The Martian Principles for Successful Enterprise Systems: 20 Lessons Learned from NASAs Mars Exploration Rover Mission

0471789658......Page 1
About the Author......Page 6
Contents......Page 10
Preface......Page 14
Inspiration and Hope for This Book......Page 16
For More Information......Page 17
Disclaimer......Page 18
Acknowledgments......Page 20
What Do Martians Know about Enterprise Systems?......Page 22
The Mars Exploration Rover Mission......Page 23
The Collaborative Information Portal......Page 25
Software Architecture......Page 29
Part I: The Martian Principles......Page 36
Principle 1: Don’t reinvent the wheel.......Page 38
Understand What Your Added Value Is......Page 40
Use Commercial Software Whenever Practicable......Page 41
Principle 2: You won’t do better than what’s already been done.......Page 44
Adhere to Industry Standards and Best Practices......Page 45
Seek User Groups, Chat Forums, Online Documentation, Books, and the Like......Page 46
Do Not Gum Up the Plumbing......Page 47
Principle 3: Your customers don’t know what they want.......Page 50
Do Not Push Too Hard on the Requirements......Page 51
Do Rapid Prototyping and Lots of User Testing......Page 52
Customers Are the Best Testers......Page 53
Principle 4: Get something working as soon as possible.......Page 56
The First End-to-End Thread Is Critical......Page 57
Always Build on Top of Working Code......Page 59
Principle 5: Use sound software engineering practices.......Page 62
Use a Component-Based Architecture......Page 63
Use Design Patterns......Page 64
Get All the Development Team Members to Agree......Page 66
Principle 6: Don’t trust the client applications.......Page 68
Be Very Paranoid—They Are Out to Get You......Page 69
If You Do Not Break It, They Will......Page 70
Principle 7: Plan to make changes.......Page 74
Use External Editable Parameter Files......Page 75
Implement a “Read Parameters” Method......Page 76
Maintain Client Parameter Files Centrally on the Server......Page 77
Identify the Parameter Values......Page 78
Principle 8: You can’t predict the future.......Page 80
Create Field-Replaceable, Plug-and-Play Services......Page 81
Hot Redeployment Allows Reconfiguring without Rebooting......Page 83
Take a Peek into the Future......Page 84
Principle 9: Don’t tie your services into knots.......Page 88
Services Should Treat Other Services As Equals......Page 89
Principle 10: Build early, build often!......Page 92
The Major Challenge Is Not Code Development but Code Integration......Page 93
Use a Source Code Repository......Page 95
Maintain a Separate Environment in Which to Build and Deploy......Page 96
Principle 11: “What middleware?” should be your greatest compliment.......Page 100
The Middleware Should Be Invisible to Users......Page 101
Good Middleware Creates Ideal Virtual Worlds for the End Users......Page 102
Principle 12: Expose the invisible.......Page 106
Put Hooks in the Middleware......Page 107
Do Runtime, Real-Time Monitoring......Page 108
Principle 13: Log everything.......Page 114
Do Not Turn Off Logging in Your Production Code......Page 115
“Log Mining” Reveals Usage Patterns......Page 117
Principle 14: Know the data.......Page 122
Learn the Data Usage Patterns......Page 123
Create Appropriate Application and Middleware Data Models......Page 124
Adapt to Third-Party and Legacy Data......Page 126
Principle 15: Know when it will break.......Page 130
Do Lots of Stress Testing......Page 131
If You Do Not Find Out What the Limits Are, Your Users Surely Will......Page 134
Principle 16: Don’t fail due to unexpected success.......Page 136
Missions May Last Longer Than Expected......Page 137
Data Repositories May Grow Larger Than Planned......Page 138
Part II: Project Management and Software Engineering......Page 142
Principle 17: Strong leadership drives a project to success.......Page 144
A Good Architect Must Also Be a Good Leader......Page 145
Strong Project Management Is Necessary for Success......Page 146
Project Milestones Are Opportunities for Demos and Rebalancing......Page 147
The Project Milestones Near the End Allow You to Get Your Project Done on Schedule......Page 148
Principle 18: Don’t ignore people issues.......Page 152
Agree to Disagree, but Then Move On......Page 153
Scale the Project According to the Team Members’ Abilities and Experience......Page 154
Foster Good Communication Plus Teamwork, Teamwork, Teamwork......Page 155
Remove Team Members Who Cannot or Will Not Perform......Page 156
Principle 19: Software engineering is all about the D\'s.......Page 158
Diplomacy......Page 159
Design......Page 160
Documentation......Page 161
Dmaintenance......Page 162
Principle 20: The formulas for success aren’t complicated.......Page 164
Successful System=Good Architecture+Good Software Engineering......Page 165
Keep It Simple!......Page 166
Index......Page 167