&> Alongside many white papers and magazine articles, Stephen''s previous literary efforts include the book Silver Clouds, Dark Linings: A Concise Guide to Cloud Computing (Prentice Hall 2010). Stephen is a regular speaker at executive events and conferences on topics such as SOA adoption, service engineering, SOA Governance, service-oriented architecture, and cloud computing. Stephen has been involved in multiple standards efforts around SOA and Enterprise Architecture. Stephen has co-chaired a number of working groups within the Open Group organization around SOA Governance and TOGAF/SOA. Thomas Erl is a best-selling IT author and founder of CloudSchool.com(tm) andSOASchool.com. Thomas has been the world''s top-selling service technology author for over five years and is the series editor of the Prentice Hall Service Technology Series from Thomas Erl (www.
servicetechbooks.com ), as well as the editor of the Service Technology Magazine (www.servicetechmag.com). With over 175,000 copies in print world-wide, his eight published books have become international bestsellers and have been formally endorsed by senior members of major IT organizations, such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Intel, Accenture, IEEE, HL7, MITRE, SAP, CISCO, HP, and others. Four of his books, Cloud Computing: Concepts, Technology & Architecture, SOA Design Patterns, SOA Principles of Service Design, and SOA Governance, were authored in collaboration with the IT community and have contributed to the definition of cloud computing technology mechanisms, the service-oriented architectural model and service-orientation as a distinct paradigm. Thomas is currently working with over 20 authors on several new books dedicated to specialized topic areas such as cloud computing, Big Data, modern service technologies, and service-orientation. As CEO of Arcitura Education Inc.
and in cooperation with CloudSchool.com(tm) andSOASchool.com, Thomas has led the development of curricula for the internationally recognized SOA Certified Professional (SOACP) and Cloud Certified Professional (CCP) accreditation programs, which have established a series of formal, vendor-neutral industry certifications. Thomas is the founding member of the SOA Manifesto Working Group and author of the Annotated SOA Manifesto (www.soa-manifesto.com). He is a member of the Cloud Education & Credential Committee, SOA Education Committee, and he further oversees theSOAPatterns.org and CloudPatterns.
org initiatives, which are dedicated to the on-going development of master pattern catalogs for service-oriented computing and cloud computing. Thomas has toured over 20 countries as a speaker and instructor for public and private events, and regularly participates in international conferences, including SOA, Cloud + Service Technology Symposium and Gartner events. Over 100 articles and interviews by Thomas have been published in numerous publications, including the Wall Street Journal and CIO Magazine. Robert Laird is the lead architect of the IBM Software Group in areas of SOA governance and SOA policy; he currently leads the automation of the SOA Policy Lifecycle. Prior to that, Robert co-authored the SOA Governance and Management Method (SGMM) for usage of SOA governance capabilities and maturity assessment. Robert has several years of international consulting experience and was responsible for supporting and leading service-oriented architecture (SOA) governance and SOA architecture engagements for worldwide IBM customers. With more than 20 years experience in the telecom industry at MCI and Verizon, Robert has been the MCI chief architect, leading the enterprise architecture group and has worked across the entire order-to-cash suite of applications. He led the development of the SOA based single stack strategy to simplify the multiple network and applications silos; he has driven the strategy, planning, and execution of MCI''s product development in the area of contact centers, IP/VPN, VOIP, IMS, and managed services; and, for OSS, he has led successful implementations to automate network provisioning, network restoration, and network management.
Prior to joining MCI, Robert worked as a consultant for American Management Systems (AMS) and Ideation, Inc. He has an MS and a BS degree in Computer Science from Purdue University and has been granted two patents in the area of telephony, with three patents pending in the area of computing. As well as speaking at various industry forums, Robert has written for The SOA Magazine , been quoted in CIO Insight , Telecommunications , Infoworld, and Computerworld , and has co-authored two books including SOA Governance (IBM Press 2008) and Executing SOA (IBM Press 2008). Anne Thomas Manes is the Vice President and Research Director for Burton Group Application Platform Strategies. Her expertise includes SOA, web services, XML, governance, Java, application servers, super platforms, and application security. Prior to joining Burton Group, Anne was the Chief Technology Officer at Systinet, an SOA governance vendor (now part of HP) and Director of Market Innovation in Sun Microsystems''s software group. With 28 years of experience, Anne was named one of the 50 most powerful people in networking 2002 by Network World and among the "Power 100 IT Leaders," by Enterprise Systems Journal. Anne has authored Web Services: A Manager '' s Guide (Addison-Wesley, 2003) and contributed the foreword for the new book Next Generation SOA (Prentice Hall, 2011).
Anne has also participated in Web services standards development efforts at the W3C, OASIS, WS-I, and JCP. Robert Schneider is a Partner at WiseClouds, LLC. WiseClouds offers vendor-neutral, unbiased consulting and training services that help customers understand and manage cloud computing business concerns, select the right mixture of enabling technologies, and identify and deploy the ideal configuration required. Robert has provided database optimization, distributed computing, and other technical expertise to a wide variety of enterprises in the financial, technology, and public sectors. Clients have included Amazon, JP Morgan Chase & Co, VISA, HP, S.W.I.F.
T., and numerous governments such as the United States, Brazil, Malaysia, Mexico, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Robert has written six books and numerous articles on database technology and other complex topics such as cloud computing, and SOA. Robert is a frequent organizer and presenter at technology industry events, worldwide. Leo Shuster is a seasoned IT professional. He has directed Enterprise Architecture and SOA strategy and execution for a number of organizations including Nationwide Insurance, National City Corporation, Ohio Savings Bank, and Progressive Insurance. Leo holds an MS in Computer Science and Engineering from Case Western Reserve University and an MBA from Cleveland State University. Thus far, in his 15 year IT career, Leo has held a variety of roles including Director, Manager, Team Lead, Project Manager, Architect, and Developer.
Leo has presented on Enterprise Architecture, SOA, and related topics for groups of all sizes at a variety of industry events and conferences. He is passionate about technology and regularly blogs about advanced software architecture issues at leoshuster.blogspot.com. Andre Tost works as a Senior Technical Staff Member in the IBM Software Group where he assists IBM''s customers in establishing service-oriented architectures. His special focus is on Web services, Enterprise Service Bus technology, and SOA governance. Before his current assignment, Andre spent ten years in various partner enablement, development, and architectural roles in IBM software development. Andre has spoken at industry conferences worldwide on topics related to SOA and is a frequent publisher of articles and papers.
He is also a co-author of several books on Web services and related technologies including Web Service Contract Design and Versioning for SOA (Prentice Hall 2008). Originally from Germany, he now lives and works in Rochester, Minnesota. Chris Venable is an architect and member of the SOA Center of Competency at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. He has 16 years of experience in the IT industry with the past nine focused on SOA, data integration, and other modern software engineering practices. Current areas of interest include business architecture, event processing, variation analysis, and conceptual modeling.