In 2013, the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Architecture Technology User Network (SATURN) Conference will celebrate its 9th year. Each year SATURN attracts an international audience of practicing software architects, industry thought leaders, developers, technical managers, and researchers to share ideas, insights, and experience about effective architecture-centric practices for developing and maintaining software-intensive systems.

SATURN 2013 will take place in Minneapolis, Minnesota from April 29 to May 3, 2013. As in previous years, the conference will be held in collaboration with IEEE Software magazine. Two attendee-selected awards, sponsored by IEEE Software, will be conferred for noteworthy presentations, and selected presenters will be invited to submit articles for publication in IEEE Software.

The SATURN 2013 technical program will cover topics including, but not limited to, the following:

1. Front-end architectures: impact of living on the edge

Deciding between front-end design patterns and platforms such as browser-based user interfaces and native rich clients; tactics to preserve conceptual integrity across user channels

Identifying architectural concerns regarding front-end technologies and platforms such as frameworks for mobile client development, HTML5, JSON and WebSockets, and social-networking software

Architecting for usability, privacy, and interoperability in handheld devices; dealing with diverse, novel, or unknown user communities

2. Back-end architectures and application hosting: go to the cloud or stay on the ground?

Addressing complex integration challenges with service-oriented architectures (SOAs) and systems of systems

Evaluating modern information-management and computing styles—big data, NoSQL, MapReduce

Engineering high-scale, high-volume systems such as Web applications, enterprise resource planning (ERP) packages, and control systems

Establishing guidelines for different deployment and virtualization options such as standalone vs. multi-tenant, cloud-enabled vs. cloud-centric applications, and online vs. offline processing

3. Methods and tools: go with the flow or go your own way?

Tailoring analysis, design, and evaluation methods such as Unified Process (UP), Quality Attribute Workshop (QAW), Attribute-Driven Design (ADD), Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM), and others

Combining methods from different communities; for example, object-oriented analysis and design techniques, lean and agile practices, and architectural methods and notations

Enforcing architectural decisions through architecturally evident coding styles, component interface design principles, or architectural patterns

Managing software evolution and technical debt, enterprise architecture frameworks, design for operations

4. Technical leadership: hard skills and soft skills

Adopting agile collaboration practices when working with stakeholders, improvement approaches, and dealing with complicated situations

Empowering project management with architecture—planning agile pregames, conducting architectural spikes and sprint zeros; managing technical risk, providing architectural coaching, establishing communities of practice, and supporting make-or-buy decisions

Succeeding in hard-sell situations; for example, risk identification or assessing business value of refactoring and legacy-system modernization

We invite three types of proposals for SATURN 2013 participation: (1) 20-minute conference presentations; (2) 5-minute lightning talks; and (3) half-day tutorial sessions; All proposals are due by January 7, 2013.

Conference presentations may be based on experience reports, lessons learned, methods, models, or study results. Please submit an abstract of between 500 and 1500 words and specify the category (1-4 above) for which you want to submit. Sample presentation slides may optionally be provided.

Lightning talks, included for the first time at SATURN 2013, are 5-minute talks given within a 30-minute session. Please submit brief (150-word) abstracts for lightning talks or the full set of proposed presentation slides.

Tutorial sessions should actively involve participants in applying innovative practices, methods, concepts, models, etc. Please submit abstracts for tutorials that include a one-page outline and description (maximum 500 words), up to five sample presentation slides, a biography of the presenter, and a history of tutorial delivery, for instance: How often has the tutorial been delivered? Where and when? Did it attract attendees and was it well received?

Visit http://www.sei.cmu.edu/saturn/2013/call-for-submissions/ for the submission link.