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System Architecture Views

In my various roles as an Information Architect (Deputy Chief Architect for a 125-person program at General Dynamics Mission System or System Architect on a much larger program at Raytheon), I find myself having to make lots of different types of architectural diagrams. And, especially now that I’m doing so much government contracting, most of these diagrams have to conform to DODAF 2.0, the DoD Architecture Framework 2.0.

Probably the most familiar to most people are the Operational Views, such as the OV-1, a High-Level Conceptual View of of a project or enterprise; or the System Views, such as the SV-1, the System Interface Description. But, even if these two are most common, there are a bunch of other diagram types, as well.

From a practical standpoint, there are also different options for creating some of these diagrams, especially the OV-1s, which are at more of a conceptual level.

Every time I found myself doing a new batch of diagrams for a project, and on these programs it’s important to realize that I ranged across a LOT of projects, I ended up doing Internet searches to find examples of the types of diagrams I wanted to do.

After a while, I got tired of the repetitive searches, so I spent a weekend combing through publicly available diagrams and curated some of the best examples into a single document that I called simply, System Architecture Views.

The charts and diagrams collected in this presentation were gathered from all around the Web and were created by a diverse set of individuals and organizations. I don’t claim credit for the production of any of the diagrams, only their compilation into a comprehensive reference document. All diagrams are included under the fair use doctrine.

The PDF version of the PowerPoint presentation is provided gratis to the community to promote the noble cause of quality enterprise architecture.

I make no money off the document. I have no problem with anybody sharing it, though I think it’s fair to ask you to keep my name associated with it.

Let me know if you find it useful, or if you have suggestions to improve it further.

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More Than 100K Views

Every once in a while, I toddle on over to SlideShare, where I post most of my presentations, and just check to see how many views my presentations have had.

This time, I was gratified to see that I’ve crossed one of those significant boundaries. My presentations have been viewed more than one hundred thousand times.

My all-time Top Ten presentations are listed below:

  1. Building Facebook Apps
  2. Creating Dynamic Charts with JFreeChart
  3. Creating a World-Class RESTful Web Services API
  4. 21st Century Writer
  5. Social Networking: The Next Weapon Against Bad Actors
  6. Rails and the Apache SOLR Search Engine
  7. Elevator Up, Please!
  8. Creating Killer Business Models
  9. Creating Custom Charts Using Ruby Vector Graphics
  10. Implementing OpenID for Your Social Networking Web Site

I’m interested in diverse subjects, but it was nevertheless interesting to see that the Top Ten included a cross-section of presentations corresponding to my interests, and not just any one particularly popular category. So my Top Ten list included presentations on Ruby/Rails, Java, Cyber Security, Writing and Science.

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Using Social Networking to Fight Bad Actors

Check out my cyber security presentation from GFIRST 2012…

GFIRST was a 1500-person conference hosted by the Department of Homeland Security. I conducted this presentation in a round-robin fashion with my two partners in crime, Dave Roberts and Jonathan Quigg.

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My Presentations on Slideshare

I regularly release all of my presentations on SlideShare.net. To date, my presentations have been viewed over 74,046 times. Today, I thought I’d share my Top 5 List with you:

  1. Leveraging Rails to Build Facebook Apps
    17,622 views (in two versions of the presentation)
  2. Creating Dynamic Charts with JFreeChart
    14,624 views
  3. Creating a World-Class RESTful Web Services API
    8,444 views
  4. Rails and the Apache SOLR Search Engine
    5,073 views
  5. Creating Custom Charts with Ruby Vector Graphics
    4,413 views

My runner-up for the Top 5 List is Killer Business Models, with 3,956 views.

I’m gratified at the level of exposure that SlideShare.net has been able to provide for my 19 released presentations. I look forward to releasing many more presentations online in the future.

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Working On a New SOLR Talk

I’m working with Jonathan Quigg on a new talk, “Security Strategies With SOLR and Rails.” We last spoke together at the GFIRST Cyber Security Conference in Atlanta, GA. This topic seems like a good follow-up to my “Rails and the Apache SOLR Search Engine’ talk from RubyNation 2012.

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Speaking at GFIRST 2012

I will be speaking at the GFIRST (Government Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams) 2012 Conference, which is hosted by the Department of Homeland Security. The conference brings together speakers, vendors and more than 1500 attendees from the cyber security arena for a week-long event featuring industry-related presentations, product demonstrations and training.

Together with partners David Roberts and Jonathan Quigg, we will be giving an hour-long, intricately-choreographed presentation entitled, “Social Networking: The Next Weapon Against Bad Actors.” The talk details how social networking strategies can be applied to facilitate knowledge sharing within the cyber security community and empower the community to act even more effectively against bad actors, the people responsible for malware, viruses, identify theft, spam and other nefarious activities.

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First GFIRST Dry Run

Just finished my first dry run of my GFIRST 2012 talk, “Social Networking: The Next Weapon Against Bad Actors,” with co-presenters Dave Roberts and Jonathan Quigg. Basically solid, but needs the expected amount of polish to be conference-worthy.