In part 1 we outlined that Architecture as a discipline is on the wane, replaced by the approach of doing ‘things’ that are roughly targeted in the right direction. When studying TOGAF some years ago, I was always a little surprised with the phrase and phase “request for work”. This always made me imagine a […]
I’ve been reading some patchy reports that some companies are making whole Architecture teams redundant. I suppose that is inevitable in the containing theme that I’m certainly seeing. The theme that could be described as “if you cant code, there is no place for you here”. I suppose its inevitable in the overall pursuit of […]
In historic blogs now lost in the mists of the Internet, I’ve written about this before. There is something odd about cyber people who have to show the extent of their knowledge to other cyber people. At. Every. Possible. Moment. I experience this so frequently that it’s rarely worth writing about here. But it happened […]
In today’s organisations, alignment is an increasingly important factor in corporate life. While eventual alignment is worthwhile – as a way of making progress – it’s the way its achieved is the problem. Some may have heard of Amazon’s “disagree and commit” phrase/method. As an aside I’m toldby those with experience of the Amazon’s methods […]
My personal ‘daily-driver’ laptop is a ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 2. I’ve had this since September 2019, and after a number of years the battery is holding less charge. It was time to do something about it. Investigations I’d been searching for some time for a replacement battery, but alas, Lenovo no longer sell the […]
I’ve been having a running disagreement with someone senior to me for some time now, and I thought it worth posting on here. The backstory is that I’m generally keen on Threat Modelling. I say generally, as there is a value discussion to be had around it. Done properly with the right input at the […]
I’m involved with a number of teams and projects who have all drunk the automation kool-aid. Now, to be clear – I’m not against automation. I’m thinking here about the use of DevSecOps stacks/Infra as Code etc. We’ve all no doubt been involved (either as the initiator or a bystander) in incidents caused by the […]
I’m currently involved with a project that is creating a unique tool which is a Security Enforcing Function for a downstream suite of applications. As you might imagine, this is being developed primarily by a senior lead developer. He is very much an industry veteran. As is the way of things, post-Covid, we’ve never met. […]
You’ll recall my observation from Part 1 that increasingly tools are being used in place of thought and rigour. Its worth setting out what I mean by thought and rigour in the context of this issue, so briefly this is how I define it (constrained by a desire for brevity). Lack of understanding of context: […]
There are lots of articles about what’s required for security to flourish in an organisation. I thought I’d put together something inspired the Pragmatic Engineer article that’s specific to Security Architects. I’ve probably gone a little further to indicate the anti-pattern in the text… General Technology Questions Do you use low-priced/low spec commodity IT for […]
Fractional Polymath 