The Open Group Enterprise Architecture Practitioners Conference, Austin
Day Two Highlights

The second day of The Open Group Enterprise Architecture Practitioners Conference in Austin featured 10 Streams, including:

• Service Oriented Architectures & Enterprise Architecture
• TOGAF Case Studies
• Enterprise Architecture Development
• Enterprise Architecture Management
• SOA Governance
• TOGAF Tutorials
• Information Architecture
• IT Architect Certification
• SOA Models & Frameworks
• Enterprise Architecture & Business Value Realization

Sridhar Sudarsan, Executive IT Architect with Software Lab Services at IBM, kicked off the Service Oriented Architectures & Enterprise Architecture stream with a presentation entitled "Adopting SOA – Aligning the Business and IT". His session explored how business process management, SOA, evolving business models, and governance are drawing business and IT together. Following Sridhar's presentation, Mats Gejnevall, Certified Enterprise Architect at Capgemini, discussed how to connect EA with SOA. His presentation revealed a number of usable EA practices from the Capgemini IAF (Integrated Architecture Framework) toolbox. The relationship between these practices and a number of the ongoing Open Group SOA projects was also highlighted.

Awel Dico, Ph. D., and Enterprise Architecture Consultant for Bank of Montreal, discussed how his organization has addressed business needs through SOA and TOGAF. He argued that proper implementation of SOA requires a framework that assists in defining processes to link various stakeholders and deliverables. He demonstrated how TOGAF can fulfill these requirements and assist organizations in managed SOA delivery.

After the coffee break, Ed Harrington, EVP & COO, Model Driven Solutions, Inc. and Chris Armstrong, Armstrong Process Group, Inc., presented on the Synergy Project to attendees in the TOGAF Case Studies stream. The Synergy Project is a collaborative effort between The Open Group, OMG, the Integration Consortium, and the TEAMS Initiative focused on achieving business and IT-level benefits via aligning TOGAF’s Architecture Development Method (ADM) and OMG’s Model Driven Architecture (MDA).

Practicing architects frequently complain that the project managers and architects are not on the same page during the architecture deployment phase. Jason Uppal, Chief Architect for QRS, explored how project managers and enterprise architects can work better together to create a shared vision for IT/business alignment.

In the Enterprise Architecture Management stream, Jerry Larivee, Principal Architect at Infosys, presented results from his company’s recent survey on enterprise architecture. The survey revealed that enterprise architecture is increasingly being utilized as a strategic tool for business transformation. The top three objectives of enterprise architecture identified by survey participants were: enabling business process flexibility; simplifying technology and application portfolios; and better aligning IT and business. The survey also showed that TOGAF has emerged as the de facto EA framework for large organizations.

In the IT Architect Certification stream, Cristina Woodbridge, Worldwide IT Architect Profession Leader and an Executive IT Architect at IBM, presented on the skills development trajectory for professional IT architects. She provided several tips for people who are considering a career in IT architecture, notably: find a mentor, take charge of finding the opportunities to grow, read, network, and become familiar with The Open Group IT Architect Conformance requirements. After the coffee break, Arnold Van Overeem, Global Architect, Sector Products, Architecture & Infrastructure at Capgemini, delivered a presentation on Information Architecture. He began his session by arguing that Information Architecture is missing from TOGAF, which tends to focus more on data architecture. He advocated a framework that fully addresses both areas.

Raju Alluri and Srikanth Inaganti of Wipro, gave the closing presentation in the SOA Models & Frameworks stream on the notion of an SOA maturity model. They argued that a good way to benchmark an organization's SOA maturity level is to establish an SOA maturity model, with progressively higher levels detailing the products and processes that need to be in place to achieve them. The session discussed the various aspects of an SOA product maturity model, and proposed a hybrid model that tracks both the process and product maturity of an organization.

Sam Ceccola, Deputy CTO for BEA, moderated a lively panel in the Information Architecture stream on the important, yet challenging relationship between information architecture and SOA. Panelists included Ron Schuldt, Senior Staff Systems Architect at Lockheed Martin, Chris Harding, Forum Director for SOA and Semantic Interoperability at The Open Group, and Arnold Van Overeem, Global Architect, Sector Products, Architecture & Infrastructure at Capgemini.