I've been watching the Oracle purchase of Sun very carefully. My last company made significant investment into OpenESB (open source~ version of Sun JCAPS). I had advised against the investment given the Oracle purchase and it's uphappy history with open source.

Regarding this situation, going after Google for the Android VM may well be something that has Oracle good ground to do. But in end it's going to hurt Oracle big time in the open source community reputation wise.

Definitely one to keep watching. Some useful background reading at ARSTechnica:

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/08/oracles-java-lawsuit-undermines-its-open-source-credibility.ars

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/08/oracle-sues-google-over-use-of-java-in-android-sdk.ars

As part of Seâd's "Latest in IT" Seminar Series 2010, I'm doing a talk on Service Oriented Architecture as follows:

Service Oriented Architecture - Friend or Foe?
 
Service Oriented Architecture (or "SOA") is a concept that has been around a while - several years ago it was the big buzz word before "the cloud". Some organisations have embraced the concept and used it to drive significant IT change - especially around introducing flexibility and decreasing the total cost of IT. Meanwhile, many other organisations have struggled to use SOA and see any real benefit.

This session will help to dispel the myths and legends of SOA and will concentrate on explaining why SOA can make a significant difference to legacy IT environments. This session will further drill into the relation between "the cloud" and SOA as well as examining why the premise of SOA is still important today.

Date: Wednesday, 23 June 2010
Time: 5.30pm to 7.30pm (5:30pm – Drinks and Networking, 6:00pm - Speaker starts)
Where:  The Auckland Club, Dorchester Building, 34 Shortland Street, Auckland.
RSVP to Norma Lum at events@sead.co.nz by Friday, 18 June 2010.

I'm currently on a TOGAF 9 course with my team of Enterprise Architects. I was certified a number of years ago in TOGAF 8 and it's really interesting to see how TOGAF 9 has come along in the last year. There are some excellent additions particularly around the content model. I am currently looking very strongly at using TOGAF 9 for the next EA framework at my company. It is answering so far some of my issues around TOGAF 8 as a comprehensive framework for Enterprise Architecture - which is good! 

This course is being put on Architecting the Enterprise.

As per my recent blog post I have just run my course on Service Oriented Architecture twice in Novemeber. The feedback was extremely positive and it was a really enjoyable experience spending quality time on a topic I am very passionate about. I must thank all the participants on the course for making it a great experience for me. In that vein I've posted the overview section from the course book for others to look at it. If anyone is interested in having this course run for them, please don't hesitate to drop me a line on lukas AT svoboda DOT co DOT nz.

RealisingServiceOrientation-Overview.pdf (187.37 kb)

The concept of an Enterprise Architect vs. a Solution Architect vs. a Technical Architect. The following diagram is something I'm using in my travels to help with the understanding between the differences in architecture role. It based on some town planning/construction analogies to help non-IT people understand the differences.

Be interested in feedback from people on this one and how they see within their own environments.

EASATA.jpg (96.22 kb)

Today I was asked what the collective noun was for Architects.

I simply replied "A murder of Architects"!