Columbus Architecture Group

NIST Release Cloud Computing standards, guidelines and Final Reference Architecture

2011-11-05T16:00:00.000-07:00

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been designated by Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra to research and accelerate the adoption of the cloud computing model. As such, they have released their findings which seem to look a great deal like the IBM Cloud Computing Reference Architecture.

Still, this promises to cause Cloud Computing engagements to heat up, and consequently, more architecture and design opportunities for many of us who are willing to embrace the change. Please visit the link and take a look the NIST site for their latest updates.

Resource for Early-career IT Architects & Aspirants

2011-10-05T12:32:00.000-07:00

Resource for New & Aspiring IT Architects:

https://wiki.sei.cmu.edu/sad/index.php/Main_Page

This site covers the implementation of the material explained in the Software Engineering Institute Series book "Documenting Software Architecture: Views and Beyond". It acts as a respository for the material of both 1st and 2nd addition. I highly recommend spending some time on this sight for early career architects and aspirants [such as myself] who may need a deeper understanding of what their deliverable requirements truly are, and the expectation of what they should possibly look like.

Infrastructure Architecture Building Blocks

2011-07-07T09:14:00.000-07:00

Here is the link to a subject that is near and dear to my heart:

https://dya-knowledge.sogeti.nl/dir/DYA_Infrastructure_Repository

For those of you not envolved in the Infrastructure Architecture process, this can help you to gain some understanding of what is involved.

IT Architect Mentorship

2011-06-04T13:06:00.001-07:00

http://bit.ly/mvBuKS

Iasa has the only world-class mentoring solution for architects and architecture teams in enterprise and technology architecture. We have world-class mentors including Iasa Fellows and Certified IT Architect Professionals. Don't forget to ask us about our corporate mentoring programs for architect capability and team development.

The program gives you a year to work with as many mentors as you would like. The mentoring sessions last 60 days (2 full months) and allow you to develop specific skills to help you in your day to day work. Each mentoring session will provide you many opportunities to work with experienced architects in the following areas:

Focus Area: Business Architecture, Enterprise Architecture, Information Architecture, Infrastructure Architecture and Software Architecture
Industry: Retail, Grocery, Insurance, Defense, Banking, etc.
Skill Area: Valuation Techniques, Presentation Skills, UML, Design, Architecture Descriptions, Leadership, Security, Reliability, etc.
Next-Generation Technology: SOA, Cloud Computing, Mobility, Data Center, etc.

The program officially kicks off on August 1st, 2011 but we are only accepting 60 candidates in the first round. As an early adopter you will get additional time with mentors, the chance to work directly with the Board of Education and the Iasa thought leadership, and the opportunity to lock down mentoring with the worlds top architects. Additional candidates will be accepted after the first 30 days.

New Facilitators

2011-05-17T05:46:00.000-07:00

Greetings fellow IT architects ! Many of you will have noticed that Craig S. is in need of a hiatus and has asked for assistance in moving our agenda forward. I, along with James, have accepted the challenge, endeavoring to do the very best that we can to keep our membership learning and growing.

In support of this effort, I would ask that each of you take a few moments out of your busy schedule and tell us what it is that you would like us to discuss in our meetings. Are there topics that you would like to see re-visited? Issues that you would like to see covered that have not been discussed yet? This is your group, and we can only make it as great as you would like for it to be.
Let's hear from you.

- Donovan Johnson

No ColARC until further notice

2011-04-27T10:17:00.000-07:00

There will not be a ColARC meeting in May, or following, until I can find someone to organize them.

Family circumstances (good ones!) are preventing me from organizing ColARC or even attending any evening events. Anybody want to help?

April Meeting Announcement: AOGEA 2011 First Quarter Meeting

2011-03-14T06:40:00.000-07:00

Please join the 2011 first quarter meeting of The Association for Open Group Enterprise Architects (AOGEA), Ohio chapter, whose purpose is to advance the enterprise architecture profession and professional excellence in IT Architecture in the Ohio region.

The meeting will be on Thursday, April 07, from 6-8 p.m., at 5515 Parkcenter Circle Dublin, OH 43017, in the Ivory Conference Room.

Agenda for the meeting:

Registration and snacks
Value of EA, Utilities Industry
Pablo Vegas, CIO of AEP
EA experience
Srini Krish, CTO J.P.Morgan Chase
A Plan For All Seasons - Achieving Strategic Alignment Through EA
WebAge Solutions
Q & A
Vote of thanks

Tickets for the event are free, but you need to register to attend.

Join Us on April 7th for a Joint Meeting with AOGEA Ohio

2011-02-25T14:15:00.000-08:00

The next ColARC meeting will be a joint meeting with AOGEA Ohio on Thursday, 7 April. Location and speakers will be announced soon!

No meeting in February

2011-01-27T14:18:00.001-08:00

We will not have a meeting in February due to lack of a speaker. Please feel free to suggest speakers for future meetings! The next meeting will be a joint meeting with AOGEA Ohio, probably in March. The date will be announced here when it is set.

Next ColArc Meeting: February 1st

2010-12-13T19:17:00.000-08:00

Many thanks to the 40 or so people who came to our November meeting! Our next meeting will be February 1. Happy New Year!

September Meeting: Architecture is the Business

2010-08-24T14:18:00.000-07:00

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.

Reminder: Defensible .NET on Tuesday 3 August

2010-08-02T14:28:00.000-07:00

Come hear Jason Montgomery present Defensible .NET tomorrow!

August Meeting Announcement

2010-07-08T13:43:00.000-07:00

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.

July Speaker Evaluation

2010-07-06T14:02:00.001-07:00

To submit speaker feedback for Jason Tiret, please fill out this short survey. Thanks!

Reminder: Creating a Data Model for Your Enterprise

2010-07-02T07:43:00.000-07:00

Want to cripple business agility and make developers miserable? A poorly-designed and maintained data model will do all that and more. If you'd prefer to build a maintainable data architecture, come hear Jason Tiret present "Modeling for Your Enterprise" this coming Tuesday, July 6, at 6:00 p.m.

Two Day Visual Studio 2010 Briefing on June 22-23

2010-06-10T18:11:00.000-07:00

This is not a ColARC event, but you might like it anyway...

TFS 2010 Overview, Scrum integration: June 22-23

Jason Tiret Presents Modeling for Your Enterprise on July 6

2010-06-04T14:38:00.000-07:00

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.

June 1 Meeting: Can Developers and Management to See Eye to Eye on Nonfunctional Requirements and Technical Debt?

2010-05-28T06:56:00.000-07:00

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?

Submit Presentation Proposals for Columbus Architecture Group

2010-05-20T14:52:00.000-07:00

May Meeting Announcement

2010-05-01T07:54:00.000-07:00

The next Columbus Architecture Group meeting will be on Tuesday May 4th, at 6:00 p.m., at ICC,2500 Corporate Exchange Drive, Suite 310, Columbus, OH 43231.

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.

April's Agenda: Advanced Analytical Architectures

2010-03-16T13:39:00.000-07:00

The next Columbus Architecture Group meeting will be on Tuesday April 6, at 6:00 p.m., at ICC, 2500 Corporate Exchange Drive, Suite 310, Columbus, OH 43231.

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.

March Meeting Announcement

2010-03-01T15:20:00.001-08:00

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:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/B92KZBP

February Meeting Announcement

2010-01-22T07:43:00.001-08:00

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

December Meeting Announcement

2009-11-12T11:32:00.000-08:00

The next ColARC meeting will be Monday December 7th at 6:00 at the Quick Solutions office 440 Polaris Parkway, Suite 500.

Steve Andrews will be speaking:

Solution Management Architectures: Beyond The Code

Once a software solution moves beyond a single project, a single developer, or a single environment, larger issues such as versioning, building, and deploying the code come into play as the number of developers and environments grow. In this session we'll take a high-level look at version control structuring, branching and merging methodologies, multi-environment configuration management, and build structuring.

Steve Andrews is a Team System MVP and INETA speaker, and has been working as a developer for more than 9 years. During this time, he has designed and developed applications in such widely varying areas as trust accounting, medical information management, supply chain management, and retail systems. Steve is also a MCTS, ICSOO, and community fanatic.

November Meeting Announcement

2009-10-30T04:21:00.000-07:00

The next ColARC meeting will be Monday November 2nd at the Quick Solutions building at 440 Polaris Parkway, Suite 500 in Westerville at 6:00

This month we will be having a fish-bowl meeting. As last months meeting topic never actually got discussed at all, we'll hold it over. The topic is "Has development become too complicated?"

This is the second month of the ColARC membership drive. For those playing at home, we ARE NOT on track to get the required 150 total entries by February to give away the XBox. It's not too late, we can still catch up! There is an XBox on the line here folks, so be sure to bring some new people with you!