Need high level info on part II

[Laxmi Raghu]

I've completed Part I and now working on Part II.

I've 6 years java development experience out of which 3-4 years on J2EE. But during my entire 6 years experience i haven't involved in major design or architecting the software project. So, i really lack architect level experience and major decision making experience.

Now i got my problem statement and bit of info on the project. Can anybody tell me what level of design and architecting expected of us from Sun? No need to tell the actual implementation details. But on a high level, how to go about designing and architecting the project ... level of information expected in the class diagrams, how much detailed each type of UML diagram should be etc...

Any information in this regard would be highly helpful.

Thanks.
Laxmi

[Michael Zhao]

read Mark Cade's book chapter 8
http://faq.javaranch.com/view?SceaBooks

you will know what you need

[Laxmi Raghu]

Thanks for the information. But i feel the information in Mark Cade book is not sufficient.

I want to make use of SCEA assignment to gain real architecting experience. I don't want to do just for the sake of clearing the exam. I want to gain real experience so that when i go for my next work assignment as a architect i should be in A POSITION to handle it.

I've imagined an architect as a high tech profiled person. I would like to become one such person ..... so i'm using SCEA to begin my journey in that direction.

To be frank, i fear if someone in my office gives a s/w assingment to design.

[Laxmi Raghu]

Thanks for the information. But i feel the information in Mark Cade book is not sufficient.

I want to make use of SCEA assignment to gain real architecting experience. I don't want to do just for the sake of clearing the exam. I want to gain real experience so that when i go for my next work assignment as an architect i should be in A POSITION to handle it.

I've imagined an architect as a high tech profiled person. I would like to become one such person ..... so i'm using SCEA to begin my journey in that direction.

To be frank, at this point of time, i fear if someone in my office gives a s/w assingment to design. If tomorrow i claim that i'm a sun certified architect, i should be in a position to architect high level s/w architecture for a given project. Now my biggest concern is will i become such a skilled architect by doing this assignment? If so, how to go about in that direction? Any extra readings are required?

If my assignment is taken by some firm for real time implementation for their company, how detailed or how much information i need to provide in my s/w architecture etc..

At this point of time, I'm not confident enough that i can design such a high level architecture. To bring myself upto that level, what i need to do ... books to read .... practicals ... etc.

Any info relevant to this is highly welcome.

[Goan Balchao]

Hi Laxmi,
IMHO, passing or clearing the SCEA DOES NOT make a person 'an architect'. It's just a step in the right direction. Frankly, I would give 10% value to the exam - I am doing this just because of my resume and also that it is paid for.
As to your question about the deatils - to be frank, one can take more than a couple of months easy to get everything designed properly - that is assuming that you are not an Architect in the first place. I think the purpose here is to get the basic bare bones design using the requirements and the j2ee patterns judiciously. Going into too much depth will just broaden your solution.
I had the same idea in mind too, but after a fortnight or so, I cahnged my mind. I am going to put in the minimal effort necessary to get 90% of the basic design and then maybe harp a littl on the 10%. Maybe you can ask yourself the questions and document the answers and so on , but get the basic thing done and then if you feel you have the time, go for the modifications e.g using JAAS innsead of a simple login mechanism etc

[Laxmi Raghu]

Thanks Hemant.

May be as u said, i can question myself and document the answers. But how to involve clusteting, load balacing etc, java messaging service etc.. in my project? I don't have practical experience in them. How to represnt all these in class and component diagrams etc...

To be frank, i'm scared to get the title as an architect without the practical exposure on all these areas. I haven't designed myself any one project all by myself. So .... i'm bit worried when i think myself an an architect.

[nitin pahwa]

Hi Laxmi,

Have u get the Part II coupon? Are make any special planns for part II prepartion?
It's good if u give me your personal id.

Thanks

Waiting for your reply,

[Ajith Kallambella]

Lakshmi,

Your intimidation is not unfounded. You are cautious about claiming a title of an architect is actually good. It makes you humble, and always eager to learn more.

If you thinks you are not prepared for the test, try solving sample assignments yourself. Come up with simple requirements and do the end to end design, documentation and even coding. Think of something simple - like a video library, or a hotel reservation system, or a car rental system. Once the initial design is done, add more scope as it actually happens in real life! Most often, requirements are never done even after the system goes to production. Keep a tab of your challenges, the skills that you lack and invest time to learn them. If there is something new around the corner, try to hypothesize how it would fit into your system. For instance, write a pure J2EE based solution using JSP, Servlets and EJBs. Then try to bring in say, Hibernate or Spring into it, or make it interact with an external system by consuming XML based requests. Keep your pet project alive, and as you move on, create multiple flavors of it (with an OR-mapping tool, with Spring, with a presentation framework like Velocity etc). Over a period of time your own progress will amaze you and your very first implementation will start looking like a "rookie" system. This is how I personally learnt everything. This works very well, but requires a *lot* of personal time and effort. Since you may not get to learn and apply everything on job, there is no alternative to this approach.

Do this a couple of times and the confidence will come to you naturally. If you have a group of friends/colleagues, form a study group and discuss topics. Invite them and present your architecture. Treat them as your development team and see if they can understand your documentation.

Whatever you do, don't stop learning.

Good luck,
[ November 10, 2005: Message edited by: Ajith Kallambella ]

[VamC Poondla]

All said by Ajith is very valid. It is a journey and everyone needs to set themselves self goals.

Before your real SCEA 2 assignment, take one of your projects and layer the components and draw lots of diagrams on rough paper. Abstract whatever you did not work in. Not a problem.

Identify different design patterns used. Or could have been used.

Also from that project issue tracker database, find out the biggest non-functional defects and see what decisions could have avoided that error.

Often we see scalability, performance and maintainability issues in poorly architected solutions.

Once that excercise is done, you will be amazed to see how comfortable you will be in looking at different problems and coming with solutions. (not code solutions but a level higher).

Then give an attempt to scope the problem in assignment for level of detail *you* think is good enough. Keep in mind, your assignment solution should communicate to some designer/developer with little or no inputs. So, documentation plays a major role..

My personal opinion is people who have sharp analytical skills may become great architects. But the real architects are those who have great abstract/ creative skills like artists, painters, sculptors etc..

[Laxmi Raghu]

Thank you all so much for the information. Well .... as you all mentioned, i should start off with designing sample projects myself and get exposure to designing.

I request .... can any of you become my mentor in gaining design and architecting skills in software projects. I won't be asking anything related to my scea part II. But on a overall basis, about designing a large scale projects. If so, pls inform me. It will be a great help to me.

Sashi, my personal mail iD is: [e-mail].

[madhav kamal]

Hi

I didnt see Ajith s post before posting hens i deleted mine.

Am i missing something.

my position is some what like Laxmi .Now i am totally confused.by seeing laxmi post i thaught she is looking for some guidense regarding architect responsibilities and analysys,design concerns, how to proceed .

As she expressed her concern about marc cade book sample design is not enough for part2 ,first of all i should know what is enough for design[analysys].

I cleared part 1 recently .now i am reading
Applying Use Case Driven Object Modeling with
UML: An Annotated e-Commerce Example
it gives me some idea how to do .isnt that what she wants???

[Laxmi Raghu]

Hi Madhav,

Thanks for the guidance on UML and go ahead on designing. I'm not much worried about completing assignment. I'm concerned about being an architect.

Here in HP, an architect designs the entire project, decides on what sfotwares and hardware configuration need to be used etc. Not just one architect ... 2 or 3 if project is big. I currently don't know how they will decide which software to be used, what hardware configuration etc.. I read somewhere that

A designer will think what will happen if 10 user clicks on a button however an architect will think what if 10000 users hits the button (same operation on a web site).

I'm not getting the exact sentence.

Somehow i've the confidence that i will complete the assignment, Once i complete the assignment and get a title as an architect, if someone asks me to design a project i should be in a position to design it well without much loopholes because i'm a certified architect. Even now, i'm scared if i think such a situation.

I'm not pinpointing anyone here, I see in my company there are very good architects. I'm willing to grow to their level in a period of time. That's what i need. Completing assignment is not.

[madhav kamal]

Hi laxmi

Did u found any online resource ?
please post it here

Whose responsibility is that architect or PM or admin?

[Laxmi Raghu]

Hi Madhav,

I searched in the web regarding airline reservation system. Found few links and one power point presentation which gives overall idea about ARS. I don't know how to post attachments in the forum. So, kept quite. I will post the other links in a separate thread. Hope i won't be violating rules by doing it.