Thursday, May 24th, 2007

ZapThink LZA Reviewed

ZapThink launched LZA (Licensed ZapThink Architect) Boot Camps in early 2007 to provide a SOA credential and matched training. The Boot Camps were intended to provide both a common, objective understanding of SOA to practicing Enterprise Architects and the chance to obtain a credential from a qualified and respected third party (ZapThink).

createTank Attends…

After much thought, I attended the LZA Boot Camp in Baltimore last month (April 23-25) for what boiled down to two hard, tangible reasons:

1. To widen my horizons (and createTank’s) by concentrating on a broader and more business oriented slant toward SOA (createTank has historically focused on research around the implementation questions of a SOA, or software architecture in general).
2. To attain an architectural (and specifically a SOA) credential to differentiate createTank from those that are “architects in name only” (see Vitruvius’ Education of an Architect to be discussed here at a later date). The fact that this credential would come from such an independent and objective organization as ZapThink was quite a convincing point.

I did in fact get what I came for … I saw a review of SOA from a different perspective, and I am now a Senior Licensed ZapThink Architect (Senior LZA). However, I did get more than I expected. Specifically, I found in my notes and “take-backs,” a refinement in some of our positions at createTank. I also met quite a few good Architects and Technologists from across the country and around the world that should hopefully prove to be good friends with which to bounce and share architectural ideas. I’d been looking for a community such as this for a long time now.

Since Then…

I’ve finally found the time to review the notes and complete my internal reports. They really did pack a lot into the three days. The time betwixt has allowed me a good deal of dialogue with other Architects, including our own Larry Liberto, which has further refined the positions and ideas of interest. I should be posting many of our findings and related interesting points here over the next few weeks.

Concerning the refined positions, most are agreed upon by createTank and ZapThink, but createTank seems to have a slightly different take in areas which may prove interesting. This is likely due to our technical and implementation specific background. It might be an over simplification, but we tend to ground our architectural advice from below in our implementation experience, whilst ZapThink tends to support their architectural advice from above with business experience. Of course both methods are legitimate and useful, but they are different. There is a great deal of overlap, as there should be in architecture, but by researching the differences, we may refine our positions and learn more from each other. I’m somewhat amazed at how we’ve come to so many of the same conclusions about SOA and Architecture in general while approaching the problem from such different perspectives. I’d speculate that the common factors are [1] experience and [2] the ability to be honest about that experience. It seems that many groups (especially vendors) let marketing get in the way of that which is best left in its simplest state.

We at createTank have been big fans of ZapThink for a while now as one of only a few organizations out there that were not trying to sell SOA as a set of products, but rather trying to reveal the truth behind its power. I would definitely recommend the LZA Boot Camp to any genuine or aspiring Architect out there with an interest in seeing SOA framed in an objective manner. I’d also recommend it to organizations looking to implement SOA internally, as a vaccine to the seemingly endless vendor sales pitches in store for them.

ZapThink: http://www.zapthink.com/

ZapThink LZA: http://www.zapthink.com/lza.html

ZapThink Architect Resource Center [ARC]: http://www.zapthink.com/ARC-view.html

Next Scheduled LZA Event: Sydney, Australia May 28-30, 2007
Register: http://www.zapthink.com/eventreg.html