Blog & Articles

Article

Data Inventories in the EU Data Act: The Democratization of IoT Devices

Starting in September 2025, the EU Data Act (Regulation (EU) 2023/2854) will require companies that collect or process data from connected devices to maintain comprehensive data inventories.

Article

Digital Sovereignty as Self-Understanding

How implementation teams can escape the we-are-not-Google trap and collectively take responsibility for European solutions to European problems.

Article

EU Data Act: The Beginning of the End for Cloud Monoculture?
Article

Think Locally: On-Premise LLMs as Drivers of Competitive Advantage

Consider this scenario: Your organisation has integrated AI tools into critical business processes, your legal team has carefully reviewed data processing agreements, and your IT department has configured systems to comply with GDPR requirements. Then, a foreign court issues an order that overrides all these protections, requiring your AI provider to indefinitely retain data that should be deleted—including potentially sensitive corporate information shared by your employees.

Blog Post

Software Analytics going crAIzy!

I’ve long been an advocate of treating software like data and analyzing it accordingly with tools like Python, pandas, Jupyter Notebook, Neo4j, and jQAssistant. In the era of AI and code transformation tools, seeing software as data gets more and more important when you want to improve your software system at a large scale. This blog post is a short interim report from me about my efforts taking software analysis to the next level.

Article

Digitale Souveränität – Ein Definitionsversuch
Article

Digitale Souveränität: Warum die Architektur zählt und wie Sie Ihr Unternehmen resilient machen

In einer Zeit, in der digitale Systeme das Rückgrat unserer Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft bilden, rückt die Kontrolle über die eigene digitale Zukunft zunehmend in den Fokus strategischer Entscheidungen. Für viele Technologieentscheider:innen im deutschsprachigen Raum ist dies nicht nur eine politische oder regulatorische Herausforderung, sondern eine grundlegende Aufgabe, die weitreichende Implikationen für die Software-Architekturarbeit hat.

Article

The Sovereignty Trap: Between Tiananmen and Trump

We talk a big game about values and privacy, yet depend on AI that either denies historical atrocities or could cut us off tomorrow. Is this what Europe gets for dropping the ball on high tech infrastructure?

Blog Post

Mobile Portale mit HATEOAS und Self-Contained Systems
Blog Post

Updating OWASP’s Microservice Security Cheat Sheet: Practical Considerations & Recommendations

Turning principles and patterns into practice — just as promised.

Article

From Data Graveyards to Knowledge Landscapes

Europe is sitting on a wealth of public data—but much of its potential remains untapped. The challenges are well known: fragmented portals, incompatible interfaces, and growing reliance on non-European platforms that slow innovation. While new industrial data spaces are emerging—enabling secure and sovereign exchange of sensitive information—public and industrial data ecosystems remain largely siloed. This article explores how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Model Context Protocol (MCP) can help bridge that gap and accelerate Europe’s shift from Open Data to Open Knowledge—supporting digital sovereignty and delivering greater value to society.

Blog Post

Updating OWASP’s Microservice Security Cheat Sheet: Decision Dimensions for Authorization Patterns
Article

Pragmatische Architekturdokumentation für Entwicklungsteams

Eine gut gepflegte Architekturdokumentation ist nützlich, gerade auch für die Entwickler:innen eines Softwaresystems. Sie hilft nicht nur beim Verständnis, sondern sorgt auch dafür, dass sich wichtige Sachverhalte reflektiert diskutieren und klären lassen.

Blog Post

Updating OWASP’s Microservice Security Cheat Sheet: Authorization Patterns

Authorization patterns explain how distributed systems organize their access control — where and how decisions happen, where policies live — and influence, in turn, how identities and related attributes travel between components.

Blog Post

Updating OWASP’s Microservice Security Cheat Sheet: Identity Propagation Patterns
Blog Post

AI — Behind the Buzzword Garbage

Tired of AI hype? Me too. But beneath the buzzwords lies real value for developers. Tools like Claude Code save me hours on routine tasks, freeing me to focus on what matters: understanding problems and building the right solutions. It’s not magic—it’s practical support that makes development faster without replacing our core skills.

Blog Post

Updating OWASP’s Microservice Security Cheat Sheet: Authentication Patterns

Without knowing who the subject is, without verifying its identity, there is only a limited way to perform meaningful access decisions.

Blog Post

Business Model Canvas: Geschäftsmodelle sichtbar machen

Ein pragmatisches Werkzeug für Architektur, Strategie und Transformation

Blog Post

What’s Wrong with the Current OWASP Microservice Security Cheat Sheet?

Modern microservice architectures require evolving security practices. Yet popular resources like the OWASP Microservice Security Cheat Sheet are starting to show their age and need a fresh look.

Blog Post

Updating OWASP’s Microservice Security Cheat Sheet: Core Concepts

In part two of my series, I begin the journey to rethink the OWASP Microservice Security Cheat Sheet. This post focuses on core concepts, laying the groundwork for practical, real-world microservice security.

Blog Post

First Agile, Then Agentic

Why AI Won’t Help You

Article

Asset Administration Shell und Model Context Protocol

Mit der zunehmenden Digitalisierung der Industrie rücken standardisierte Schnittstellen zur Beschreibung, Verwaltung und Nutzung digitaler Assets in den Fokus. Die Asset Administration Shell (AAS) gilt als Herzstück des digitalen Zwillings in der Industrie 4.0. Dieser Standard soll einen reibungslosen Austausch von Daten gewährleisten. Gleichzeitig entstehen mit Konzepten wie dem Model Context Protocol (MCP) neue, leichtgewichtige Ansätze, Kontextinformationen auszutauschen, die insbesondere für KI-Anwendungen hohe Attraktivität bieten. Beide Protokolle tauschen Daten aus, beide bieten eine gewisse Interoperabilität, beide haben die Möglichkeit, kontextabhängige Informationen auszutauschen. Doch stellt sich die Frage: Kann das einfache, schnelle MCP das schwergewichtigere AAS verdrängen? Oder bieten beide zusammen eine neue, synergetische Perspektive?

Blog Post

Context Engineering

Have you ever wondered how chatbots, copilots, or virtual assistants seem to know just the right things to say — or sometimes, spectacularly fail? The difference often comes down to one crucial skill: context engineering.

Blog Post

Primacy-Recency

Wie Anfang und Ende unsere Wahrnehmung formen

Article

Technical and other Debt in IT Systems

This article explores the many hidden forms of technical debt that silently slow down IT teams—far beyond just messy code.