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Covalent Solutions Inc.®

Bonding Business to Architecture & Technology

Terry A. Rupp

President & Principal Architect

Mr. Rupp believes that if Enterprise Architecture is not "actionable" it is merely an academic exercise. After being inside the high-tech industry for ~30 years--and observing many such exercises in the name of Enterprise Architecture--Mr. Rupp founded Covalent Solutions Inc.. And he did so because he believes "business clients deserve better than is often provided by traditional hardware/software vendors or even Big Six consulting firms". Business clients are both under-served and over-served by traditional technology vendors and consultancies. Though they claim to focus on your business, they are driven by their operating margin needs. Your business often gets lost in their need to demonstrate consecutive growth. Mr. Rupp believes that your business deserves an independent industry insider in your corner to assist you in defining and complying with an Enterprise Architecture that makes sense for your ever changing business environment.

Mr. Rupp has nearly 30 years industry experience ranging from classic hardware design engineering/engineering management to software development and deployment. Mr. Rupp has worked for companies large and small (startups to industry icons). He has been a student of architectural principles and a Principal Architect (practitioner/author) for >15 years. His efforts have set the tone for architectural standards embraced internationally, and used by some of Wall Street's largest investment firms, and global telecommunications companies.

Mr. Rupp worked most recently at Sun Microsystems--as Chief Architect for US Telecommunications Markets. He was with Sun for 10.5 years serving in numerous management and lead roles endeavoring to help reinvent Sun in support of their efforts to return to the market preeminence they once enjoyed. Mr. Rupp set the tone for Architectural Standards & Expectations being used across Sun's Engineering Community. While at Sun he also wrote many of the standards for Sun's Client Engagement Model--defining how Sun's Sales/Engineering Community interfaces with clients for more efficient engagement of resource. And throughout all those efforts Mr. Rupp held fast to his "Principles/Business Driven Approach" to Architecture Definition and Development--a concept he brought to Sun in 1998.

Prior to Sun, Mr. Rupp was at Hewlett Packard where he served as Principal Architect on Global Accounts. There Mr. Rupp defined Architectural Principles still in use in global manufacturing & retail companies. Embracing these principles not only improved the client's business agility by an order of magnitude, the principles also established his company as a genuine "Trusted Advisor" to the client. Genuine "Trusted Advisor" status may only be attained when architecture reflects a sincere appreciation and understanding of the client's business needs and objectives.

Mr. Rupp is an Architecture "purist"--clearly appreciating the need for thoughtful pre-consideration of business stakeholders, boundaries and conditions prior to technical discussion or implementation. But he also demonstrates a pragmatic approach to the need to actually "get things done" in a responsible time frame. Mr. Rupp has often said "in today's demanding economic environment no one can afford the 'perfect' architectural plan. An architecture doesn't have to be perfect to be functional, it merely needs to be good enough with a plan for remediation when things eventually do go wrong". "An architecture done properly will be extensible--far outlasting any given set of technologies".

At industry conferences Mr. Rupp has taken very bold positions that have made his colleagues very nervous about their future. He has made the following very controversial comments:

Hardware has become a commodity buy (thanks to fast, inexpensive general purpose processors)--Get used to it!
Software is becoming commoditized (thanks to Linux and the Open Source movement)--Get ready for it!
Computing Services (Cloud Computing) are the future (why pay in advance for features you may never use)--Go out and enable it!

These statements make traditional hardware/software vendors very nervous because they have no idea how they will maintain the margins they have become accustomed to in this changing economic model. Their business model very much relies on their ability to sell high margin product--which is very complex--and charge to implement and support it over 3+ year windows of time. Few traditional vendors are genuinely prepared for the paradigm shift in computing. Likewise, few clients fully understand what they must do to capitalize on the shift.

Mr. Rupp is an industry insider who can bring ~30 years of industry experience to your firm. His experience can assist you in navigating the challenges associated with changing your current environment, and help you negotiate with current/future technology partners/integrators.

Mr. Rupp's skill inventory includes industry accepted frameworks such as Zachman, ITIL, TOGAF, DoDAF and others. Mr. Rupp uses Patterns as a means of modeling for scale and efficiency. Mr. Rupp is a Six Sigma Practitioner and draws on tools/techniques rooted in Sigma for process improvement. Mr. Rupp's expertise may be drawn upon to conduct architectural lectures, workouts/workshops or full-up Enterprise Architecture Design.