LEAP - Halfway through the Dutch masterclasses
The past few months I have been attending the Microsoft Lead Enterprise Architect Program (LEAP).
LEAP is no architecture programme, but a programme for architects who want to know more about Microsoft solutions and the vision behind the various Microsoft products.
Last week the third of five masterclasses was given in The Netherlands. These masterclasses are about currently available technologies. In January a trip to the Microsoft head office in Redmond, USA will give us more information about the future vision of Microsoft.
LEAP is organised by the Dutch Microsoft Innovation Center. There are 4 groups of approximately 50 people each. Each masterclass is given for one of those groups, so Microsoft gives each masterclass 4 times, on several days.
The subject of the first masterclass was "(De)coupling or information systems". Presented technologies were among others BizTalk and Sharepoint, but also for instance Microsoft Host Integration Server. This session was mainly about Service Oriented Architectures (SOA).
The trainees get much information sent to them to prepare for the masterclasses. In this first masterclass 13 documents were sent, which had be studied in advance.
The masterclass itself started with a short (and fast) overview of the different products and their use in architectures. After the presentations a case was presented concerning a fictional bank.
The group was split up in 6 teams for a workshop. Each team got the following tasks:
- Extract the business requirements from the case.
- Define architectural decisions.
- Create a high-level architecture.
- Describe the pros and con's of the architecture.
After the workshop, the results had to be presented to one of the other groups. After a short break Microsoft presented its own design to all people present.
After a good meal the masterclass was finished at 7:30 PM.
The set-up of the following masterclasses was equal to the first, only the subject was different.
The second masterclass was about "Access to information and services". Here technologies such as Silverlight, Smart Client, XAML, BI and datamining were discussed. This too was a very informative and inspiring day.
The third masterclass about infrastructure was my speciality. The presented processes and technologies were: Infrastructure Optimization (IO), MOF (ITIL with a Microsoft taste), System Center (formerly known as MOM and SMS server with some extra extensions) and the Dynamic Systems Initiative (DSI).
A very interesting subject was WSSRA (Windows Server System Reference Architecture). This is a set of documents with standard patterns for the implementation of Microsoft technology. It contains architecture blueprints, implementation guides and goods pratices concerning security, storage, networking and much more. The total scope of the information is approximately 3000 pages!
In a couple weeks the following LEAP session session is planned, about security. More about this later.
This entry was posted on Friday 09 November 2007