The final day of the plenary at
The Open Group’s 17th Architecture Practitioners Conference in San
Francisco, California, focused on skills and experience-based
certification for the enterprise architect, was kicked off by opening
remarks from Len Fehskens, Vice
President & Global Profession Lead at The Open Group.
Cristina
Woodbridge, Worldwide IT Architect Profession Leader, IBM,
then discussed the importance of the very population that has been
camped out at the Fairmont Hotel for the past three days in her
presentation - enterprise architects. As
the profession of enterprise architects grows in today’s global
landscape, Cristina asserted that it’s imperative that the criticality
of the role of the enterprise architect is understood; and suggested a
mentoring program be formalized to help move the profession forward in
addition to maintaining current programs.
Following this, Ron Schuldt, Senior Staff Systems Architect, Lockheed Martin (US), introduced a spotlight on The Open Group’s Security Forum led
by Mike Jerbic, Chair, The Open
Group Security Forum. Information
Risk Management and SOA are two major issues being addressed by this Forum,
including operationalizing their strategy this year.
“Unanswered Questions About
the Enterprise Architect” was the focus of Len
Fehskens’ presentation. Len provided the audience with a brief
history of this relatively new profession, the implications of not
clearly defining enterprise architecture, and some food for thought,
including why is it so difficult to define architecture in the phrase
“enterprise architect?” He also asked the audience to consider if an
enterprise architect is born or made and how do we make enterprise
architecture a true profession?
Next
came a glimpse into the efforts of The Open Group Platform
Forum during another spotlight. This
Forum is focused on open standards for operating systems, including the
UNIX® system, POSIX®, open source operating systems such Linux® and
BSD, real-time systems, and network computing. Some of the current
projects include revising their specification documents and creating a
guidebook about certification.
Andras
Szakal, Chief Architect, Federal Software Group, IBM, presented on
the IT Architect
Certification Standard Level 3: the Distinguished Certified IT Architect.
He shed light upon what it means to be a Level 3
Distinguished Certified IT Architect. The major defining attributes that set this level apart from
Levels 1 and 2 are leadership capabilities, technical breadth, and full
lifecycle experience. Andras suggested the "culmination of knowledge, skills, and
experience" are what defines what it means to be an IT architect.
Following this, Jason Uppal, Chief Architect, QR Systems, Inc. (Canada), talked about how enterprise architects can be developed, the
expectations of this role, and the necessary skills it takes to become a
successful enterprise architect. He
went on to comment that an “enterprise architect is not about a
person, it’s about a competency and how to develop it”. He also offered that enterprise architect competencies can be
developed and should be done so through a mentor program – teaching
technology is the easy part of the development process.
A key take-away from Jason’s presentation was “the success of
IT projects depends upon shared understanding and shared commitment".
Wrapping up the morning plenary
were several Forum/Work Group spotlights, Vish
Viswanathan of CC&C Solutions (Australia), provided an overview
of The Association of Open Group Enterprise Architects (AOGEA) and
encouraged the audience members to start an AOGEA Chapter in their area.
Also, Bob Weisman, Partner
& Executive Consultant, CGI, talked about the hot bed of
enterprise architecture around Ottawa, Ontario,
and Quebec and suggested sharing best practices between the private and government
sectors. Finally, Joseph
Bergmann, Director
of the Real-time & Embedded Systems Forum, The Open
Group, discussed
the RT&ES Forum and how they are taking
technologies to the edge. Main issues being addressed right now are
assurance and security.
While the morning plenary was
focused on the enterprise architect, the afternoon included tracks about
SOA, TOGAF™, and the architecture profession.
Highlights included Cristina
Woodbridge who hosted a panel about women in enterprise architecture in
the Enterprise Architecture Professional Development stream.
Participants included Judy
Cerenzia, Sr. Program Manager, Videon Central, Inc., Sue Miller-Sylvia,
Distinguished Engineer & Service Area Leader for Enterprise
Architecture & Technology in Global Business Services (GBS), IBM,
and Jane Varnus, Enterprise Architect, Bank of Montreal (Canada).
The participants shared experiences and best practices that
have contributed to their success as enterprise architects in a
predominantly male profession.
During the TOGAF stream, Mats
Gejnevall, Certified Enterprise Architect, Capgemini, SOA Working Group
Co-Chair, and SOA Governance Project Co-Chair, presented “Business
Architecture: Using a Business Service Model”.
He suggested that using a business service model is a
useful tool for architecture framework.
Ron
Schuldt, Senior Staff Systems Architect, Lockheed Martin, used a
case study to demonstrate how using an enterprise-wide controlled
vocabulary based on The Open Group’s UDEF standard can help with SOA
in the Semantics for SOA stream. The
TOGAF and EA Practice stream included a tutorial for establishing a
TOGAF-based enterprise architecture practice by enterprise architecture consultant
Paul
van der Merwe of Real IRM (South Africa), based upon experience by Real
IRM. The audience gleaned from insight about sustainable architecture
and Real IRM’s proven method of architecture practices.
Wrapping up the afternoon in the
Information Architecture stream, Arnold
van Overeem, Certified Global
Architect, Capgemini, provided the audience with insight in his
presentation “Advances in Semantic Interoperability in Europe”.
Arnold described how interoperability can be achieved and provided proven
solutions by using the European Interoperability Framework (EIF).
