The Open Group, the international vendor- and technology-neutral consortium, is hosting an IT Architecture Practitioners Conference in Cape Town from 5 to 7 March, in association with Real IRM, South Africa`s leading enterprise architecture specialist. The event will provide experience-based insight into the approaches and methods for developing enterprise architectures around the world.
The Open Group has been active in the architecture domain for over a decade, developing and making TOGAF (The Open Group Architecture Framework) freely available for organisations to use internally. TOGAF is an architecture framework and methodology that provides a comprehensive approach to the design, planning, implementation, and governance of enterprise information architecture. Today TOGAF is today accepted and used around the world as an open framework and method for enterprise architecture.
The conference is targeted at CIOs and senior management responsible for IT and enterprise architecture, designers and managers of IT infrastructures, product and engineering managers of architecture tools, systems integrators, enterprise architects, business process modellers and procurement people responsible for selecting IT products and services.
As the local representative of The Open Group, Real IRM is working with regional Enterprise Architecture Forum members to set the standards for enterprise architecture worldwide, says Stuart Macgregor, MD of Real IRM and one of the world`s leading authorities in enterprise architecture.
"The conference will take a practical approach that combines presentations and discussions on best practices with tutorials, case study reviews and demonstrations of the latest tools," Macgregor says. "We will look at the core capabilities required to enable the enterprise architect to view both the business need and the solution implementation side of a problem; to clarify the skill and experience requirements for developing and implementing enterprise architectures; and the challenges that still exist in this field."
Macgregor says enterprise architecture has become an essential component of all organisations hoping to prosper in the changing business environment. Besides providing the strategic context for the evolution of IT in the enterprise, it also enables organisations to maintain the right balance between business innovation and the integration needs of the extended enterprise. "Enterprise architecture enables individual business units to innovate safely in the pursuit of competitive advantage, while addressing the needs of the organisation for an integrated, business-driven IT strategy," he says. "It permits the closest possible synergy between business and IT."
Conference speakers include:
* Allen Brown, president and CEO of The Open Group;
* Gundars Osvalds, technical director - systems engineering, at Wells Landers in the US who will look at the advantages in developing enterprise architecture by using object-oriented methodology; and
* Klaus Niemann, from act! Consulting in Germany, who will speak on enterprise architecture governance.
A number of case studies will also be presented, including business transformation, EA deployment and value realisation by Simon Carpenter, director, strategic initiatives at SAP Africa, the experience of architecture at Anglo Platinum by Steve Rasmusson, CTO, Anglo Platinum Corporation, and a customer-driven approach for enterprise architecture practitioners by Sat Vijayaraghavan, lead architect retail, CPG &
Distribution, at Wipro in India.
* To register, go to www.opengroup.org/capetown2006/register.htm. For more information, contact Carla Bell, Real IRM Solutions, on 011 805 4755/3734, 082 82 389 0047, or carla.bell@realirm.co.za.
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