By Ash Patel, Marketing Specialist, The Open Group
The recent Summit of The Open Group in Houston brought together a variety of subject matter experts, keynote speakers, Forum Members, Work Groups, and Consortia to engage in an active dialogue involving the following tracks: Enterprise Architecture (EA) for Sustainability, Cybersecurity and Zero Trust, Open Industry Standards, and The Digital Enterprise.
The Open Group Houston Summit opened its doors to distinguished experts, esteemed government officials, visionary industry leaders, and experienced practitioners where they exchanged invaluable experiences and profound knowledge in efforts to deliver a sustainable and secure tomorrow. Following a welcome introduction from The Open Group President and CEO, Steve Nunn, the event began with Jon Curtis, Founder and CEO, Net Zero Matrix, who spoke about The Role of The Open Group in the Journey towards Net Zero and gave attendees key insights into all, along with mentioning the collaboration between The Open Group OSDU® Forum and The Open Group Open Footprint™ (OFP) Forum.
“You get to a point where any emissions still going on are balanced by removals. Aviation will be hard to solve, so needs to be balanced by carbon removals and continue into the future”- Jon Curtis (Net Zero Matrix)
Continuing the theme of the event, Chris Gabriel Principal Solutions Architect, Energy & Sustainability, Amazon Web Services, and Jane Wheelwright Senior Technical Applications Specialist, Dynamic Graphics, spoke in-depth about Collaboration in Carbon Counting: OSDU, CCUS, and OFP. Their presentation examined the importance of standard data models in areas of surface emissions and carbon capture, and subsurface sequestration, and detailed the objectives of the new Harmonization group within The OSDU Forum.
This was followed by John Linford, Security & Open Trusted Technology (OTTF) Forums Director, The Open Group who Introduced the Portfolio of Security Standards. A particular highlight was when John went through the five functions of The Open FAIR™ Standard, a standard of The Open Group, & NIST CSF.
It was then over to Chris Frost, Principal Enterprise Architect, Global Delivery Architecture Division, Fujitsu, with a presentation on Developing Secure and Sustainable Digital Products. His explorative session looked at the best practices available to all in The Open Group standards in helping develop and operate digital products to achieve these goals. He further looked at how the following Standards of The Open Group: IT4IT™, ArchiMate®, and the TOGAF® Standard, valuable best practice, and where they fit within the lifecycle of developing and operating a digital product.
We were then taken through a journey surrounding the Open Dependability Through Assuredness- O-DA™ 2.01, led by Kyoichi Matsuzawa Associate Director, Kyndryl, Japan, and Hirobumi Kawamura Director, Rococo.
The afternoon then kicked off with Track 1: The Digital Enterprise, where Mark Bodman, Senior Product Manager, ServiceNow, discussed EA in a Digital Product World – providing a new guidance review. The session summarized the current perspective on how established standard and frameworks come together in a pragmatic way that makes EA more effective for organizations that are applying digital transformation in 4 key areas; products and services they sell, the work employees perform, establishing foundational digital capabilities, and addressing the digital factory automation needs.
Following suit was Track 2: Cybersecurity & Zero Trust, where Nikhil Kumar, President & Founder, Applied Technology Solutions (ApTSi) and Mark Simos, Lead Cybersecurity Architect, Microsoft, set the stage on the “what” and “why” of Zero Trust. This included the Zero Trust Commandments and how they apply to many on their Zero Trust journey, digital business and cloud initiatives, and their impact on resilience and sustainability. We also learned how to apply Zero Trust as an essential component of a Sustainable Enterprise as it seeks to adopt the requisite technology in a secure manner. Nikhil and Mark are practitioners and thought leaders who have taken multiple organizations on this journey, lead the Zero Trust Working Group, and are co-authors of this Standard.
They also spoke about the Zero Trust Reference Model later on in the day. In this session, they taught us the capabilities and building blocks of Zero Trust and how to practically approach its implementation to reduce blast radius of attacks, reduce attack surface, and operate in an assume compromise/breach mod
Track 3: OSDU 101 Business & Technical session also ran simultaneously, with attendees learning about how the OSDU Forum operates, who its members are, and what the OSDU Forum have achieved. This proved very useful for existing Members and non-Members of the OSDU Forum.
Keeping the momentum of the days theme, Track 1: Digital Enterprise saw Brody Merrit, IT Architecture and Oversight Team, Stewart Title, offer a showcase on Digitalization and Cloud Migration in Financial Services – Case Study of a Title Insurance Company. Brody’s session provided a glimpse into the journey of a title insurance company as it embraces digital transformation, leveraging technology to enhance efficiency, accuracy, and customer experience.
Track 2 featured Tony Carrato, Security Architect, giving a presentation on Cybersecurity & Zero Trust where he mentions Security Principles for Architecture. The session mentioned how The Open Group Security Forum has been working to create a single set of architecture principles for all standards and related work within the Security Forum.
Up next, Andrew Josey, VP, Standards & Certification, The Open Group, introduced the TOGAF Framework Digital Specialist (as part of Track 1: The Digital Enterprise), including insights into the Specialist certification credential (a recent addition to the TOGAF Certification Portfolio).
Track 2 then resumed with Jason Garbis, Principal, Numberline Security, giving an engaging presentation on the distant and recent history of Zero Trust, the current state of the industry, and more. This was followed by John Feezell, Director Security Consulting – Cyber Risk Quantification Lead, Kyndryl, who touched on Open FAIR being a Critical Enabler of the First Commandment of Zero Trust.
With the day in full swing, Track 1: The Digital Enterprise Sonia Gonzalez, Digital Portfolio Manager, The Open Group, gave an engaging presentation on The Open Group Portfolio of Digital Open Standards: Navigating the Digital Landscape. Her presentation showed how the portfolio of digital open standards acts as a guide for the organization’s digital transformation journey, providing a roadmap for adopting technologies, optimizing processes, and aligning with strategic objectives.
The final track of the day, Nikhil Kumar, Mark Simos, Tony Carrato, Jason Garbis, John Linford, and Mike Leuzinger came together for a panel discussion on all things to do with Cybersecurity and Zero Trust.
Finishing the day was a Networking Reception, which gave attendees a chance to relax and network with the other attendees, speakers, and exhibitors.
Day 2
After a riveting and engaging first day looking into ‘Delivering and Securing a Sustainable Tomorrow’, we were pulled back into the action, with Andrew Josey, kicking off with a hands-on presentation on The Open Group Standards Process Refresher. The session provided a refresher of the guidelines that we follow for the development of deliverables within The Open Group. It also included a brief review of the Standards Process, where the various resources are and more. This was followed by an introduction to the day’s events ahead, by Steve Nunn We were then briefed on Notes from the 2023 Enterprise Architecture Awards with Charles Betz, Lead EA Priority, Forrester. This presentation gave a great overview to the Awards and also how they went. In his talk, Charles presented key findings and themes from this year’s awards, and discussed what differentiated the winners from the rest of the applicants.
“Training not just architects, but all developers and engineers is a way to make architecture real” – Charles Betz (Forrester)
Next came a presentation on Security and Sustainability through the lens of AI – Existential Threat or Humanity’s Savior?, by Andras Szakal, VP and Chief Technology Officer, The Open Group. In this session, Andras explained how AI may affect cybersecurity and sustainability, and discussed mitigating the risks of using AI based systems within organizations.
Continuing the day on was Phil Tetlow, CTO Data Ecosystems, IBM, presenting virtuallywith a very engaging presentation on Ecosystems Architecture. Phil covered the work recently undertaken by the Ecosystems Architecture Group, and providing some tantalizing insight into how generative AI may help in designing massively complex IT systems.
Switching the focus to Healthcare, Jason Lee, The Open Group Healthcare Forum Director, and Scott Sloan, CTO, Kyndryl showed attendees the Enhanced Dutch ZiRA for Business Continuity Planning. The recently published Guide provides a complete and enhanced translation of the Dutch Hospital Reference Architecture. The “ZiRA in English” is the result of a three-year collaboration with Nictiz, the Dutch knowledge center of excellence.
This lead on to the next presentation lens around the OFP Data Model for Software Carbon Emissions – a reference implementation, led Ibrahim El-Sayed Regional Head, Softeq and Kadri Umay, Principle Architect, Microsoft. Their presentation provided an overview of:
- The benefits and approach of using the OFP Data Model for Software Carbon Emissions
- Showcasing a reference architecture
- Highlight the OFP data model as an industry agnostic model
- Calculating Product Carbon Footprint for AI based product development
- Showcasing the integration with Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability
Starting the EA for Sustainability and Open Industry Standards Track, was Martin Mysyk, Senior Enterprise Architect, SAP, as he spoke about Making Business Greener and Stronger: How Enterprise Architecture Can Help. His session explored the synergy between EA and Sustainability, demonstrating how EA practices can be harnessed to drive ecological responsibility and create resilient, future-ready enterprises.
Keeping to this messaging, was Inder Kumar Purohit Senior Solutions Architect, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, and his presentation looking at an Overview of Enterprise Architecture Practice at Takeda Pharmaceuticals. This was the story of Takeda’s EA practice’s two-year transformation that has resulted in unprecedented levels of stakeholder satisfaction, award winning innovation, speed, agility, and business immersion.
This led nicely to Pedro Vieira, Manager, and Italo Dourado Affonso, Digital Engineering Data Manager, Petrobas, who spoke on Digital Engineering – the Need of an Open Standard to Unleash the Future of Industrial Engineering. The baton was then passed onto Dipanjan Sengupta Executive Director, Technology Consulting, Ernst & Young, who captivated attendees with his presentation, on an Open Industry Standards-based Framework for Implementing Generative Artificial Intelligence Use Cases.
In his session, Dipanjan highlighted some practical challenges, based on real-world examples, and present the idea of a software development and governance framework that can help overcome many of them. He also demonstrated a prototype of the framework, built using open industry standards, presenting a real-world use case from the retail domain.
The sessions culimated with Andrew Josey speaking about The TOGAF Standard, 10th Edition and the TOGAF Certification Portfolio in two parts, including a detailed look at learning paths added for the TOGAF Standard, 10th Edition.
The evening concluded with the Halloween Networking Reception, where attendees, speakers, and exhibitors gathered together amongst a spooky setting.
Days 3 & 4
Day 3 began with The Open Group Contribution Awards. The brief session, led by Andrew Josey , provided information on The Open Group Contribution Awards, the eligible categories for awards, and how individuals could claim an award.
Throughout the day, there were also numerous engaging breakout sessions and Members sessions. This included the Supply Chain Security Roundtable/ OSDU Forum Meetings, and more.
Day 4 of The Open Group Summit continued with many Forum Member meetings to continue the important work on updating and creating The Open Group Standards.
Throughout the day there were many unique lenses offered surrounding the Supply Chain Security Roundtable. This included David Kaiser, Product Security Office Senior Director, Seagate, who talked about the Standards-based Product Lifecycle Certifications to Enable a Sustainable Datasphere. Followed by Alexander Marshall, Technical Strategy Manager, NASA SEWP Program presentation, on the Role of Supply Chain Security Standards for Government Acquisition. Next was Tony Carrato, and Tracy Ragan CEO and Co-Founder, DeployHub, with a presentation on Exposing and Controlling Open-Source within your Supply Chain. A highlight of this presentation was when the presenters spoke about the Software Bill of Materials (SBOMs) for greater supply chain transparency, including the critical nature of it and also the challenges surrounding it.
The event had over 600 attendees from across the world come together for a week of engaging insights, in-depth keynote speakers, hands-on Member meetings, an exciting Halloween quiz, and lots more. A sincere thank you to all who contributed to making this event such an informative and insightful event and to our speakers, Members, sponsors, attendees, and staff. Everyone offered a great variety of perspectives around Delivering a Secure and Sustainable Tomorrow, and came together in a truly united way.
Thank you to our event Premium Sponsors: AWS, S&P Global, SLB, Thoughtworks
Thank you to our event Sponsors & Exhibitors: Association of Enterprise Architects (AEA), Curtis & Associates, FAIR Institute, INT, & Katalyst Data Management
Proceedings for the event will be available to Members, attendees, and can be found here.
Please stay tuned for more details on The Open Group Virtual Event January 29 – 31, 2024.
Ash Patel – CDMP, Marketing Specialist, joined The Open Group in 2020, initially working in the Certification Team as a Certification Services Agent, before moving into the Marketing Team where he now works on email mailers, content for the staff intranet (O-Zone), SEO (Search Engine Optimization), to monitoring stats for email communications. Ash holds a First-Class Bachelor’s Degree in Media Production (BA hons) from Coventry University and has a background in content writing, copy writing, script writing, photo editing, and video editing. He is based in the UK.