Monday, December 13, 2010
Next ColArc Meeting: February 1st
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
September Meeting: Architecture *is* the Business
What would you do if you were CEO for a month? What if you suddenly had to answer directly to your customers, your stockholders, your board, your employees – what would you do first, then what would you do next? If you are an IT architect and several major business initiatives and various impact scenarios didn’t just run through your mind, then perhaps you should consider broadening your perspective. Forward-thinking companies hold architects accountable for business progress and impact well outside of the IT domain. Because the practice of architecture crosses organizational and functional boundaries, architects are uniquely positioned to drive investment strategy, identify revenue opportunities, and reduce cost/risk for the enterprise. In this session we’ll explore a model designed to help IT architects expand their role to optimally drive business and technology strategy, describe the steps architects need to take to jump-start business transformation, and provide lessons-learned along the way.
This presentation is a recording from the 2009 ITARC conference in New York City. The speaker, Angela Yochem, will be joining us via Skype to answer questions after the presentation.
ANGELA YOCHEM is an executive in a multinational technology company, a thought leader in architecture practices and large-scale technology management, and the author of “Event Driven Architecture – How SOA Enables the Real-Time Enterprise”. Angela has held senior leadership roles in Fortune 50 companies where she drove technology transformation based on business objectives. Prior to her executive roles, Angela specialized in design and delivery of large-scale distributed systems and solutions to complex integration and convergence challenges. She has extensive B2B and B2C commerce implementation experience, with a foundation in systems design and network design and management of multicampus networks. Angela is the author of J2EE and WebLogic Server, 2nd Edition and is an IASA Fellow and an US Patent holder. Angela serves on executive boards and is a regular speaker at events and forums in the United States and abroad.
The presentation will be on Tuesday, September 7th, at 6:00 p.m, at ICC, 2500 Corporate Exchange Drive, Suite 310, Columbus, OH 43231, on the third floor. The meetings are always free, and we usually give away books and other door prizes.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
August Meeting Announcement
Defensible .NET
ASP.NET and the .NET framework have become a preferred foundation underlying enterprise applications. While Microsoft has prioritized integrating security into the ASP.NET framework, attacks at the application layer are dramatically increasing. How effective are the security controls built into the ASP.NET framework? Application architects must understand the limitations of the framework and ensure that code is secure. Focusing on the OWASP top ten, Jason Montgomery will explain the latest defensive techniques specific to the ASP.NET environment, and discuss the importance and challenges of building security into the organization’s software development lifecycle.
About the speaker
Jason Montgomery is Sr. Security Specialist at Active Technologies Group, Inc. (ATGi). He is a SANS instructor in .NET application security and co-author of the secure coding certification, GSSP.NET. Jason has spent the past five years guiding software security practices at the Department of Defense, and currently leads ATGi’s secure software development and assessment practice.
Location
The presentation will be on Tuesday, August 3rd, at 6:00 p.m, at ICC, 2500 Corporate Exchange Drive, Suite 310, Columbus, OH 43231, on the third floor. The meetings are always free, and we usually give away books and other door prizes.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
July Speaker Evaluation
Friday, July 2, 2010
Reminder: Creating a Data Model for Your Enterprise
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Two Day Visual Studio 2010 Briefing on June 22-23
TFS 2010 Overview, Scrum integration: June 22-23
Friday, June 4, 2010
Jason Tiret Presents Modeling for Your Enterprise on July 6
Most small to medium organizations place a premium on development and deliverables rather than documentation and architecture. While this may be great to get the business started, things can quickly spiral out of control as new systems are put in place.
Jason Tiret, Director of Modeling and Architecture Solutions for Embarcadero Technologies, will be the featured presenter for the July meeting of the Columbus Architecture Group. This session will teach the user how to build a practical data architecture strategy from the ground up!
Jason's presentation, called "Modeling for Your Enterprise," will include the top 5 best practices for using data models to capture metadata effectively and support key enterprise initiatives such as Business Intelligence, Data Architecture, Data Warehousing, Governance and Compliance, and SOA. Jason lives in California and will be presenting and answering questions via LiveMeeting, just for Columbus Architecture Group.
The presentation will be held Tuesday, July 6, at 6:00 p.m, at ICC, 2500 Corporate Exchange Drive, Suite 310, Columbus, OH 43231. The meetings are always free, and we usually give away books and other door prizes.
Friday, May 28, 2010
June 1 Meeting: Can Developers and Management to See Eye to Eye on Nonfunctional Requirements and Technical Debt?
Deciding between spending development time working on flashy new features, paying back technical debt, or implementing so-called "nonfunctional requirements" can be a source of tension between developers and business managers. Some authors suggest ways to argue in favor of paying back technical debt.
Of course, sometimes it's appropriate to take on technical debt or defer working on nonfunctional changes. Architects can do better than just being ready to counter arguments against spending time on these issues when they come up. Well-managed technical debt is part of a software design. A good architect needs to consider technical issues in light of business needs. Not surprisingly, visibility and communication are the keys to doing this successfully.
On Tuesday, June 1, at 6:00 p.m., at ICC, 2500 Corporate Exchange Drive, Suite 310, Columbus, OH 43231, we'll examine this issue in more depth. How can a team leader bridge communication gaps between developers and business management? What are effective ways of managing nonfunctional requirements? When does it make sense to take on technical debt, and why?
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Saturday, May 1, 2010
May Meeting Announcement
The Case for Cloud Computing: What is Azure, and Why would I use it?
Is cloud computing the rage? Is it the new buzz? What if we have been doing it for years, and we didn’t even know. Let’s talk about the how’s and why’s to arm you to use critical thought in your own environment to see if and when cloud computing might help you out.Brian Prince
Brian H. Prince is an Architect Evangelist for Microsoft.He gets super excited whenever he talks about technology, especially cloud computing, patterns, and practices. His job is to help customers strategically leverage MS technology, and help them bring their architecture to a super level.
In a past life Brian was a part of super startups, super marketing firms, and super consulting firms. Much of his super architecture background includes building super scalable applications, application integration, and award winning web applications. All of them were super.
Further, he is a co-founder of the non-profit organization CodeMash (www.codemash.org). He speaks at various regional and national technology events including TechEd. He only wishes his job didn’t require him to say ‘super’ so much.
Brian holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer Science and Physics from Capital University, Columbus, Ohio. He is also a zealous gamer. For example, he is a huge fan of Fallout 3.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
April's Agenda: Advanced Analytical Architectures
Advanced Analytical Architectures
The age of advanced analytics is upon us. Today systems are delivering AI results in real life systems. The integration of advanced analytical technology into line of business applications requires special considerations. As such, an analytical technologies can be set for “stun or for kill” when inserted into an operational environment. Analytical technologies generally consume base information, composite/augmented information, derived information, and real time information and then synthesize everything to direct workflows, decision support activities, or predictive logic. Getting this right is sometime more daunting than it would otherwise seem. This session will review analytical technologies such as rule engines, neural networks, decision trees, and more and will describe how they can best be integrated into a larger application. Additional consideration will be given to testing and validating these architectures.H. Michael Covert
H. Michael Covert is currently a founder and Managing Director of DesCovRē Consulting LLC, a regional IT consulting firm specializing in Corporate Performance Management, Business Process Management, Technology Optimization, and the usage of advanced analytics in a business environment. Mr. Covert served as the Vice President of Performance Management for WHITTMANHART, Inc. based in Chicago. Prior to this role Mr. Covert served as the Chief Operating Officer of Infinis, Inc., a regional business intelligence consulting company based in Columbus, OH. Infinis merged with WHITTMANHART in 2005. Mr. Covert has over 30 years of experience in a variety of business and technical roles and is skilled in all aspects of business operations and business development, including sales and marketing. He is a specialist in business oriented analytics, specifically the areas of risk management, profitability analysis, financial management, consumer marketing, and governance and regulatory processes. He is also an experienced specialist in operating systems, networking, middleware, performance and tuning, capacity planning and software development methodologies.Prior to assuming his current role at Infinis, Mr. Covert was the Vice President of Product Development and Chief Technology Officer for Columbus-based Alta Analytics, producer of data mining and visualization software. During his four years with Alta, he was responsible for overseeing the research and development, technical support and management information systems departments. As CTO, Covert served as the primary technical architect on several analytical and data mining products. In 1999, Alta won the Industry and Technology Council of Central Ohio-sponsored Top C.A.T. award for technical achievement for its product called NETMAP™ for Financials. In addition, Covert has served in technology management roles for Claremont Technology Group (now COVANSYS) where he was the Director of Advanced Technology, Banc One (Now J. P. Morgan Chase), Goal Systems and Chemical Abstracts Service, all Columbus-based companies. Covert earned a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics with Honors and Distinction from The Ohio State University. While there, he received the Putnam Scholar in Mathematics Award for placing in the top 1 percent in the United States in mathematics. Mr. Covert currently serves on the board of directors for The Wellness Community (a cancer outreach center) and for TeamDynamix, Inc. (a software development organization with IT governance products), and was previously a member of the Columbus Technology Council Advisory board.
Monday, March 1, 2010
March Meeting Announcement
Apologies, this was supposed to go out last week, but there was apparently a clog in the Inter-tubes and I was out of the country and didn’t see that it wasn’t published. Sorry for any inconvenience this causes.
Note: This meeting will be at ICC, NOT Quick Solutions. Please note the new address below.
Topic: The Economics of Cloud Computing
Return on Investment is key for large and small organizations in these risky times. A key mitigator of ROI risk is the avoidance of capital expenditure on IT infrastructure. While traditional Application Service Provider style hosting services do fit this bill, there is a new service on the horizon that has key benefits over the ASP model - cloud computing. Cloud computing leverages virtualized resources to isolate the developer and user from details of the infrastructure, while spreading infrastructure capital expenses over a large number of hosted applications. Bill will discuss the realities of hosted applications, including the current popular ASP models, and compare them to cloud computing. There will be an overview of cloud computing architecture and strategy. He will end with a comparison of various commercial cloud services, including Google AppEngine, Amazon S3 and Microsoft Azure.
Speaker: Bill Sempf is an enterprise architect. In 17 years of professional experience he has participated in the creation of well over 200 applications for large and small companies and managed the software infrastructure of two internet service providers. He is the author of Visual Basic for Dummies (2008 and 2005) and has contributed to numerous other publications. He is a graduate of The Ohio State University with a Bachelor's of Science in Business Administration and has several professional certifications.
Where: ICC , 2500 Corporate Exchange Drive, Suite #310 at Tuesday March 2nd at 6:00 PM
ICC would like to get a preliminary headcount for the meeting. Please take a moment and let them know if you’ll be attending by clicking this link:
Friday, January 22, 2010
February Meeting Announcement
Topic: The Profession of IT Architecture - A discussion for Architects, Aspiring Architects and IT Managers
The role of Architect really lit up the job boards over the past 6-7 years. Unfortunately the title is rather ambiguous with the variations such as, Application Architect, Enterprise Architect, Systems Architect, Domain Architect to name a few. What are these varieties? How can you create a career plan to move into and around the profession? How can IT leaders structure their departments to take advantage of the role and provide growth opportunities for their associates?
In this discussion we’ll look at what the profession of Architecture really is. We’ll look at the various segmentations and levels of IT architecture and look at what skills are more important for the various roles.
The objective of this discussion is to provide some clarification on the profession of IT Architecture. Professionals will be able to use this information to work more effectively in their existing positions, or craft career goals in the Architecture profession. IT Leadership will see how to structure organizations to tap into this field, reducing risks and opening up new opportunities. Additionally leaders will be able to offer more specific goals and objectives for those architects they manage. This is an informative discussion for anyone working in or around the IT architecture profession.
Speaker: Christopher Grant is a Sr. Architect with an MBA and nearly 15 years of experience in the technology field. He has lead technology efforts in a wide variety of organizations, large and small, ranging from real estate to retail. Christopher has studied a various Architecture styles and frameworks including Zachman and TOGAF and has sat on multiple Architecture Boards and contributed to various Centers of Excellence. Over the years he has worked in a variety of domains ranging from internal business systems to externally facing eCommerce systems, in a variety of technologies from Java and Microsoft to ColdFusion and PHP, Flash and Flex.
Where: Quick Solutions, 440 Polaris Pkwy, Suite #500 at Monday February 1st at 6:00 PM