The Architecture Journal has just announce their call for papers for the 23rd issue, which just happens to be focusing on Architecture Modeling and its role in the broader SDLC.

If you’ve got something interesting you want to share, I encourage you to submit a paper idea and we’ll take a look. I’m helping review the submissions, so make it good! :)

More Info: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/architecture/bb219087.aspx

Cameron Skinner has recently made two excellent blog posts that give a great explanation of how to use Layer Diagrams for architecture and design validation in your code. He shows you the basics of creating a layer diagram and binding it to your solution elements. He then shows you how to incorporate that validation right into your build!

• Layer Validation with the VSTS 2010 CTP
• Incorporate Layer Validation in your Builds

Excellent stuff you should certainly go read.

(For all this stuff, you will need to be running the VSTS 2010 CTP.)

The patterns & practices team is please to announce the availability of Architecture and Design Guidelines for Business Intelligence Applications. This exploratory community project provides prescriptive guidance on how to overcome architectural challenges and design issues when building Business Intelligence solutions using Microsoft platform.

This guide is intended for software architects and developers who are developing Business Intelligence applications on the Microsoft .NET Framework using SQL Server 2005 - Integration Services and Analysis Services.  Being an exploratory community project - anticipate gaps and scope for improvement.   For more information see: http://codegallery.gotdotnet.com/biguide.

We have just released another excellent guidance offering... this time focused on testing. Here is the abstract:

The patterns & practices Architecture Testing Guide is designed to help project stakeholders, software designers, developers, and testers understand the process of testing software architecture before the code is implemented. The paper describes an approach and methodology for testing the design of a system, and describes the user-specific viewpoints that you must consider during the testing process. The Architecture Testing Guide walks through the process of testing a system from each viewpoint, and provides instructions, examples, and best practices along the way. A draft version of the paper is for download here.

You can download it from GDN.

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