Enterprise Data Forum

Wilshire Conferences' Enterprise Data Forum (EDF) provided in-depth exposure to software trends and other topics of interest to enterprise developers, systems architects, IT managers and CxO level executives. EDF attracted people responsible for the creation of industrial-strength systems -- it wasn't a forum for the Playstation crowd. The audience included a number of people who seemed to be experienced in building enterprise applications, large databases, and e-business web sites.

The program included a track of sessions that covered various aspects of modeling, semantics and modeling business rules. There were sessions about data mining, business intelligence, profiling, data warehousing and database security. There was a track about XML and service-oriented architectures, with sessions about data integration, schema management, XMI, web services and XML's role in the enterprise.

The program included sessions about indexing techniques, LDAP. and data modeling with UML, ERD and other technologies. There was also a keynote and tech sessions about web services and grid computing.

Wilshire Conferences also produces the Metadata Conference and DAMA Conferences (May 2004). Technology-related conferences have taken a beating for a couple of years but everyone seemed to be enthusiastic about conference program. That bodes well for Wilshire's upcoming events.

Activity at the Embarcadero Technologies booth and smiling faces at the Evoke booth

Session Highlights

Peter Aiken and Burton Parker presented a session about enterprise data maturity and Data Management Maturity Measurement (DM3) using a 5-level system for quality. (We recorded an interview with Peter about DM3.)

Dave McComb of Semantic Arts spoke about the application of semantics to enterprise computing. He discussed tautologies, taxonomies, ontologies, and semantic primes. Patricia Klauer of Eclipse Data Systems and Dina Bitton of Xtegra did an interesting presentation about on-demand data integration. Dina discussed enterprise information integration and the importance of metadata for integration and federated databases . John Poole of Hyperion Systems did an informative session about Open Source software alternatives for data warehousing and business intelligence. Joseph Novella presented an interesting session about real-world data modeling and the structural integrity of source data. When discussing database design, he produced the best quote of the event:

The conference program included a keynote session about software and hardware technology trends. Following Ken North's keynote, there were presentations by panel members Bob Bickel of JBoss, Geoff Brown of Oracle, John Goodson of DataDirect Technologies, and Dean Guida of Infragistics. Bickel, Brown, Goodson and Guida participated in interviews after the keynote.

Software trends interview. Left to right: Ken North, John Goodson, Dean Guida, Bob Bickel.

More than one person commented to me about the the quality of the content at the Enterprise Data Forum conference. My impression is that attendees were there to learn, to expand their network of contacts and to find solutions that are applicable to their organizations. Simply put, they were highly motivated and interested in the program.

Audio, Video, Multimedia Slide Shows

Interviews and presentations from the Enterprise Data Forum conference are available in several formats. The Technology Trends keynote presentation is available as HTML slides. Some interviews are available as MP3 audio and Real Player multimedia presentations (audio with slides). Video is available for some interviews and presentations.

To view the multimedia slide presentations, you need Real Player. To view video programs, you'll need Real Player or Windows Media Player. For all programs, there is at least one format for low-bandwidth (modem) connections.

The software trends interviews with Bob Bickel, John Goodson and Dean Guida are available as three separate video programs. Part 1 includes introductions and John Goodson discussing data access. Part 2 is Dean Guida discussing the presentation layer and components. Part 3 is Bob Bickel discussing middleware trends.

	Program, Rinning Time	Audio, Slides	Audio	Video
Peter Aiken	Data Management Maturity (interview, 5:48)	Slides	MP3
Bob Bickel	Trends in Middleware (interview, 6:11)		MP3	Real Player modem, 80K Windows Media modem, 96K
Geoff Brown	Grid Computing (interview, 7:07)		Real, Windows	Real Player modem ISDN
John Goodson	Data Access Trends (interview, 3:40)		MP3 Windows Media	Real Player modem, 80K Windows Media modem, 500K
Dean Guida	Trends in Mobility and Presentation (interview, 6:20)		MP3 Windows Media	Real Player modem, 80K Windows Media modem, 96K
Dave McComb	Semantics and Ontologies (interview, 7:42)	Slides	MP3
Ken North	Technology Trends	Slides	MP3	Real