A: Most of them are too diversified in many aspects of the IT framework. There is no specific focus to assist IT professionals and provide a platform to voice their ideas, challenges and concerns as well as share ideas among fellow IT professionals, especially in Malaysia.
IASA fills this gap by covering domain skill sets from infrastructure, enterprise, software, applications and fundamental architecture. We are committed to improving the quality of the IT architecture industry by developing and delivering standards, education programmes, and accreditation programmes and services that optimise the development of the IT architect profession.
IASA is also technology and vendor-agnostic. As practitioners, we do not favour any technology, vendor or methodology.
Q: What are the challenges faced by the local software industry, and howdoes IASA Malaysia provide support to the industry?
A: Some of the challenges are lack of in-house software expertise, lack of co-ordination and collaboration on software development with hardware and other relevant designs, lack of co-ordination and collaboration with external partners, and inability to speed up time to market and compete effectively. Then there is also lack of top-quality product testing tools to ensure market readiness. All these issues force the industry to take a shortcut approach, which is to outsource development projects.
We want to help address some of these issues by creating awareness and establishing IT architect as a profession as well as advocating proper implementation of IT architecture in organisations. We provide advice to the industry and the public in the areas of IT architecture, governance and policy best practices.
Q: We understand that IASA is working towardsestablishing a globally recognised certification for IT architects. Why is there a need for such a certification?
A: IASA brings the body of knowledge in IT architecture to the industry. IASA Skills Library (http://www.iasahome.org/web/home/skillset/) is the first comprehensive skill sets defined for IT architects. Since it was published in 2005, it has drawn Web visitors across the world to access this body of knowledge and collaborate with the field experts.
With the success of IASA Skills Library, IASA moved on to develop training content to bridge skill level. IASA Architecture Training Programme (http://www.iasahome.org/web/home/training/) is currently in the first phase of release and will be completed after the first quarter of 2009.
With such content available, IASA is able to build future generations of highly technical, skilled professionals. We assist industry players in advancing local talent to higher skill levels. We import world-renowned gurus and thought leaders, transferring the deepest knowledge in IT architecture to the country.
Besides creating a body of knowledge, through certification we want to advocate proper IT architecture. We want to create the awareness that strategic IT architecture can lead to business edge.