ZapThink’s Licensed ZapThink Architect (LZA) SOA & Cloud Architecture Training & Certification Boot Camp is recognized around the world as the best single Service-Oriented Architecture and Cloud Architecture training course available anywhere.
Register now for an LZA SOA Boot Camp near you!
The LZA SOA & Cloud Architecture Boot Camp is an intensive, four day “fire hose” of information that prepares you to succeed with your SOA and Cloud efforts, whether you’re just beginning them or are well down the road with SOA and Cloud Computing.
ZapThink’s LZA SOA Training is the only public course that ZapThink offers, reflecting the best thinking and research that ZapThink produces.
ZapThink’s LZA SOA training & certification has no prerequisites, and is designed for architects, but appropriate for people with different roles and levels of expertise. This course is valuable for anyone who wants in-depth knowledge about how to succeed with SOA.
Register now for an LZA SOA Boot Camp near you!

What makes the LZA SOA & Cloud Architecture Boot Camp so special?
- Vendor independent — We discuss vendors in context, both good and bad. You get a balanced perspective on each vendor we discuss.
- Architect focused — The course concentrates on what architects have to do to be successful with SOA in their own organizations. We balance technology details with organizational approaches. If you’re not an architect you’ll learn how to think like one in this class!
- Practical — we connect theory to practice with what really works in organizations like yours.
- Current — we refresh the course on a regular basis to reflect the latest SOA and Cloud best practices, as well as how SOA relates to other architectural challenges in the enterprise.
- Enterprise context — SOA is an approach to organizing enterprise IT resources to meet changing business needs. We place SOA into the context of large organizations, with complex, heterogeneous IT environments and all the politics and bureaucracy that every large organization faces.
- Globally recognized certification — Everybody who completes the LZA SOA Boot Camp obtains a certificate representing their LZA credential, giving you the right to call yourself a Licensed ZapThink Architect with all the privileges that come along with this exclusive credential.

- Led by globally recognized SOA thought leader — All ZapThink’s courses are developed and led by Jason Bloomberg, ZapThink Managing Partner. Jason has been an analyst with ZapThink since 2001 and is the co-author of Service Orient or Be Doomed!
- Not too technical, not too high-level — Unlike courses offered by others, we cover the technology without getting lost in the details. We discuss the big picture but connect it to the day-to-day reality of the IT shop.
- Available around the world — See the event schedule on this page for all the locations we’re offering the LZA SOA Boot Camp!
Register now for an LZA SOA & Cloud Boot Camp near you!
Different ways to take a ZapThink course
- Public Enrollment Courses — Given around the world by Jason Bloomberg in person, our public enrollment courses have the special benefit of learning from other architects in other organizations.
- Private Enrollment Courses — Have a group of 20 or more? Bring expert trainer Jason Bloomberg and the LZA course in-house! Save money and have a course at a location and time most convenient for your organization.
- Online, Self-Paced Course — If you don’t have the travel budget or flexibility for an in-person course, ZapThink offers an online version as well.
- Special courses for special needs — If you’d like to bring ZapThink into your organization but the LZA course isn’t a good fit, we can modify it to suit your needs. We also offer a SOA and Cloud Governance course, SOA for Managers course, and a DoDAF with SOA course as well.
Register now for an LZA SOA Boot Camp near you!
LZA SOA & Cloud Training Course Agenda
Module 1: Enterprise Context for SOA
- What are Service-Oriented Architecture and Cloud Computing, and how do they relate to Enterprise Architecture?
Module 2: SOA Design Principles
- Loose coupling, granularity, autonomy, standardized Service contracts and more…ten in all. We cover them all in depth.
Team Exercise: Return on Investment of SOA
- How do you quantify the benefit of SOA in dollars (or euros, or pounds…)
Module 3: SOA Reference Architecture
- End-to-end architecture, Service architecture, logical architecture, physical architecture, and more. Putting together the essential artifacts that coordinate the SOA initiative.
Homework: Service Model
- Changing business requirements on one hand, complex technology environment on the other. Where to start? With the Services, of course!
Module 4: SOA Intermediaries and Integration
- The great Enterprise Service Bus boondoggle and what the real story is about how middleware fits into the SOA puzzle.
Module 5: The Role of Data & Semantics — NEW!
Data as the foundation for SOA, the Data Services Layer, and new treatment of Semantics and SOA, including real-world examples.
Module 6: Service Composition and Business Process
- Providing business agility and empowering the business to take greater responsibility for their business processes by implementing them with compositions of Services.
Module 7: Web Services-Based SOA
- Service contracts using WSDL. Policies with WS-Policy. Pros and cons of SOAP. Compositions with BPEL and BPMN. The full alphabet soup of Web Services-based SOA.
Team Exercise: Service Contract
- What if WSDL isn’t sufficient? How architect teams are dealing with Service contracts in real-world situations.
Homework: Service Compositions
- How compositions of Services implement business processes.
Module 8: REST-Based SOA — NEW!
- The myths and realities of Representational State Transfer, an HTTP-centric approach to addressing resources over a network. REST’s four architectural constraints, with an in-depth look at HATEOAS: Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State. Intermediaries and compositions with REST, and the differences between REST-Based SOA and Web Services-Based SOA.
Module 9: Architecting with the Cloud
We cut through the vendor hype about Cloud Computing and help you focus on how to leverage Cloud capabilities in your architecture.
Module 10: SOA and Cloud Security — NEW!
How to secure your Services, leveraging standards for message-level security, and an in-depth look at Cloud security, including authorization, policy, and provisioning.
Module 11: SOA Governance
- Governance of the SOA initiative is important, but we take SOA governance to the next level: how can SOA help with IT and organizational governance?
Team Exercise: Governance Framework
- What do architects need to think about when they think about governance?
Homework: SOA Business Case
- How would you convince your CEO that SOA is the right solution to his or her problems?
Module 12: Cloud Governance & SOA Governance Infrastructure
- How to deal with governance of Cloud-based assets by extending SOA governance to the Cloud. Dealing with legal issues, Cloud availability and failover, and other run time issues. Leveraging a registry/repository and system management tools to round out the SOA governance infrastructure.
Module 13: Planning & Running the SOA Initiative

- A deep dive into the iterative approach to rolling out SOA in real organizations.
Final Exam: SOA Jeopardy!
- Play the Jeopardy! quiz show game with everyone in the class. Show your command of the material and win a copy of the book
Service Orient or Be Doomed!
Register now for an LZA SOA & Cloud Architecture Boot Camp near you!


