Private Clouds: A Valuable Concept or Buzzword Bingo?

Every once in a while, the machinery of marketing goes haywire and starts labeling all manner of things with inappropriate terminology. The general rationale of most marketers is that if there’s a band wagon rolling along somewhere and gaining some traction in the marketplace, it’s best to jump on it …

ZapThink Announces Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Training in Boston, MA

ZapThink today announces the opening of registration for its four-day Licensed ZapThink Architect (LZA) Boot Camp, providing in-depth, hands-on training and certification on Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and taught by notable SOA expert Jason Bloomberg. The LZA SOA Boot Camp will run from October 26-29, 2009 in Boston, MA.

“Companies are tired of all the hype surrounding Web Services and SOAs, and are finding it difficult to learn what they really need to know from vendor-centric conferences and training,” said Ronald Schmelzer, senior analyst with ZapThink, LLC. “IT professionals want to learn from their peers about what it really takes to put together a well-designed SOA, and desire third-party credentials to assert their SOA knowledge. The Licensed ZapThink Analyst boot camps give Enterprise Architecture practitioners the SOA education and credentials they’ve been waiting for.”

In this four-day SOA training course, attendees will get hands-on experience and expertise in how to implement the latest SOA best practices and methods. Learn about Service modeling, Service domains, SOA infrastructure planning, SOA testing, SOA Quality, Governance, and Management, developing a SOA Roadmap, SOA ROI and Business Planning, SOA Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and metrics, SOA security and performance optimization, SOA policy management, Composite Services and Business Process, Service-Oriented Business Applications (SOBA), and Mashups. Hear about notable SOA security case studies and get hands-on guidance in making SOA work. And, once you complete this course you will become a credentialed Licensed ZapThink Architect.

The ZapThink LZA SOA training and certification program in Boston offers the following benefits:

* An annual credential that allows ZapThink to endorse individual enterprise architects as having specific SOA skills
* Posting onto an LZA Directory that enables companies to research and locate architects to assist with their SOA-specific needs
* Opportunity to contribute to ZapThink’s online research and content
* Participation in exclusive annual LZA-only conferences, events and activities.

The LZA Boston SOA Boot Camp will be held from October 26-29, 2009. Register at www.//bit.ly/izbIZ.

Increasingly, individuals like are looking to get the backing of a qualified third-party organization that can endorse their existing SOA skills as well as enable continuous improvement, enhanced networking with those looking for architecture resources, or enhance their current SOA-enabled careers. Through its LZA program, ZapThink is filling the unmet need for knowledge and credentials in this area.

For more information and to register for an LZA Boot camp, visit http://www.//bit.ly/izbIZ. Early bird discounts are available for a limited time. Seats are limited to only 45 people per LZA boot camp, and ZapThink expects certain boot camp dates and locations to sell out.

Read more at: ZapThink Release

Are Your Business Analysts Ready for BI and MDM? Plus, a SOA Event Discount

Discount for ZapForum DC: SOA & EA Networking Event: IT Business Edge readers in the Washington, D.C. area can receive a 50 percent off discount for ZapThink’s SOA and EA Networking event. Several big-name SOA analysts will be there, including David Linthicum, JP Morgenthal, Tim “The SOA Chief” Vibbert, James Kobielus of Forrester, and, of course, ZapThink analysts Jason Bloomberg and Ronald Schmelzer, who claims he’s the “Life of the SOA Party.” If you can go and check the facts on that claim, I’d appreciate it! The event is 5:30-8:30 at the Gordon Biersch Tysons Corner, October 1. To receive your discount, just use ITBEDISC for half off the regular $29 registration.

Read more at: IT Business Edge

The Fall & Rise of SOA

“In some agencies, there is a mandate for SOA without a clear business driver for SOA,” said Jason Bloomberg, an analyst at SOA consulting firm ZapThink, which sees an increasing proportion of its US-based business coming from DOD SOA projects. “As a result, the risk is that implementation might not meet true business requirements.”

Read more at: Federal Computer Week

WebLayers Teams With Industry Leaders to Offer Free Educational Webinars on IT Governance

WebLayers today announced its fall educational webinar series schedule. The free, one-hour webinars are designed to further educate I.T. managers, architects and developers on relevant industry issues and best practices around governance and are followed by a live question and answer discussion with participants.

The WebLayers fall webinar series schedule is as follows:

SEPTEMBER:
“Boosting the Effectiveness of Federal Enterprise Architecture through Automated Governance” led by ZapThink industry analyst Ronald Schmelzer.

Date/Time: Wednesday, September 23, 1:00 p.m. ET/Registration

Read more at: WebLayers Press Release

Process Isomorphism: The Critical Link between SOA and BPM

ZapThink has long championed the close relationship between Business Process Management (BPM) projects and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) initiatives. As anyone who has been through our Licensed ZapThink Architect Bootcamp can attest, we have a process-centric view of SOA, where the point to building loosely coupled Business Services is …

Reservation Pattern

I just saw an interesting post at Dr. Dobbs about the SOA Reservation Pattern at http://dobbscodetalk.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=SOA-Patterns—Reservation.html&Itemid=29. The basic idea is that there is a problem with the Compensating Transactions pattern (presented in the LZA Boot Camp course). Sometimes Compensations fail, leading to Very Bad Things. Instead, a two-phase approach should be taken whereby a service [...]

What ever happened to the withering RIA market?

Traditional market research focuses on the size and growth of well-defined market segments. As vendors enter and compete in those markets, customers participate by purchasing products and services within those segments, and market research seeks to establish the patterns of such transactions in order to predict the future trends for such markets.

In the information technology (IT) space, however, many markets are transitory in that as new technologies and behavior patterns emerge, what might formerly have been separate markets vying for customer dollars merge into a single market in order to address evolving customer needs. Over time these separately identifiable markets lose their distinct identity, as products and customer demand both mature. The Rich Internet Application (RIA) market is certainly no exception to this pattern of market behavior.

Read more at: ZDNet Blog

The Dissolution of the Rich Internet Application (RIA) Market

Traditional market research focuses on the size and growth of well-defined market segments. As vendors enter and compete in those markets, customers participate by purchasing products and services within those segments, and market research seeks to establish the patterns of such transactions in order to predict the future trends for …