Welcome to Issue 12 of the Journal. The theme this time is "Web Architecture." I'm sure I don't need to tell you how important the Web has become in recent years for architects in almost all organizations. After speaking with many about designing for the Web, however, one common motif is the need to adapt — to take architectural principles that have worked in the past and refactor them for the Web. As a result, I've tried to keep this in mind when selecting the articles for this issue.
Leading the issue with the topic of Web 2.0 in the Enterprise, we have returning author Michael Platt. Michael discusses some of the technology, data, and people principles of Web 2.0, and then maps them to how they can be used inside and outside the enterprise. Following Michael's article, Gianpaolo Carraro, Fred Chong, and Eugenio Pace introduce the concept of a Service Delivery Platform. Building on their work in the Software as a Service space, they cover what's needed to enable efficient software delivery on the Web today. Danny Thorpe from the Windows Live team follows with an article that explores some of the complexities of cross-domain communication in the browser. Using a novel analogy, Danny looks at a set of techniques that can be used to overcome this challenge. We also have Michael Pizzo's excellent article on an application-oriented model for relational data. With data being a huge part of many applications on the Web, Michael takes us through some of the challenges with database and application schemas today, and introduces a framework to better integrate the two.
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