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ZapThink Announces Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Events in Sydney, Australia

admin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:10:00 +0000

ZapThink Announces Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Events in Sydney, Australia

SOA Certification and Training, Networking, and Governance Events January 2010

BALTIMORE, MD October 21, 2009 — ZapThink today announces the opening of registration for three separate Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Enteprise Architecture (EA) training, certification, and networking events in Sydney, Australia, running from January 11, 2010 to January 19, 2010.

“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.”

Courses, certification, and networking offered include:

In the 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 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.

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 the events, visit http://bit.ly/ctIJ. 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.

ZapThink Announces Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Training in Washington, DC

admin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:10:00 +0000

ZapThink Announces Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Training in Washington, DC

Licensed ZapThink Architect (LZA) Boot Camp to Run February 1-4, 2010

BALTIMORE, MD October 14, 2009 — 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 February 1-4, 2010 in Washington, DC (http://bit.ly/vw7WQ).

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 Washington, DC 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 Washington, DC SOA Boot Camp will be held from February 1-4, 2010. Register at http://bit.ly/vw7WQ.

For more information and to register for an LZA Boot camp, visit http://bit.ly/vw7WQ. 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.

ZapThink Announces Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Training in London

admin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:10:00 +0000

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 December 8-11, 2009 in London (http://bit.ly/180Csy).

The ZapThink LZA SOA training and certification program in London 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 London SOA Boot Camp will be held from December 8-11, 2009. Register at: http://bit.ly/OYJdN

For more information and to register for an LZA Boot camp, visit http://bit.ly/OYJdN . 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.

Summa and ZapThink SOA Events

admin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:10:00 +0000

Summa is sponsoring two upcoming ZapThink SOA events.

The first event is a networking and panel discussion of SOA Experts (including Jason Bloomberg, David Linthicum, Summa’s own Jason Armstrong and others.) It is October 1 in Washington DC (Tyson’s Corner). More details are here:

The second event is in Pittsburgh on October 22nd – focused on SOA and modernization featuring project case studies from CMU ahd Highmark. More detail and registration information are here.

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

admin — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:09:00 +0000

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.

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.

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

admin — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:09:00 +0000

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.

SOAは死んだのか？ ZapThinkフォーラムレポート（米・ボストン）

admin — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:08:00 +0000

2009年7月23日、米ボストン周辺にてSOA、EAコンサルタントのためのイベント「ZapThinkフォーラム」が開催された。今回は、「SOAはもう死んだのか？」をテーマに熱い議論が繰り広げられた。本稿では、その概要をお伝えする。
ビールを片手にSOAを語り合う

　 2009年7月23日、米ボストン周辺のSOA、EAコンサルタント達が、恒例のZapThinkフォーラムに参加すべく「M.J.O’Conner’s Irish Pub」の一室に集合した。このフォーラムは、SOA、Web Service、EAなどのコンサルティングに携わる人々の相互交流を目的としたもの。一般的なフォーラムと違って飲食店において立食形式で行われるほか、一方的な講義形式ではなく参加者全員が同じ立場で意見交換できるなど独特の工夫が凝らされている。普段は演壇の上でしか見たことのないような著名人とビールを片手に話せる環境が魅力的なイベントだ。

Net-Centricity: SOA in Battle

Jason Bloomberg — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:08:00 +0000

ZapThink recently conducted our Licensed ZapThink Architect Bootcamp course for a branch of the United States Department of Defense (DoD). As it happens, an increasing proportion of our US-based business is for the DoD, which is perfectly logical, given the strategic nature Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) plays for the DoD. SOA is so strategic, in fact, that SOA underlies how the DoD expects to achieve its mission in the 21st century — namely, defending US interests by presenting the most powerful military presence on the globe. Furthermore, the story of how SOA became so strategic for the DoD provides insight into the power of SOA for all organizations, both in the public and private sector.

This story begins with the issue of complexity. The DoD, as you might imagine, is an organization of astounding complexity, perhaps the most complex organization in the world, save the US Federal Government itself of which the DoD is indubitably the most complex part. And with complexity comes vulnerability. As the sole remaining global superpower, the US’s strength in battle, namely our overwhelming force, presents vulnerabilities to much smaller enemies. Traditional guerrilla tactics give small forces advantages over large ones, after all. Our 21st century adversaries understand full well the ancient principle of using an enemy’s strengths against them. The DoD is rightly concerned that its sheer scale and complexity present weaknesses that today’s terrorism-centric threats can take advantage of.

From the Network to Service Orientation

Even before 9/11, there was an understanding that the core challenge that this complexity presented was one of information: who has it, how to share it, and how to rely upon it to make decisions — in military parlance, Command and Control (C2). In response to this need, the DoD instituted a new strategic program, Network Centric Warfare, also known as Net-Centricity. The idea for Network Centric Warfare arose during the late 1990s in response to the rise of the Internet. Its original concepts, therefore, were essentially “Web 1.0″ in nature. It didn’t take long, however, for DoD architects to realize that the network itself was only a piece of the puzzle, and it soon became clear that the challenges of Net-Centricity were as much organizational as technological. After all, Net-Centricity requires cooperation across the different branches of service — a tall order for an organization as siloed as the DoD.

In fact, as the DoD and their contractors hammered out the details of Net-Centricity, it became increasingly clear that Net-Centricity required a broad, architectural approach to achieving agile information sharing in the context of a complex, siloed organization. At that point, SOA entered the Net-Centricity picture, providing essential best practices for sharing information resources to support business process needs. In the military context, such business processes are operational processes, where the operation at hand might be fueling airplanes or deploying ground troops or spying on suspected terrorists with a satellite. When battlefield commanders say that they want the warfighting resources at their disposal to be available as needed to achieve their mission objectives, they are essentially requiring a Service-Oriented approach to Net-Centricity.

Information as a Strategic Military Asset

Information has always been a part of warfare, since the stone age or even earlier. Essentially, the element of surprise boils down to one force having information the other does not, regardless of whether you’re sneaking up on a foe with a club or leveraging satellite technology to precisely target an attack. The same is true of Net-Centricity. Net-Centricity centers on supporting the military’s C2 capabilities by ensuring the right information is in the right place at the right time. These three dimensions all create a path toward SOA:

The right information:commanders on the battlefield need all relevant information. It is essential to have access to relevant information from different forces, different locations, and different branches of service. Furthermore, commanders need a way to separate relevant information from the surrounding noise. And finally, they must ensure that the information is reliable.
In the right place:today’s warfare is an inherently distributed endeavor. Gone are the days where armies fight each other on single fields of battle. Today, commanders might call upon forces from hundreds of miles away, on land, at sea, in the air, or in space. Furthermore, the people who need the information might be anywhere. For example, a navy ship may get the information it needs to target a missile from air support, satellite-based intelligence, and ground capabilities. The commander needs one view while the troops on the battlefield need another.
At the right time: information is perishable. The more dynamic the purpose of that information, the more perishable it becomes. Knowing where your enemies are right now is far more valuable then where they were an hour or a day ago.

If you’ve been following ZapThink for any amount of time, you’ll recognize these business drivers as being a recipe for SOA. It’s no surprise, therefore that the Global Information Grid (GIG), a central Net-Centric capability, is inherently Service-Oriented. The GIG essentially consists of a set of Services that provide the underpinnings of the right information at the right place at the right time, as the figure below illustrates.

The Global Information Grid (Source: SAIC)

There are a few features of the GIG worth noting. First, note how the core notion of a Service pervades the GIG. Every capability, from security to messaging to management, is represented as a Service. Secondly, keep in mind the global nature of the GIG. This is not a solitary data center; the GIG represents global IT capabilities across all branches of service for the entire DoD.

Today, the stakes for Net-Centricity couldn’t be higher, because information itself proffers a new set of weapons, and even new battlefields. As a result, Net-Centricity focuses not only on leveraging shared IT capabilities to gain an advantage on both large and small opponents using traditional tactics, it also covers protecting our forces from information-based attacks as well as launching our own. After all, if a small but smart opponent combines traditional guerrilla warfare with the information-centric guerrilla tactics we now call cyberwarfare, our vulnerabilities multiply. If a single opponent with an improvised explosive device can wound us, what about a single opponent with a means to interfere with our communications infrastructure?

The ZapThink Take

There are lessons here for our readers both within the DoD as well as at other organizations, including those within the private sector, where the battles are economic. For DoD readers, it’s important to recognize the importance of SOA to Net-Centricity, in particular how the architecture required to succeed with Net-Centricity is the true SOA that ZapThink talks about, where organizational transformation is a greater challenge than the technological issues that organizations face.

For other organizations, the lesson here is how to take a page out of the DoD’s playbook. Net-Centricity is by no means the first example of how a DoD project led to broad commercial application; after all, the Internet itself is a case in point. In the DoD we have an organization with both a mind-boggling complexity problem and enormous resources, both financial and human, to assign to the problem. Sharing information across lines of business in a bank or manufacturer or power utility is child’s play in comparison to getting the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines to share information effectively.

Furthermore, as ZapThink continues its work within the DoD, we can help act as a conduit for conveying the best practices of Net-Centricity to the private sector, as well as other government organizations. You’ll see evidence of Net-Centric lessons learned in both our LZA Bootcamp as well as our new SOA & Cloud Governance course. The more complex your organization, the more a Net-Centric approach to achieving your strategic goals is a useful context for your SOA efforts, and ZapThink can help.

Finally, some organizations may find the concept of Net-Centricity to be a useful synonym for SOA. If you’re having trouble explaining the benefits of SOA to a business audience, perhaps a discussion of Net-Centricity will help to shed the light on the approach you’re recommending. After all, not only does Net-Centricity focus on effective information sharing in a complex environment, it also distills the urgency and importance of the military context, where the enemy is literally trying to kill us. Competition in the marketplace may not be a literal life-or-death battle, but leveraging best practice approaches to fighting such battles that treat them as though they were truly about survival is an attitude that any seasoned business stakeholder can take to heart.

ZapThink Announces Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Training in Dubai

admin — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:08:00 +0000

ZapThink Announces Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Training in Dubai
Licensed ZapThink Architect (LZA) Boot Camp to Run November 2-5, 2009

BALTIMORE, MD August 17, 2009 — 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 November 2-5, 2009 in Dubai, U.A.E. (http://).

In this four-day SOA training course (http://), 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 Dubai 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 Dubai SOA Boot Camp will be held from November 2-5, 2009. Register at: http://bit.ly/aheCZ

For more information and to register for an LZA Boot camp, visit http://bit.ly/aheCZ . 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.

ZapThink Hosts Practical Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Enterprise Architecture (EA) event in Washington, DC

admin — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:08:00 +0000

ZapThink Hosts Practical Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Enterprise Architecture (EA) event in Washington, DC
Focus on Cost-Effective Legacy Modernization & Data Management

BALTIMORE, MD, August 11, 2009 — ZapThink announces today the availability of its upcoming Practical Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Enterprise Architecture (EA) morning seminar event, running on October 2, 2009 in Washington, DC. The event features speakers, best practices, case studies, and lessons learned on how to implement cost-effective legacy modernization and data management strategies in the context of the latest enterprise architecture initiatives. The Practical SOA event series is targeted at companies and individuals looking for practical business case studies and value propositions for SOA, those who want to learn the latest best practices for making SOA a success, those looking to hear from successful architects about their SOA efforts, want to learn from peers about what it takes to put together a successful SOA, and/or want to take their SOA efforts to the next level.

“Companies are looking for practical solutions to their SOA and EA challenges,” said Ronald Schmelzer, Managing Partner with ZapThink, LLC. “Practical SOA events give Enterprise Architecture practitioners, consulting firms, and vendors, the best practices and practical implementation knowledge they are seeking by hearing from other architects and getting hands-on instruction on particular SOA and EA challenges.”

Sponsors and presenters at the upcoming Practical SOA & EA event in Washington, DC on October 2, 2009 include:

Dan Finerty, DataDirect
Jason Bloomberg, ZapThink

At the morning event, which runs from 8AM to 12noon PT, attendees will hear about the following topics:

Make SOA work in the context of legacy systems
Learn how to involve the mainframe in the context of SOA
Learn about methods for dealing with “legacy” data and composing heterogeneous data in a SOA environment
Returning Value with a Data Service Layer
Legacy, Data, and the Cloud

For more information and to register for this Practical SOA event, visit http://bit.ly/2Ty0ZU. Cost is just $29 to attend. Seats are limited and ZapThink expects Practical SOA events to sell out.