Richard Veryard

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Richard Veryard FRSA (born 1955) is a British computer scientist, author and business consultant, known for his work on service-oriented architecture and the service-based business. [1]

Contents

Biography

Veryard attended Sevenoaks School from 1966 to 1972, where he attended classes by Gerd Sommerhoff. He received his MA Mathematics and Philosophy from Merton College, Oxford, in 1976, and his MSc Computing Science at the Imperial College London in 1977. Later he also received his MBA from the Open University in 1992. [2]

Veryard started his career in industry working for Data Logic Limited, Middlesex, UK, where he first developed and taught public data analysis courses. After years of practical experience in this field, he wrote his first book about this topic in 1984. In 1987 he became an IT consultant with James Martin Associates (JMA), specializing in the practical problems of planning and implementing information systems. After the European operation of JMA were acquired by the Texas Instruments, he became a Principal Consultant in the Software Business and a member of Group Technical Staff. At Texas Instruments he was one of the developers of IE\Q, a proprietary methodology for software quality management. [3] Since 1997 he is freelance consultant under the flag of Veryard Projects Ltd. Since 2006 he is a principal consultant at CBDi, a research forum for service-oriented architecture and engineering. [2]

Veryard has taught courses at City University, Brunel University and the Copenhagen Business School, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in London. [2]

Work

Pragmatic data analysis, 1984

In "Pragmatic data analysis" (1984) Veryard presented data analysis as a branch of systems analysis, which shared the same principles. His position on data modelling would appear to be implicit in the term data analysis. [4] He presented two philosophical attitudes towards data modeling, which he called "semantic relativism and semantic absolutism. According to the absolutist way of thinking, there is only one correct or ideal way of modeling anything: each object in the real world must be represented by a particular construct. Semantic relativism, on the other hand, believe that most things in the real world can be modeled in many different ways, using basic constructs". [5] [6]

Veryard further examined the problem of the discovery of classes and objects. This may proceed from a number of different models, that capture the requirements of the problem domain. Abbott (1983) proposed that each search starts from a textual description of the problem. Ward (1989) and Seidewitz and Stark (1986) suggested starting from the products of structured analysis, namely data flow diagrams. Veryard examined the same problem from the perspective of data modeling. [7]

Veryard made the point, that the modeler has some choice in whether to use an entity, relationship or attribute to represent a given universe of discourse (UoD) concept. [8] This justifies a common position, that "data models of the same UoD may differ, but the differences are the result of shortcomings in the data modeling language. The argument is that data modeling is essentially descriptive, but that current data modeling languages allow some choice in how the description is documented." [8]

Economics of Information Systems and Software, 1991

In the 1991 book "The Economics of Information Systems and Software", edited by Veryard, experts from various areas, including business administration, project management, software engineering and economics, contribute their expertise concerning the economics of systems software, including evaluation of benefits, types of information and project costs and management. [9]

Information Coordination, 1993

In the 1993 book "Information Coordination: The Management of Information Models, Systems, and Organizations" Veryard gives a snapshot of the state of the art around these subjects. "Maximizing the value of corporate data depends upon being able to manage information models both within and between businesses. A centralized information model is not appropriate for many organizations," Veryard explains. [10]

His book "takes the approach that multiple information models exist and the differences and links between them have to be managed. Coordination is currently an area of both intensive theoretical speculation and of practical research and development. Information Coordination explains practical guidelines for information management, both from on-going research and from recent field experience with CASE tools and methods". [10] [11]

Enterprise Modelling Methodology

In the 1990s Veryard worked together in an Enterprise Computing Project and developed a version of Business Relationship Modelling specifically for Open Distributed Processing, under the name Enterprise Modelling Methodology/Open Distributed Processing (EMM/ODP). [12] [13] EMM/ODP proposed some new techniques and method extensions for enterprise modelling for distributed systems.

Component-based business

In 2001 Veryard introduced the concept of "component-based business". Component-based business relates to new business architectures, in which "an enterprise is configured as a dynamic network of components providing business services to one another". [14] In the new millennium there has been "a phenomenal growth in this kind of new autonomous business services, fuelled largely by the internet and e-business". [14]

The concept of "component-Based Business constitutes a radical challenge to traditional notions of strategy, planning, requirements, quality and change, and tries to help you improve how you think through the practical difficulties and opportunities of the component-based business". This applied to both hardware and software, and to business relationships. [14]

Veryard's subsequent work on organic planning for SOA has been referenced by a number of authors. [15]

Six Viewpoints of Business Architecture, 2013

In "Six Viewpoints of Business Architecture" Veryard describes business architecture as "a practice (or collection of practices) associated with business performance, strategy and structure." [16]

And furthermore about the main task of the business architect:

The business architect is expected to take responsibility for some set of stakeholder concerns, in collaboration with a number of related business and architectural roles, including

• business strategy planning, business change management, business analysis, etc.
• business operations, business excellence, etc.
• enterprise architecture, solution architecture, data/process architecture, systems architecture, etc.

Conventional accounts of business architecture are often framed within a particular agenda - especially an IT-driven agenda. Many enterprise architecture frameworks follow this agenda, and this affects how they describe business architecture and its relationship with other architectures (such as IT systems architecture). Indeed, business architecture is often seen as little more than a precursor to system architecture - an attempt to derive systems requirements. [16]

Publications

Articles, papers, book chapters, etc., a selection: [17]

Related Research Articles

Data model Model that organizes elements of data and how they relate to one another and to real-world entities.

A data model is an abstract model that organizes elements of data and standardizes how they relate to one another and to the properties of real-world entities. For instance, a data model may specify that the data element representing a car be composed of a number of other elements which, in turn, represent the color and size of the car and define its owner.

A modeling language is any artificial language that can be used to express information or knowledge or systems in a structure that is defined by a consistent set of rules. The rules are used for interpretation of the meaning of components in the structure.

In software engineering, service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an architectural style that focuses on discrete services instead of a monolithic design. By consequence, it is as well applied in the field of software design where services are provided to the other components by application components, through a communication protocol over a network. A service is a discrete unit of functionality that can be accessed remotely and acted upon and updated independently, such as retrieving a credit card statement online. SOA is also intended to be independent of vendors, products and technologies.

Data modeling Creating a model of the data in a system

Data modeling in software engineering is the process of creating a data model for an information system by applying certain formal techniques.

Enterprise service bus Communication system in a service-oriented architecture

An enterprise service bus (ESB) implements a communication system between mutually interacting software applications in a service-oriented architecture (SOA). It represents a software architecture for distributed computing, and is a special variant of the more general client-server model, wherein any application may behave as server or client. ESB promotes agility and flexibility with regard to high-level protocol communication between applications. Its primary use is in enterprise application integration (EAI) of heterogeneous and complex service landscapes.

Business process modeling Activity of representing processes of an enterprise

Business process modeling (BPM) in business process management and systems engineering is the activity of representing processes of an enterprise, so that the current business processes may be analyzed, improved, and automated. BPM is typically performed by business analysts, who provide expertise in the modeling discipline; by subject matter experts, who have specialized knowledge of the processes being modeled; or more commonly by a team comprising both. Alternatively, the process model can be derived directly from events' logs using process mining tools.

Enterprise architecture (EA) is an analytical discipline that provides methods to comprehensively define, organize, standardize, and document an organization’s structure and interrelationships in terms of certain critical business domains characterizing the entity under analysis. The goal of EA is to create an effective representation of the business enterprise that may be used at all levels of stewardship to guide, optimize, and transform the business as it responds to real-world conditions. EA serves to capture the relationships and interactions between domain elements as described by their processes, functions, applications, events, data, and employed technologies.

The Open Group Architecture Framework Reference model for enterprise architecture

The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) is the most used framework for enterprise architecture as of 2020 that provides an approach for designing, planning, implementing, and governing an enterprise information technology architecture. TOGAF is a high-level approach to design. It is typically modeled at four levels: Business, Application, Data, and Technology. It relies heavily on modularization, standardization, and already existing, proven technologies and products.

Component-based software engineering Branch of software engineering

Component-based software engineering (CBSE), also called component-based development (CBD), is a branch of software engineering that emphasizes the separation of concerns with respect to the wide-ranging functionality available throughout a given software system. It is a reuse-based approach to defining, implementing and composing loosely coupled independent components into systems. This practice aims to bring about an equally wide-ranging degree of benefits in both the short-term and the long-term for the software itself and for organizations that sponsor such software.

Service-orientation is a design paradigm for computer software in the form of services. The principles of service-oriented design stress the separation of concerns in the software. Applying service-orientation results in units of software partitioned into discrete, autonomous, and network-accessible units, each designed to solve an individual concern. These units qualify as services.

RM-ODP Reference model in computer science

Reference Model of Open Distributed Processing (RM-ODP) is a reference model in computer science, which provides a co-ordinating framework for the standardization of open distributed processing (ODP). It supports distribution, interworking, platform and technology independence, and portability, together with an enterprise architecture framework for the specification of ODP systems.

Enterprise modelling

Enterprise modelling is the abstract representation, description and definition of the structure, processes, information and resources of an identifiable business, government body, or other large organization.

Service-oriented modeling is the discipline of modeling business and software systems, for the purpose of designing and specifying service-oriented business systems within a variety of architectural styles and paradigms, such as application architecture, service-oriented architecture, microservices, and cloud computing.

Dennis E. Wisnosky

Dennis E. Wisnosky is an American consultant, writer and former chief architect and chief technical officer of the US DoD Business Mission Area (BMA) within the Office of Business Transformation. He is known as one of the creators and initiators of the Integrated Definition (IDEFs) language, a standard for modeling and analysis in management and business improvement efforts.

The research project OSAMI-D is the German subproject of the European ITEA 2 project OSAMI.

Business reference model

Business reference model (BRM) is a reference model, concentrating on the functional and organizational aspects of the core business of an enterprise, service organization or government agency.

Steven Howard Spewak was an American management consultant, author, and lecturer on enterprise architectures, known for the development of Enterprise Architecture Planning (EAP).

Praxeme

Praxeme is a methodology for enterprise architecture which provides a structured approach to the design and implementation of an enterprise information architecture.

Oliver Sims was a British computer scientist, former IBM employee, and enterprise architecture consultant, known for his work on business objects Object-oriented programming, and service-oriented architecture (SOA).

The history of business architecture has its origins in the 1980s. In the next decades business architecture has developed into a discipline of "cross-organizational design of the business as a whole" closely related to enterprise architecture. The concept of business architecture has been proposed as a blueprint of the enterprise, as a business strategy, and also as the representation of a business design.

References

  1. ↑ Richard Veryard Accessed 17 December 2008.
  2. 1 2 3 Richard Veryard Principal Consultant at CBDI. Accessed 17 December 2008.
  3. ↑ Sandro Bologna, Giacomo Bucci (ed.) (1996) Achieving Quality in Software: Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Achieving Quality in Software. Chapman & Hall. p.425.
  4. ↑ Graeme Simsion (2001). Data Modeling. p.26.
  5. ↑ Richard Veryard (1984). Pragmatic data analysis. Oxford : Blackwell Scientific Publications. p.7
  6. ↑ Mehdi Khosrowpour (1999) (ed.). Managing Information Technology Resources in Organizations in the Next Millennium. p. 30.
  7. ↑ Grady Booch (1991). Object Oriented Design with Applications: with applications. Benjamin/Cummings Pub. Co., 1991. p.151.
  8. 1 2 Graeme Simsion (2007) Data Modeling: Theory and Practice. p. 78.
  9. ↑ Richard Veryard (1991). The Economics of Information Systems and Software. Butterworth-Heinemann.
  10. 1 2 Richard Veryard (1993). Information Coordination: The Management of Information Models, Systems, and Organizations. Prentice Hall.
  11. ↑ Ayers, Michael (January 1996). "Critical review of Information Coordination". ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes. 21 (1). Retrieved 11 June 2010.
  12. ↑ Richard Veryard and Ian G. MacDonald (1994). "EMM/ODP: A methodology for federated and distributed systems". In: Methods and Associated Tools for the Information Systems Life Cycle, Proceedings of the IFIP WG8.1 Working Conference on Methods and Associated Tools for the Information Systems Life Cycle, Maastricht, The Netherlands, 26–28 September 1994. Alex A. Verrijn-Stuart and T. William Olle (ed.) Elsevier IFIP Transactions. pp.241-273.
  13. ↑ Business relationship modelling Veryard Projects. Accessed 16 December 2008.
  14. 1 2 3 Richard Veryard (2001). Component-based Business: Plug and Play. Springer.
  15. ↑ Michael Bell, SOA Modeling Patterns for Service-Oriented Discovery and Analysis (Wiley 2010); Tony Bidgood, ArchiMate: A Standard for Enterprise System Modelling (CBDI Journal, August 2008); Marc Lankhorst et al, Enterprise Architecture at Work (Springer, 2005)
  16. 1 2 Veryard (2013, p. i)
  17. ↑ Richard Veryard List of publications from the DBLP Bibliography Server.
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