Friday, April 24, 2009

What is a Dynamically Applied Integrated System?

So, have you Googled "Dynamically Applied Integrated Systems" yet (with quotes)?

Go ahead ... as of this posting there were no results.

For all I know it may just get one result not long after I post this (fingers crossed).

A Dynamically Applied Integrated System is not a very complex idea. The implementation of the concept provides a lot of benefits which, over the years, I have found core to my success as it relates to enterprise software solution delivery (both projects and product).

Really, it was one of those things I doodled on a napkin on a plane on my way to Arlington Texas back in 1997. This is not something I invented but rather my label for my own observation and reasoning that brought about my innovations and solutions. Call it my own trivial “Discourse on the Method” for what I think so I can be (big ups to Descartes).

So now let me get to it.

A Dynamically Applied Integrated System (DAIS) is defined as:

  1. Having at least 2 computer systems, applications and or services connected together through an interface (a.k.a. integrated).
  2. Each system having specific purpose that operates (having usefulness) without the other.
  3. When integrated together a new use for operation is realized without reducing the effective operation of any other node in the system.

What is important about this concept (and the useful purpose of this blog) is that interfacing of computer systems is often looked at as a boundary between people, organizations and responsibilities. Technically it is nothing more than another series of ones and zeros but sociologically it can build bridges or create divides. Often integration, connectors, interfaces, etc, are misunderstood and even are deemed competitive or a waste of resources and just die on the vine (if it even gets that far).

The idea of DAIS is fundamentally to use interfaces to transcend idiosyncrasies and promote common as well as separate success… Think of it as game theory for software developers and the way for our technical interactions & success.

If you think back to the beginning of this post now imagine if Google picks this blog up through it’s indexing process... then I have created a Dynamically Applied Integrated System… Google has a purpose…This blog has a purpose and the link between them (that results) has purpose too because it helps in my explanation of DAIS to you, the reader.

The purpose of this blog will focus more on software solutions in various industries and across technologies. I hope that others will post and share their views, experience, issues, ideas and questions about the software development lifecycle they have or see while bringing software together with others when requested/required (through standards or otherwise) to provide a new solution too.

Let me kick this off with the integration I collaborated on between Microsoft Office® and the USPS EPM® for Office 12 http://www.authentidate.com/index.php/content/view/75/632/. The end result created an interface for others to create an add-in within Microsoft Office 2007 http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa434020.aspx . This was not a net result but rather a goal.

Microsoft Office has a purpose, the USPS EPM has a purpose (long term non-repudiation http://www.uspsepm.com/) and the collaborated interface has a purpose that others have found useful for their own system, applications or services which each of them also having purpose http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/EY010504841033.aspx.

/*
Joe Stein
http://www.linkedin.com/in/charmalloc
*/