"I choo-choo-choose you"; or how to build modern platforms in a 200 year old industry.

Train companies know the importance of platforms and infrastructure, but what do we focus on while building platform services for critical systems that so many people rely on every day?

At BaneNOR, we have all the bells and whistles, and platforms of all sorts. Application, data, integration, and everything from state of the art technology, to legacy systems. How this is structured is a continuous work in progress and evolves in tandem with what the community discovers. Every day try to give developers a good place to run applications, while keeping stakeholders up to date, while keeping everything secure and compliant.

In this presentation we want to go through some of our strategic technical and sociotechnical choices, as well as pain points, pitfalls and low-hanging fruits. All on board the Platform Engineering express train!

Why can't we get rid of this software??

It seems most companies that's been around for a while has this one software or system they just don't seem to be able to get rid of or update in any way. Often are we talking about the accounting system, CRM software or any other that holds a lot of
information that is crucial to our business. The biggest problem is that all of our other important business software is somewhat connected to this. Either with a direct integration or by mirroring of the system's data structure or business logic.

How to get around this spaghetti of integrations? Or even better; can we ensure this never happens (again)?

The answer is as complex as it is simple. And it will definetely be a hard discussion to have with management. It will also feel quite overwhelming if the company has been around for some years and has incurred a lot of technical debt.

And how can we make sure to highlight the return of investment this gives the company over time? Because it will cost a bit to do this, and to be honest, for most users a successful integration platform ensures that "everything works as it did before".

So to begin with, we will cover some of the pitfalls to avoid If you are so lucky that you can take this into consideration at an early stage. But most of us are not that lucky and therefore we will delve into common challenges, tangible methods and structures to use when mapping out the spiderweb of systems and software. These mappings will also be tremendously handy when it comes to sketching out an integration platform but also in order to demonstrate for management why an integration platform is important. The overview will actually make you able to remove these ingrained systems that seem too strongly tied to all your other systems and business logic.

Towards the session’s conclusion we will touch into how to take all the gathered information into the planning of structuring a "standardized" integration platform for your business. Standardized in quotes, because even if all components, infrastructure and resources are standardized, you will have to tailor this to your company’s needs and existing systems.

Maybe we can make it a bit easier (and cheaper?, more manageable, maintainable and easier to monitor in the future to implement new systems and software into your
business.

A bit deeper:

We know we need to gather all our integrations in an integration platform. In order to be able to monitor, handle and not at least swap systems with the least amount of "pain" - being work hours or money. We, as developers and architects, see that all our
point-to-point integrations are unmanageable, but the management only sees programs that work together, and information that flows as it should. How to persuade
management to use money to see no difference in their day-to-day life?

Since our target for the platform is that every program should work just as it did before we standardized all integrations, we will highlight the upsides of doing this, such as monitoring and design patterns, but also the most important pitfalls and challenges, for example the fact that especially from the start you'll be making at least two integrations for every system you want to plug-in. Hence it's important to understand
how this will affect the future. For management we need to propose a solution that will show that we'll saves money
in the future. And saves pain and potential downtime.

Target audience is everyone from developer to technical management. Some experience as a developer would probably be beneficial to get the most out of this presentation.

This speak was first delivered at Caribbean Developer Conference 2022, in the Dominican Republic

A lot of this speech will be based on my earlier published article in Computerworld Norway (https://www.cw.no/debatt-it-systemer/hvorfor-er-det-sa-dyrt-a-skifte-et-it-system/428594) (Norwegian), but with a slighlty more technical view on it. The article was directed more towards a management audience, while I want to turn this towards a developer / tech architect audience.

Event-Driven Architecture: From SMS to Now, Why It Still Matters

Flashback to the early 2000s when SMS was the hot new thing – expensive, yet super exciting. Young and ambitious Manfred set out on an adventure that many called bold (and some a bit foolish). He built a website where users could register, showcase their profiles, upload photos, and send a generous amount of SMS/MMS daily for an affordable subscription fee.

But here's where it got interesting: Manfred didn't have a fancy dev server or a big budget for his backend, so, of course, all development was done in production. There, he crafted a lean and mean system using Windows Services, async communication, and Microsoft MessageQueue to handle the messaging magic. Little did he know, his architecture had a fancy name: SEDA (Staged Event-Driven Architecture).

Fast forward nearly 20 years, and event-driven architecture is still the talk of the town. So why is this old dog learning new tricks all over again? Has much changed? And if it's so "cool," why aren't more people using it?

In this light-hearted session, we'll revisit Manfred's original design and contrast it with today's "new" event-driven approaches. We'll explore why this method is still relevant and its interactions with Master Data Management, data ownership, and data lineage. There will be no hotel booking system examples here; we're all about fresh, practical insights.

Stick around till the end for a playful live demo where microelectronics meet chaos – because why not? Manfred, the ever-enthusiastic nerd, promises some controlled (and fun) madness.

Come with questions, leave with answers (hopefully in that order), and maybe a bit of inspiration for your next project.

From Scatterbrain to Superbrain: Managing the Superpowers of Neurodiversity

Join me on a rollercoaster ride into the neurodiverse universe, where ADHD is not necessarily a problem but maybe a superpower!? Join me for this not-serious presentation, where I discuss my own journey towards discovering ADHD pretty late in life and how it helped me get from scatterbrain to superbrain (or at least a bit better functioning). We'll also glimpse into the unique strengths neurodiverse individuals can bring to the workplace, including hyperfocus and creative solutions. Expect stories, tips from hands-on experience, and a different way of perceiving how accepting neurodiversity can generate a fun, innovative, and diverse workplace. Take our strengths and our quirks and convert the workplace into everybody's playground! I would love your input and questions to make this talk interactive.

Key Takeaways:
- Accept Neurodiversity: Understand and respect the unique strength of your neurodiverse colleagues
- Access ADHD Superpowers: Observe how traits like hyperfocus and creativity can be assets in the workplace
- Create Inclusive Spaces: Discover practical advice for creating more inclusive and welcoming workplaces
- Find the Humor in Struggle: Use humor to navigate through and cope with the idiosyncrasies of neurodiversity.