Paul Stovell introduced the concept of The Production Architect - which is a role on the project team that is responsible for bridging the gap between IT Pros (Infrastructure) and Devs. Since I have experience on both sides of the fence, it’s a topic that interests me as well. Having experience of both sides makes me a very valuable asset to a team and the two questions that I try and solve are:

1. What can I do for the Developers to make the IT Pro’s lives easier?
2. What can I do to for the IT Pros to make the Developer’s lives easier?

This is a post that shows some of the things Microsoft is doing to answer these questions.

Design for Operations (DFO)

DFO is a Microsoft initiative designed to support their long-term vision of the Dynamic Systems Initiative (DSI).

With design for operations, businesses will improve knowledge-sharing between application architects, IT managers, and information workers by embedding information about system structure, constraints, policies, and best practices in the IT infrastructure itself though the use of common software models.

The patterns & practices team have been working on:

• guidance for Windows and .NET management technologies,
• how to instrument applications,
• how to leverage Windows PowerShell,
• how to build management packs for System Center Operations Manager 2007 (SCOM).

DFO Codeplex Project

http://www.codeplex.com/dfo

It’s a recent effort from patterns & practices to provide tooling for architects and developers with a means to model their application in terms meaningful to operations. Once modelled the tool can be used to create a Health Model for the application and once the Health Model has been completed at the architect and development roles the tool can be used to generate platform instrumentation as defined in the model. All that’s necessary for the developer is to call the generated API within their solution for each instance of instrumentation.

The tool will also generate a Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager from the model that matches the generated instrumentation.

Download Version 2.0 DFO CTP

This release contains the patterns & practices Team System Management Model Designer Power Tool (TSMMD) and the Management Guide. The Team System Management Model Designer Power Tool is a productivity tool that helps architects and system designers to generate models of an application that contribute to minimized TCO. These models include configuration, instrumentation, health, and performance information. The Team System Management Model Designer Power Tool also assists developers to implement the required instrumentation, and create management packs for monitoring systems such as Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007.

New features include:

1. Improved model and user experience.
2. Limited support for Enterprise Library Logging.
3. Native support for model export to System Center Operations Manager Management Packs.
4. Support for existing applications through MSIL scanning for Event Log, Performance Counter, WMI and Enterprise Library instrumentation.

Guidance Automation Extensions (GAX) & Guidance Automation Toolkit (GAT)

The DFO toolkit requires Guidance Automation Extensions & Guidance Automation Toolkit. You can find the downloads here:

• GAX & GAT page on MSDN
• Guidance Automation Extensions (February 200 Release for Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008
• Guidance Automation Toolkit (February 200 Release for Visual Studio 2005
• Guidance Automation Toolkit (February 200 Release for Visual Studio 2008

More Information

• David Aiken’s MSFT blog
• David Aiken’s DotNetRocks Podcast on Bridging the Gap between DEV and IT
• Channel9 Videos
  • Implementing a Health Model with the Visual Studio Management Model Designer
  • Designing a Health Model with the Visual Studio Management Model Designer
  • Using the Windows PowerShell Visual Studio Templates
  • Use Enterprise Library Management Extensions CTP to Group Policy and WMI enabled your applications
  • Web Sites and Services MP
  • Building Manageable Apps