Sunday, June 10, 2007

Greetings from Prague

I am typing from the Czech Republic, where I just attended the SOA workshop preceding the Systems Integration 2007 conference. I'm told this is the largest conference of its sort in the region. I presented at the workshop (slides to be posted by the conference) on the technology trends that are driving SOA as a viable application/integration strategy. I also sat on a panel with folks from HP (formerly Systinet), Progress, Sun, and the University of Technology, Sydney. Hot topics: SCA and governance. Expect to hear a lot more in these areas over the next year.

The interesting takeaway for me was the similarity of the views of the presenters and panelists. I believe this reflects a common experience with customer requirements. This is a particularly good thing, since it means that the SOA hype phase may be over, and now we're getting down to the real value proposition: easier, cheaper application integration, flexible business processes, and better alignment with business objectives.

Tomorrow I have a chance to keynote the main conference. I am planning to dwell on these three topics. In addition, Jon Maron and I are doing a three hour presentation for the Oracle field and customers on the next iteration of the SOA platform. Should be a fun, but very long day!

Addendum (a few notes on Prague): beautiful city with architecture going back to the middle ages. Mostly I have been in hotels or meetings, but the city is extremely pleasing to the eyes and a pleasure to walk around. We managed to do just that a bit and see the prague castle, the old town's powder gate tower and the famous astronomical clock. Ironically, the czechs are renowned for the high percentage of atheist citizens: the houses of worship are really amazing. This morning, we had a chance to explore the Jewish quarter, also fascinating (the Spanish synagogue is not to be missed). St. Vitus's Cathedral rivals Notre Dame as a massive, buttressed church: it also houses the tomb of "Good King Wenceslas".

3 comments:

Mark Little said...

Wish I was there, but I'm keynoting at my own conference. Sounds like you're having fun though! Say hi to Jon.

Unknown said...

I was in Prague a few weeks back as well, great city, definitely worth a personal trip to.

Anonymous said...

I also like Prague very much. Once I was there, and when I left, I felt that I miss Prague a lot. And I decided to come back. Now I live here and enjoy Prague beauty every day!