When I was a radar engineer with the RAAF in the early 90’s, I marvelled at a thing they called PAR
(or Precision Approach Radar). It was unique because it allowed an air
traffic controller to get an aircraft down in really bad weather,
within a few inches of the runway centreline. The only visuals the
controller had were 2 cathode ray scopes, one for elevation and the
other for direction. The former had a glide path line etched on it and
the later a heading line. All the controller had to do was to issue
instructions to the pilot to keep the aircraft blip on each line. “Up”,
“down”, “left” or “right” was enough, and an aircraft could be brought
down safely in zero visibility. By the mid 90’s, PAR was replaced by ILS/TLS
(or Instrument/Transponder Landing System) and the onus switched from
controller to the pilot for getting aircraft position right when landing
in bad weather.
We
are in the middle of a shift of responsibility too in IT, from
centralised to decentralised control - where centralised systems are
giving way to the microservices approach. If you are keen on IT
architectures then take a look at this explanation from doyen Martin Fowler.
Moving from centralised to decentralised means that control becomes
more difficult and needs careful consideration in architecture design,
as explained in this talk by Bernd Rucker.
Don’t
worry though - we are not losing ‘…that lovin feeling’ for centralised
systems. They will always be in the mix. But, as Maverick and Goose
said in the original movie, we have ‘…a need, a need for speed’ [cheesy
high five goes here] - in delivering systems changes. And microservices
are one way to achieve this.
Across the Industry
Patch released for VMware Workspace ONE Access after software was exploited by hackers
Openpay switches to Amazon Connect for Customer Contact Centre
Low Earth Orbit Satellites (LEOsats) considered by the Federal government for increased telecommunications coverage in regional areas
Brian O’Kelley aims to reduce the environmental impact of online programmatic advertising
Software company Mendix focuses on low code applications to reduce IT costs
Recent Government Tenders
City of Yarra: Website Redevelopment Project (eProcure)
Hume City Council: Facility Management Booking System (eProcure)
City of Monash: Electronic Injury and Incident Management System (eTenderBox)
Microsoft News
Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) utilises Azure and cloud services in the Taking Farmers to Market program
WaterNSW simplifies their IT infrastructure with Microsoft
