Microsoft Belux Architect Forum December 20

On December 20 we will organize our next Architect Forum for the Belux region.

Theme: Software + Services
As today’s architect, you are confronted with exiting but equally challenging broad topics like Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Business Process Management (BPM).  You have to face interesting questions such as in what cases to use software services that run in the cloud (Software-As-A-Service - SaaS) versus using software that is hosted at your hosting partner versus software running locally.  You reflect about how to absorb and leverage Web2.0 in the enterprise (AKA Enterprise 2.0) or in that same space how to provide your consumer-users a better User Experience in the world for RIA’s or providing them a richer user experience accessing their traditional LOB applications.  All this of course while staying as secure as expected by the business.
We promise you will NOT get all the answers on those questions during the next Architect Forum but we have the ambition to bring you insights that will help you formulate the best answers for your environment (see agenda below for more info about the sessions and the speakers).

Attendee profile
Experienced architects as well as more aspiring architects are welcome on this event.  You are also very welcome to forward this invite to people whom you think might be interested in these topics.

LogisticsWhen? On Thursday December 20 is the one day to meet the experts, to tackle your brains and to network with other architects going through the same challenges.
How much?
There will be an entrance fee of 50 EUR, all details available through the Architect Forum registration page.

Where?
Elewijt Center
Tervuursesteenweg 564
1982 Elewijt
Tel: 015 62 72 72
Road description: click here

Agenda

8:30 – 9:00 Registration & Coffee

9:00 – 9:10 Welcome

9:10 – 10:40 Software + Services as the future model for applying IT and how Office Business Application fit into this S+S world.

MS architectural strategy of "Software + Services" complements the nowadays popular vision of SaaS where basically browsers (running RIAs) connect to services only running in the cloud. S+S enriches and complements this SaaS vision by leveraging local IT resources where this brings added value for the end-user. In this context MS pitches "Software plus Services" instead of "Software versus Services". Learn about the impact this model has on the application architecture of Software as well as Services and the impact for the IT organizations that are embracing this new model. Also learn how OBA fits in this model.
Philippe Destoop, Architect , Microsoft Belgium and Luxembourg

10:40 – 10:55 Coffee break

10:55 – 12:00 Architecting Applications for a Service-Oriented World
Many people still believe that Service-Oriented systems are just a Web of applications connected through Web services. However the real power of Service-Orientation lies in the definition of a conceptual service model that defines the contract and interaction of the services. This service model provides a great way to align business and IT and it is this alignment that represents one of the major benefits of Service-Orientation. We’ll discuss how to build Service-Oriented applications and shed some light into how to re-factor existing applications to become Service-Oriented.
Beat Schwegler, Architect Microsoft Western Europe

12:00 – 13:00 Lunch

13:00 – 14:00 Architect and Develop Search-Enabled Enterprise Applications.
As part of a holistic Enterprise Search strategy, modern applications have to be designed to become searchable. In this session we’re going to discuss how to crawl and index existing line-of-business (LOB) applications to ensure that their data becomes searchable. But it’s not only about "becoming-searchable". A new type of "search-enabled" application can take advantage of the query engine to create a consistent search experience across different applications and leverage the search results as an integrated part of the application. Such applications might use the query Web Service to retrieve search results that can be displayed and formatted according to the needs of the application itself, which provides the user with an integrated but consistent search experience across the different systems and applications.
Beat Schwegler, Architect Microsoft Western Europe

14:00 – 15:00 Identity management challenges inside the web.
In this session we'll explore some of the core issues facing our identities online and then discuss how technologies such as Windows CardSpace enable users to authenticate and/or present personal information more easily and safely to sites that they know are legitimate. The session will cover both conceptual concepts behind Information Cards and show what is under the technical hood.
René Loehde, Architect Microsoft Denmark

15:00 – 15:15 Break

15:15 – 16:15 User Experience for Architects
Microsoft puts a lot of attention this days into UX (User Experience) technology, which currently results in a burst of new UX related technology and tools like WPF, Silverlight, AJAX.NET, Expression Suite etc. While this is all great technology and hence in principle good news for architects, this also causes a problem for architects in that they need to get an insight in how to position all those UX technologies to make sure to make the right decisions for projects and frameworks.
Philippe Destoop, Architect , Microsoft Belgium and Luxembourg

16:15 - 17:15 North European eProcurement.
Learn how this real-life e-Procurement system, based on Oasis UBL 2.0, is implemented using OBA building blocks like Word 2007 (or should we say OpenXML) to capture any e-procurement vocabulary or to mapping complex data structure (like a Purchase Order) to content controls or WF to take care of the workflow aspect of a typical e-Procurement system
René Loehde, Architect Microsoft Denmark

17:15 – 18:30 Informal Talking with snacks and drinks

18:30 End of Forum

Speakers
Beat Schwegler is the Enterprise and Technical Evangelism Lead in the Developer and Platform Evangelism Group for Microsoft Western Europe. He provides advice and consulting to enterprise companies in software architecture and related topics and is a frequent speaker at international events and conferences. He has many years experience in professional software development and architecture and has been involved in a wide variety of projects, ranging from real-time building control systems, best selling shrink-wrapped products to large scale CRM and ERP systems.

René Løhde is an architect at Microsoft Denmark where he engages with enterprise customers in the field. His main focus is enterprise application integration, interoperability and identity management. Before René joined Microsoft he was a program manager in the Danish public sector where he was involved in the earliest standardization and interoperability work.

Philippe Destoop is an architect at Microsoft Belux where he fosters an architect community and engages in the field with architects in big enterprises and public sector. Before taking care of this architect role, Philippe was 9+ years with MS Consulting Services working as Solution Architect on major enterprise projects in a wide variety of projects in various sectors.

I look forward to meeting you there,

Philippe