCP). This gives you the cloud experience, one that's portable across private and public clouds, but on your own local laptop.


The world continues to move forward, releasing new products that replaced JBoss BRMS with the Red Hat Decision Manager, so now I want to provide a way for you to install this on OCP, in the same easy to use demo format.

Cloud Happiness - How to install OpenShift Container Platform with new images and templates in just minutes

Get OpenShift Container Platform v3.9!

Since the release of the OpenShift Container Platform  it has been my desire to provide a simple, fully configured and easy to use installation.

This installation needs to have the Red Hat Middleware product streams installed (pre-configured container options) and all the extras like source to image and .Net Core containers.

Previously I showed you how to install your own personal container platform in just minutes on your laptop, machine or where ever you might like if you have the time and inclination.

What's new in this article is that the new products Red Hat Decision Manager and Red Hat Process Automation Manager have been added. You can now leverage their respective image stream and templates to kick start your business rules and process automation needs.

Integration Key to Customer Experience - An Introduction

Part 1 - An introduction

For the past few months I've been digging in to my new role with a group of Portfolio Architects, looking specifically at integration as the key to omnichannel customer experience.

It's an interesting challenge in that we've been given the mission of creating of architectural content based on common customer adoption patterns. That's very different from most of the traditional marketing activities usually associated with generating content for the sole purpose of positioning products for solutions. When you're basing the content on actual execution in solution delivery, you're cutting out the chuff. 

What's that mean?

It means that it's going to provide you with a way to implement a solution using open source technologies by focusing on the integrations, structures and interactions that actually have been proven to work.

What's not included are any vendor promises that you'll find in normal marketing content. Those promised that when it gets down to implementation crunch time, might not fully deliver on their promises.

Enter the term Portfolio Architecture. 

Let's look at these architectures, how they're created and what value they provide for your solution designs.

Codemotion Amsterdam - Sharing pitfalls everyone should avoid

One of the really interesting and global conference is Codemotion. I've been lucky enough to speak at three different version in Europe.

This year, together with Roel Hodzelmans, we're targeting the Amsterdam conference and going all in with three of our sessions around the popular '3 Pitfalls' series.

First, the popular session revealing the 3 pitfalls everyone should avoid with hybrid multicloud. Second, we dig deeper based on popular demand to provide you with 3 more pitfalls everyone should avoid with hybrid multicloud. Finally, we are expanding the scope to dive into 3 pitfalls everyone should avoid with microservices.

All three bring real life customer experience from our daily interactions and share these in the interest of collaboration and learning. Check out the abstracts for all three talks below.

All Things Open 2018 - Lightning Talk on How To Jump Start a Career in Open Source (slides)

This week I was in Raleigh, North Carolina from Oct 21-23 speaking at All Things Open.

I gave a lightning talk on how to jump start a career in open source, in just 6 minutes.

The topic is near and dear to my heart, so as a lightning talk it was fun to promote the full session I gave earlier this Summer in one of the most amazing venues I've ever spoken at.

The talk includes links to the recording of that venue and the complete story I told. The only thing missing are the slides, which you'll find here.

All Things Open 2018 - 10 Steps to AppDev in the Cloud Happiness (slides)

This week I've been in Raleigh, North Carolina presenting a session at All Things Open 2018.

It's a hands-on kinda of mini-workshop that was put into session format so that I'd be able to walk you through the process of getting started on cloud application development.

It's not just getting container development working, but getting you started with meaningful enterprise components such as process automation, business logic and integration topics.

Here are the slides from this session with all the links to the material I presented live on stage.

All Things Open 2018 - Lightning talk

Next week I'll be in Raleigh, North Carolina from Oct 21-23 speaking at All Things Open.

I mentioned my session was accepted, but just last week the organizers reached out to ask if I'd be interested in giving a lighting talk.

That's a short five minute slot to rapidly brief the crowd on a topic before the next speaker is brought on behind you.

I thought it would be a bit of fun to participate and gladly accepted.

The following topic is near and dear to my heart, so as a lightning talk it'll be fun to try to hook the audience into more by following up on the information presented.