Software Engineering Institute

April 1, 2015—Organizers of this year's SEI Architecture Technology User Network (SATURN) Conference have energized the program with several new features designed to add value and enrich the experience for conference attendees. Key among these new features are the addition of "office hours" sessions, conducted by the slate of invited speakers presenting at the conference, and the Architecture Boot Camp, a free series of educational sessions geared to those new to the field of software architecture. The conference will take place April 27-30 in Baltimore, Maryland.

The impressive list of invited speakers for SATURN 2015 includes experts such as Ariadna Font Litjós, design principal and manager at IBM Watson Group;Ian Maung, senior vice president of enterprise data management at Citi;Jeromy Carriere, engineering director at Google;and well-known software architecture thought leaders including Rebecca Wirfs-Brock, Jeff Patton, and Simon Brown In a new twist, the speakers will augment their talks in sessions comprising experts they have personally selected. The invited speakers will also, for the first time, conduct "office hours" during the conference. "We created these office hours sessions, similar to open-space sessions we have held in past years, to give attendees a chance to meet with these experts directly," said Bill Pollak, SATURN 2015 general chair. "The office hours allow attendees to engage in meaningful exchanges with our speakers and explore their ideas in greater depth."

Those new to the field of software architecture, or who aspire to a career in the field, can use SATURN 2015 to familiarize themselves with a number of foundational concepts. The Architecture Boot Camp, available to attendees at no additional charge, offers four educational sessions designed with beginners in mind and led by expert instructors from the SEI technical staff:

• Software Architecture 101, led by John Klein
• All About Quality Attribute Requirements, led by Ipek Ozkaya
• Architecture Evaluation, led by Robert Nord
• Documenting Software Architecture, led by Klein

"The Boot Camp instructors, like our invited speakers, will also hold office hours," noted Pollak. "We think this is a great opportunity for someone new to the field to get insight from expert practitioners." Pollak noted that attendees are welcome to attend as many of these Boot Camp sessions as they like, and they can interweave them with other sessions in the SATURN 2015 technical program, including tech talks and the insight-rich experience reports that SATURN attendees have come to appreciate and value.

Registration for SATURN 2015 is still open. To learn more, please visit http://www.sei.cmu.edu/saturn/2015/registration/index.cfm.