I have been quiet the last few weeks though I have been meaning to post a few things.  Since the beginning of 2009 I have been working to get several people on my team up-to-speed on Windows Communication Foundation and service oriented design which has proven to be no easy task.  Condensing two years of study and experience into short lessons has been difficult because there is no cookie cutter mold that you can hand someone so they can bake up some services.  Services take thought and consideration, planning, and careful implementation.  Giving someone a template to start from is helpful, but without understanding why the template is set up the way it is much of that experience and knowledge is lost.  I think this is largely a fault of my own because of the rushed feeling I have to get this knowledge transfer going into 2009.

On Friday the general manager of REJIS announced something that I think most people saw coming; the beginning of our technology migration plan to move from a Mainframe environment into a Windows based environment.  As he outlined it at a very high level we see the picture of a multi-year company-wide effort to make this happen.  This is a major shift for REJIS because we are known for our ?green screens? and our core competencies lie in the processes that are running on our mainframe systems.  REJIS will be redefining itself as it moves in a new direction to offer new products and services to customers.

Just prior to the announcement I learned the role I would play in this new endeavor.  I will be working on the small team that will design the overall architecture as the lead architect.  The team is currently comprised of three people including myself.  One is a Senior.NET developer and the other comes from the mainframe side though she has spent her more recent time studying .NET and assisting with project designs and documentation.  We will be working directly with our IT Director and probably every division of the company as this affects REJIS all the way from the top down.

To say that the coming months and years will be easy would be a gross understatement.  We will be converting a collective hundreds of years of peoples work to a new platform.  Some of my closest colleagues have literally spent their entire careers building these systems.  To call it a conversion is a bit misleading as well.  What is being converted is that knowledge and experience in the industry we serve and in that conversion will be a redefining of REJIS into a more agile company ready to handle the changes the future will bring.

For me this is the best opportunity I could be called for.  Over the last few years I have been one of several voices calling for better attention to architecture and design on our new systems and for constant attention to how new technologies will affect what we can do and how quickly we can do it.  Now will be my opportunity to make REJIS a little bit better and to prepare our IT systems for a future that will allow them to grow, scale, and change in the demanding environment we work in.

I press forward humbled that I will play such a big role in this change and looking to peers and colleagues for their support and advice.  People like David who never cease to amaze with their forward thinking, Clint and Denny who make their mark evangelizing the need for architecture and providing sound advice and wisdom from their experience, and my other (blogless) colleagues at REJIS who go along with my crazy ideas and add a little crazy of their own. 

The next few weeks will involve a lot of groundwork, some travel, and time to reflect on the road ahead.  It will be long and trying and for those of you who subscribe to my feed you will have a front row seat to the transformation that will happen.