At the end of the 60s, the programmers came out with a philosophy that is related to developing software. The concept stated that if the data structures are correct and stable and by applying effort, the development of the program will go very smoothly without any problems. Back in the 60s is was only an intuition and a philosophical concept but in the 1970s it was transformed from just a concept into a theory. The transformation of this concept to a real theory included the grasping and understanding of several points.

These points included the structure of the architecture software and the specifications. These specifications were expressed through math as algebraic axioms or abstract models. The understanding of language problems was also vital. It included user-defined types, scope and modules. Another major point that had to be understood is the protection of the information. This includes all kinds of information and not only the ones that are a part of the specifications. This is very essential as the protection of this information is vital to the success of any software development.

The target of this transformation was to enhance the quality of the architecture design of several parts of the software. This included the enhancing of abstract data types in order to surpass the level of the programming language or statements. In order to achieve that, the understanding of the above mentioned points were accompanied by integrating specifications, representations, functional interfaces and algorithms in uniform methods. In order for the architecture design to succeed, the programming language had to be used but the abstract data type paradigm gave some pieces of the system the ability to be developed using a vocabulary of data types that is not included in the programming language’s vocabulary.

The same ways programmers recognized the usage of strong and correct data structure back in the 60s, now experienced software developers recognize strong system organizations. Although many organizations and architecture software designers depend on abstract data types but this is not the only available method to organize a software system. This is due to the fact that other designers and developers have developed various organizations over the course of time. These organizations have become a solid part of the vocabulary of the language that software designers use. So as a software developer you have the choice to either choose these new organizations or the usual abstract data types.

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If you are in a position where you have to architect enterprises and different business applications where you have to use different COTS products & come out with architecture solutions around these products. Then you should follow these easy and simple principles that would help you architect different solutions for your business. The first rule is to keep everything stupid and simple. You should not use complex and complicated words or terms that would make the readers scratch their heads. Some people think that the more complicated the more professional which is terribly wrong because if the readers do not understand it then it is of no use. So make sure to keep everything clear and a simple for the stakeholders whether its IT, Infra Team or Business.

The second principal is communication. Maintaining a strong network of communication of architecture to the whole team is essential and vital to the success of your solutions. This includes both external & internal stakeholder’s teams. Your side includes the development, deployment, testing and PMO teams. As for the other side, the client’s side it includes IT, security and business. Connecting all of the above teams together is one of the ingredients of success.

The third principal is the flexibility in the requirements. You have to be prepared and ready to accept changes that might occur. This is essential because as much as we would like for everything to stay the same but things change. For instance the requirements that always change include HTML appearance, the layout of the content and so on. On the other hand there are requirements that never change such as auditing, messaging and logging. This is why in order for your architecture solutions to work, it has to be flexible and for you to accept changes. Not only to accept them but to be prepared for them and to expect them.

Lastly, in any given architecture project and design, decisions will have to be made. People tend not to take decisions in order to avoid the risk of being wrong. The best thing to do is to take a look at the data and information available and to take decisions according to them for the project to move along. Even if you are wrong, the project and the design will move on. Plus, you gave your best decision according to the available data. So you did the best you can with what you had.

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The question that has kept all the art historians and philosophers wondering and yet failed to find a clear and a specific answer, “what is architecture?” Not only them, as many of us find themselves wondering the same thing. It can be explained as any piece of work that has some sort of substance that has acquired a physical state. Any work that has the mentioned characteristics would pass as being architecture.

Whenever an architect starts his project, his main goal is to capture and realize a dream that he has in his mind. Every architectural design is aiming to achieve a concept or a goal that is set by the architect himself. This dream or goal can be a form, a function or a philosophy. An architect uses all of his past experiences and collective knowledge to achieve all of that, the end result of it all is what architecture means.

Some people mix between architecture and engineering. They think that they are the same because they both result in buildings and construction. They cannot be any more wrong. There is a very thin line between architecture and engineering. Engineering is the act of eliminating any kind of emotions or feelings while designing, this result in an emotionless design that is very objective and has the function as its first and only priority. On the other hand architecture is the absolute opposite of that as it is all based around the emotions, feelings and dreams of the designer and architect. The end result of a design made by an architect would be the result of all of his emotions and feelings. This is why the design is not revolved around the objectivity which is the function but rather around the emotions and dreams.

To sum it up, the difference between engineering & architecture lies in the emotional force and philosophical concept of the architect that is embedded into the design. For instance, reading a script of an opera and reading it objectivity from the paper differs completely from hearing it and seeing it being performed on stage. You will certainly feel a rush of emotions and feelings when watching it and you will not get that feeling if you are just reading the notes and the script objectively from the paper. This is why architecture is looked upon as a piece of art and as any piece of art, it has to be filled with emotions and as far as it can be from subjectivity.

Release management can be applied on the whole company or an organization in order to achieve great success in any given project. The first step that would be undertaken by an organization in order to implement release management is to set a group of applications to be recognized as the goal and the target of the project. These applications would include vital and essential applications such as business terms and SoX managed applications. Also schedules should be set to identify and allow changes to occur. These changes are developed and then conveyed to a production control team. The setting of these applications should be accompanied by a less known implementation which is the development of different policies for the above mentioned applications in terms of release management.

The next step is the mapping. At this step, a great amount of tension would occur. This mapping process basically studies and sets what is going to be changed and when is it going to change in respect to the current time schedule. In the usual cases, the mapping plan or vision would have two years in horizon. One year, or twelve month would be firm and ninety days would be locked. Of course, big organizations that develop services or products plan to be very responsive to the client and users. So if an organization is trying to achieve a specified goal or target, locking ninety days will obviously not work. Also there will be no horizon of two years; it would only be a six month horizon.

There is another huge problem that would face the release management of regular projects. The fact is that any given framework and time schedule includes the project itself but it doesn’t allow for the sudden changes that has to be made. Sometimes the whole plan and scope of the project can change in the middle of it which will need more time. So if the timeframe if the project didn’t account for that, it would be a major setback.

Although, once the project’s goals and requirements are set and specified clearly, there should be no delay what so ever in the deployment of the project. There also should be no need for a schedule that has more than ninety days in its horizon. In order for a release management of a project to go as smoothly as it can be, it has to account for all the above mentioned problems and address them in order to avoid any setbacks in the project.

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Back in the 80s when organizations first decided to automate their systems, it was the role of the project manager to oversee and supervise the development. The functions that could be done by using an IT system were very limited and the work that had to be done was distributed between the manpower and the computer. For someone at that time to become the leader of the project or the release management, he didn’t need any certifications or knowledge in the language of programming. All what was needed is for him to be successful in analyzing business systems.

In this day, it is a different story as the management systems now are 100% automated and the role of manpower and the human agents have been decreased drastically until it became minimal. This is due to the fact that many decisions that had to be taken by the human operates are now being taken by the computers and the automated management system. Any management system has to be accompanied by 3rd party applications and programming languages.

Only a few decisions have to be taken by the head of the release management team. This is why these decisions would require the release or project manager to have a specific amount of knowledge in programming language in order to take decisions related to it. This is why he will need to be familiar with the various 3rd party applications in order to make the best decisions and to choose the best one that would fit the system.

This is why the only persons who have enough knowledge and familiarity with the programming languages and the 3rd party applications available on the market and their efficiency with the programming language that the management system uses can become the head of the release management team. After the system successes in passing the testing stage, any mistakes that are found and discovered by the configuration manager are then conveyed to the head of the release management team. The release manager then sends the system back to the software developers in order to carry on the necessary tweaks and changes to avoid such defects. The very first two steps will keep repeating until the program is found perfect by the configuration managers in order to make sure that the final outcome of the program doesn’t contain any errors. Of course, even after the implementation, there will still be the need for the developers to give the release manager the IT support he needs.

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In order for release management to succeed and achieve the expected results it has to begin with analyzing the problems then propose different solutions and finally to apply tremendous effort implementing these solutions. There are several problems that face any company or an IT firm that tries to implement it.  The first one that causes a lot of confusion is defining and understanding what are the things that fall under the control of release management. This is why the first step is stating and defining what is under the control of change control and what is not.

For example, for an IT business the things that would be under the management of release management will include several things. These things include anything that is related to network configurations and any changes with the production computing environment of the data center. This includes application software changes that are asked by the customer or the IT team. It also included any upgrades that need to be implemented to the infrastructure of the server or the network which includes DBMS, hardware and OS among others. As for the things that were not included. It was the needed application fixes for the emergency production software. Any emergency fixes should be the responsibility of the software developer team and its manager and not the responsibility of the release manager.

The second issue is to know who is responsible for what parts of the project. The projects are always managed from the start to the end by project managers. The problem is at any big organization, any four project managers would have from two to five projects under their control. These projects include fixing bugs and client service change among other things. This is why each project manager has to know his own tasks and to recognize the tasks of the stakeholders. Release management will succeed if the release manager himself known his tasks which will then be conveyed to the different stakeholders who will then recognize the scope and the tasks tasked to them.

The solution for this problem is SPOC. SPOC stands for single point of contact. This was a great model to be used in order to follow the responsibility of different team and team members and to hold every one accountable for his responsibility. By using this model, the SPOC, it was easy to follow the progress of each team in order to hold them accountable for their outcome.

Project management is the key of success for any organization. No matter how big or how small is an organization, it will definitely need to manage its project to guarantee the quality of the outcome. Any organization at some point will be asked to develop some kind of product or a service. The main target and the scope of the project have changed throughout the years. For instance, back in the 80s it was all about the quality of the outcome but in the 90’s it changed, as it became about the globalization of the product rather than the quality. Now, it became all about the velocity of the production. Velocity is very essential for any organization in order to stay ahead of other rivals and competitors. This is why project management is an essential tool to guarantee the achievement of the target and the scope of the project.

Project management works side by side with the usage of information management systems. This allows corporations and organization to easily manage and define the different tasks for the different team. This way the organization can easily allocate the resources, set the schedule and define the tasks of each team. It also manages the collaboration between the teams, this way different teams can share information to allow the teams to cross function in order to guarantee the success of the project. This is due to the fact that without the collaboration and the connection between the teams, the project will be chaotic.

Project management is also used by organizations in order to guarantee the deliverance of the project in the estimated time, to make sure that the project is following the specification budget and for the project to have the level of quality specified by the client.

The information management system that is used in project management has several goals. The first goal is to decrease the overhead expenses needed for the project as much as it can. The second one is to make the needed changes to the work space in order to suit the needs of the team members and the style and type of their operations. The third goal is to make sure that the project gets delivered in the specified deadline. Lastly, to make sure that all the teams collaborate and share information that is essential for the success of the project.

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There is an old saying that states that project managers are simply managers for people. We have been hearing that over the years. Is it true? Are project managers only people’s managers? It has some truth in it as the project management staff is really responsible for people and manages them, so they are basically people’s managers but this is it not all what they do. Let us take a look at the following facts. Project managers have to acquire a certificate from the PMI, which is an ISO recognized certificate. Also some project managers acquire a Masters Degree in Project Management. All of these certifications and credentials make it clear that there is more to a project manager than to simply manage people, it is a part of the job, but it is not the main function.

There are three P’s in project management. The three P’s are people management, performance management and process management. Starting with people management, which is the famous function of a project manager. A PM is the leader of the team. He helps them and guides them in order to achieve the targets of a certain project. He is what links the team together and makes them collaborate because without collaboration and connection, the project will fail.

The second P is process management and it is as important as the first P, people management. Without this, the whole project will be in jeopardy. This is due to the fact that without proper process management of the project, the knowledge areas will not be clear and will also not be managed which would dismember the whole team and would push the project into total chaos. To make it simple, without process management, the project will be lost and will drift away like a bottle in the sea.

The last P is the performance management. This is one of the most important tasks of a project manager. Without managing the performance, the performance levels will vary and will not be consistent. This could lead to disastrous results. This is why it is vital for a project manager to manage the performance of the team members to make sure that they are giving the project their best. This can be done by keeping track of the performance of each individual and judging the quality of his work. After all of this, it is clear that project management contain a lot more than managing people.

In order for you to succeed in being an effective project manager you have to define the target and the goal of the project. You need to know where this project is going and what it is trying to achieve. For instance, if your boss asks you to organize a blood donation campaign from the employees. You have to know the scope of the project. You have to know if this project is aiming to donate as much blood as it can to the blood bank or is it another reason such as elevating the community profile of the company. Knowing the real reason and target of a certain project would help you exceed and manage it well. This is why knowing the real scope and aim of a project is one of the bases of successful project management.

As the head of the project management staff you also have to know all of the activities involved. For instance, will the company provide transportation for the employees from and to the blood bank or will they be asked to drive themselves. Knowing the activities will help with the organization and planning as it will have a great effect on the work scope that will have to be done throughout the project. You also need to acknowledge the stakeholders because you will have to ask for their help. You need to understand and know what they are expecting by the end of the project as this will help you plan and manage your project more efficiently.

The next step in your project management crusade is to understand and define the expected outcome of the project. You need to know what are the products, things or services that are expected to be delivered when the project is over. For instance, if you are the project manager of an advertising campaign then the client expects a piece of art work or an advert in the newspaper. Understanding the deliverables will help you plan and manage your project much easier.

Another vital step in project management is to make sure that there is communication between the different team. Each team has to know what is asked from it and what is it expected to deliver. All the teams need to have a good level of communication with each other as well. If there is no communication between you and the teams and between the teams themselves then the project will be deemed to fail.

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Businesses involved in software should always make sure that their software product is free of bugs, and almost there are errors or any kind of risks which cause problems to their customers(end-users), should be fixed before releasing the product to the market. Even though it is not possible to deliver 100% bug-free software product, software businesses should ensure that their product is almost free of all possible bugs/errors. To do so, they should follow software testing procedures or any kind of other testings from start to end of software development.

Software developing industry is very competitive industry to do business with. There are many software products compete in the market for a particular problem/need of customers. For an example, there are various software products like SAP, Tally and etc are competing in accountancy filed. So, it is very important that the software which you produce is very reliable, user-friendly, functional, secure and etc. Specially if a software provides solutions to business functions like accounting, it  has to be very secure, specially  from cracking, hacking and virus attacks to end-users' data. To do so security of the product should be tested well during process of software testing.

Usually there are software firms run out of time for extended testing due to tight deadline and/or delays on earlier software development phases. It leads to release the software with bugs/errors, which in return gains poor reputation to the brand. To overcome such things, software testing should not be omitted/ignored/shortened. Overall Software testing cycle should be followed. Alpha testing, beta testing, verification & validations too have to be considered during software testing process.

Unit testing should be carried out to ensure each unit of the software, operates correctly. Apart form that when the units are integrated, integration testing should be carried out to ensure software units continue working properly when those are integrated. Assuming that integrated software will work fine because of unit testing is carried out and all units are working well, there are cases where integrated software fail to work well, so integration testing is the must.

Software should perform what is supposed to perform in other words,  software should perform as what stated in software development specification which is filtered out/translated from customer requirements. To test this performance testing should be carried out.

Functionality of the software also important to compete in high competitive software industry. Each functions should work properly, individually as well as when those are integrated. Functional testing should be done to do so.

Regression testing also important when some reported issues are fixed. Other than that compatibility and usability testing should be performed before final release of the software product.

Beta version of software can be distributed to other/existing customers, which allow customers to work on it and report any issues. It helps to find out errors/bugs under different environment.

Finally even software testing is time consuming process. It is very essential to deliver quality and error free software product which in turn gives more high brand reputation and more businesses in near future.