Udi Dahan is delivering his Advanced Distributed Systems Design (SOA & DDD) course in Austin for the second time. Headspring is hosting the training and is happy to offer this course for those in Austin and those willing to travel to Austin.
November 30 to December 4 of 2009 are the dates of the training. Go to the Headspring training page to sign up. Below is the breakdown of the course.
Module 1: Distributed Systems Theory
Decades of distributed systems development have taught us many lessons. In this module we’ll cover many historical mistakes as well as proven best practices for scalable and robust design. Topics include:
- 8 fallacies of distributed systems
- Transactions
Module 2: Coupling: Platform, Temporal, & Spatial
Loose coupling has become the watchword of complex systems development, yet few understand its multiple dimensions. In the module we’ll be covering the three different dimensions of coupling as well as patterns for dealing with them.
- Platform Coupling – XML/SOAP
- Temporal Coupling – Synchronous/Asynchronous
- Spatial Coupling – Endpoints/Topics
Module 3: Asynchronous Messaging Patterns
Although scalability is achieved through the use of asynchronous message passing, more advanced message exchange patterns are required to handle today’s complex integration scenarios. This module will cover the most commonly used patterns:
- One way
- Correlated Request/Response
- Publish/Subscribe
Module 4: Bus & Broker Architectural Styles
Enterprise Service Buses are all the rage these days. In this module we’ll be covering what’s the difference between the Bus architectural style, and the more well-known Broker, found commonly in many EAI projects. Topics will include:
- Architectural advantages and disadvantages
- Technological advantages and disadvantages
Module 5: SOA Building Blocks
One of the goals of SOA is to develop systems which are more closely aligned with Business. In this module we’ll be covering an analysis methodology from moving from the business domain to executable systems that comply with all the principles of loose-coupling.
- Business Services
- Business Components
- Autonomous components & Queues
Module 6: Scalability and Flexibility
In order to enable agility, services must be able to scale up, out, and down quickly. In this module we’ll see how autonomous components can be configured including transactional and durable aspects of message handling.
- Configuring autonomous components
- Scaling up and out
Module 7: Long running processes
The distributed communications patterns wouldn’t be complete without a discussion on orchestration. In this module we’ll see how to manage the state of long-running distributed communication flows as well as:
- Encapsulating process logic
- Advantages & disadvantages of orchestration
Module 8: Service / AC Solutions
As developers go to implement autonomous components, guidance is required as to which concepts need to implemented in which project, what dependencies are there between projects, and how to bridge the worlds of messaging, business logic, and reporting. Topics include:
- Messages + Handlers
- Databases
Module 9: Service Layer – Domain Model Interaction
Logic-rich services require the use of advanced techniques for logic componentization. The Domain Model Pattern enforces a high level of Separation of Concerns, yet it must eventually be connected with Service Layer code that supports many concurrent users. In this module, the topics covered will include:
- Domain Model introduction
- Testing Domain Models
- Optimistic, Pessimistic, and Realistic Concurrency Models
Module 10: High-Performance Domain Models
The strong separation between the Domain Model and the database which stores and retrieves its data may enable a high level of testability, yet often causes performance problems. In this module, we’ll see the various aspects impacting the performance of persistence:
- Transactions and Isolation Levels
- Lazy Loading, Eager Fetching
- Databases Tips & Tricks
Module 11: Web Services and User Interfaces
The ease of interacting with users over the web drives the need for service to UI interactions. Also, many integrations require exposing synchronous web services to customers. In this module, we’ll see what is required in both cases:
- ASP.NET 2.0 Asynchronous Tasks
- Rich Internet Applications and Services
- Web Services for integration
Module 12: Smart Client / Service Interaction
The publish/subscribe semantics with which services communicate require smart clients to perform a great deal of background work. Also, certain service contracts lead to more performant clients. In this module, we’ll cover the first part of these interactions:
- Multi-threaded client challenges
- Client-friendly Service Contracts
- Service Agents and Client Repositories
Module 13: Notifications & Smart Clients
After Message Handlers in the Service Layer create or update the relevant Model objects in the client Repository, Supervising Controllers are in charge of getting Views to show the updated data. In this module, we’ll describe the parts and interactions of these flows:
- Client-side Model Objects
- Supervising Controllers
- Views and their Interfaces
Module 14: Commands & Smart Clients
Capturing user intent and synchronization between views are at the core of smart clients. After describing solutions that use Events on the View Interfaces, the Command Pattern will be introduced to further decrease coupling between Supervising Controllers. In this module, we’ll describe the parts and interactions of these flows:
- View Interfaces, and how Entity Cloning affects them
- Supervising Controllers and clone reconciliation
- Commands, and Event-Based programming
While indulging in analysis paralysis is certainly the downfall of some, there are more alternatives than merely pulling out duct tape and throwing something together. We also have to keep in mind how to apply advice and from where the advice is coming. 
