Sessions at Pacific Northwest Software Symposium on Saturday 24th September in Salon A

Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) is a new way of looking at messaging that is quickly gaining in popularity and use, particularly in the financial services industry. Unlike JMS, which defines a standard API across platforms, AMQP defines a standard wire-level protocol across languages and platforms, finally making true cross-platform messaging a reality. This is a two-part session. In this session (part 1) I will describe what AMQP is and what problems it solves, describe the basic architecture and how AMQP routes messages, and then, through live interactive coding, demonstrate how to build a simple producer and consumer using RabbitMQ to send and receive AMQP messages.

Agenda:

• introduction - what is amqp and what problem does it solve?
• how amqp works - exchanges, binding, queues, and routing
• amqp exchange types
• amqp basic architecture and message structure
• sending and receiving messages using rabbitmq

Prerequisite: Basic knowledge of messaging; JMS experience or knowledge helpful but not necessary

Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) is a new way of looking at messaging that is quickly gaining in popularity and use, particularly in the financial services industry. Unlike JMS, which defines a standard API across platforms, AMQP defines a standard wire-level protocol across languages and platforms, finally making true cross-platform messaging a reality. This is a two-part session. In this session (part 2) I will move beyond "hello amqp" and discuss more detailed aspects of amqp, including such topics as performance, rabbitmq administration, exchange and queue declaration considerations (that topic is really cool), load balancing, how to implement pub/sub in amqp, and how to manage undelivered messages and acknowledge messages. I will demonstrate and explain all of the examples and topics discussed in this session with hands-on live coding.

Agenda:

• amqp performance characteristics (how does it perform?)
• rabbitmq admin console commands
• pre-defining queues and exchanges
• amqp routing considerations
• load balancing
• publish-and-subscribe model
• managing undelivered messages
• message achnowledgement

Prerequisite: Some knowledge of the concepts of AMQP or Part 1 of this session.

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is one of the most misunderstood terms in our industry. Ask 10 people what EA is and you will get 10 different answers. To better understand what EA is and how it impacts your company (and you!) we will go back in time to maritime Britain in the late 1700's. Through exercises in designing a fleet of war ships and making decisions about what to do with the fleet you will understand the various approaches, directions, and implications of EA and how necessary EA is to achieve any company goal. So put your admirals hat on and climb aboard for a maritime adventure you won't forget!

Agenda:

• Introduction: What is Enterprise Architecture?
• EA approaches (Designing the fleet)
• EA direction (Deploying the fleet)
• Five Common enterprise architecture pitfalls
• Enterprise architecture references
• Summary and QA

Prerequisite: Not prone to sea sickness, willingness to have fun

I commonly think of those of us in the IT industry as problem solvers. Whether developer, designer, or architect, we are all presented with problems and work to find a way to solve them, usually through technology. In my opinion this is what makes this industry so much fun. Let's face it - we all love challenges. Sometimes, however, the problems we have to solve are hard - really hard. So how do you go about solving really hard problems? That's what this session is about - Heuristics, the art of problem solving. In this session you will learn how to approach problems and also learn some the common techniques for solving them effectively. So put on your thinking cap and get ready to solve some easy, fun, and hard problems.
Agenda:

• the checklist
• you know what happens when you assume...
• you gotta start somewhere
• hey! keep it clean!
• we should take the trail to the left...I think...
• the world is flat (or is it?)
• techniques summary

Prerequisite: An open mind and a willingness to learn how to better approach and solve problems