Commentary

The Transition to Cloud Computing: What Does It Mean For You?

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:45:00 EST

We are standing on the threshold of a new transition in information technology and communications; a radical departure from current practice that promises to bring us new levels of efficiency at a vastly reduced cost. Cloud computing is full of potential, bursting with opportunity and within our grasp. But, remember, that clouds always appear to be within our grasp and bursting clouds promise only one thing: rain!

The Wailing Wall of Open Source BI

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 09:30:00 EST

Henry David Thoreau once wrote: "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation". Much the same can be said of the multitude of users struggling with open source reporting and analysis tools like Mondrian or Jaspersoft. The difference, of course, if that those folks happen to be pretty vocal. And nowhere more so than on those vendors' own "support" forums. I double-quote the term purposely. Because what you witness on these forums falls far (very far) short of what I consider to be minimally acceptable customer support levels. Now, it's a fact that many people find solace in these communities - after all, given the massive amounts of questions posed there, some are bound to get answered quickly and (hopefully) correctly. And it's a fact that many people achieve success (or some level of it) with open source BI solutions. At what cost, we can only surmise, but clearly, resilient, persistent and courageous people are getting some work done on these platforms.

Why SOA Needs Cloud Computing - Part 1

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST

It’s Thursday morning, you’re the CEO of a large, publicly traded company, and you just called your executives into the conference room for the exciting news. The board of directors has approved the acquisition of a key competitor, and you’re looking for a call-to-action to get everyone planning for the next steps.

Many Unprepared for BT Disaster Recovery

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 11:00:00 EST

Disaster strikes. Your primary place of business is destroyed by a fire tomorrow, are you prepared to recover? According to the historical statistics, fires permanently close 44 percent of the businesses that are affected. Business continuity planning is the creation and validation of a practiced logistical plan for how an organization will restore interrupted critical functions within a predetermined time after a disaster or extended disruption. Business Technology survivability is an imperative for many organizations that operate in the global networked economy, yet some are unprepared for a natural disaster. Cisco recently shared the results of an insightful nationwide survey.

EuroCloud and The Case for a Cloud Computing Trade Association

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:00:00 EDT

Some of the concerns I've heard repeatedly is the potential barriers to entry for participation in this type of association. The last thing this association should be is an inclusive club for a few select technology vendors and insiders. It needs to be available to all and should foster an engagement with both the existing community while also providing a formal / legal umbrella that the larger companies will feel comfortable participating in. I am also cognizant that it takes money to make money, so there needs to be a middle ground with potentially some of the larger vendors subsidizing the involvement of the smaller players and independents members. Simply membership should not be cost prohibitive.

Please Don’t Let the Cloud Ruin SaaS

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:30:00 EDT

Back in the old good days of enterprise software, we did not need to worry about our customers. We delivered bits on DVDs – it was up to the customers to struggle with installation, integration, management, customization and other aspects of software operations. We collected all the cash upfront, took another 25% in annual maintenance. [...]

Economy Drives Adoption of Virtual Lab Technology

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:00:00 EDT

Everyone wants to lower their capital expenditures and increase operational efficiency - it's a sign of the times. The economy of the past 12 - 18 months has forced all organizations to do more with less and become more efficient. While everyone can identify with the request to do more with less, they can also identify with the overwhelming need to deliver quality. The need to deliver quality is an age-old adage and has many interpretations as to what "quality" actually means. This argument is likely to rage on in perpetuity at an academic level.

Value of M&A Deals Plummets 46%; Next - Predators Seek Prey

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:00:00 EDT

If the trend of the first six months of 2009 holds, the overall number of M&A deals this year will have plunged to a level last witnessed in 2004. That is the painful truth, according to a report published today by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Conventional M&A strategies must be updated to deal with much more uncertainty during the current financial crisis, the report says.

Cloud Computing Strategy

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 13:45:00 EDT

VMware: I already have the most popular virtualization software and I will integrate Spring Source and create the best PaaS offering. Amazon EC2: I am extending my cloud facility to a virtual private environment so that you security concerns are taken care. Microsoft: I am giving you a platform which is very similar to what you use so that you can seamlessly extend your application to the cloud and even the developers can continue to use the same set of tools. SalesForce.com: I am giving you a Force.com with which you can build what you need over and above what I provide out of the box.

Perhaps SOA is More Strategy Than Architecture

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 06:00:00 EDT

On Thursday, September 10th, 2009, I moderated a panel at the 1105 Group’s Enterprise Architecture Conference in Washington, DC entitled, “SOA Goes Mainstream – An Industry and Government Roadmap.” On the panel we had two Federal government agency representatives and two industry representatives, with one of the industry representatives providing a FedEx case study as the basis for their SOA experiences.

Five Reasons to Choose a Private Cloud

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:45:00 EDT

As enterprise interest in cloud computing offerings and concepts continues to increase, the number of solutions in both the public and private cloud spaces increases as well. Theres been much debate over public versus private cloud, even to the point of debating whether there can be such a thing as a private cloud. Im not here to debate the latter (in my opinion the location of the service has nothing to do with whether or not it is a cloud), but rather I want to take a look into why consumers would choose private clouds over their public counterparts.

The Difference Between Web Hosting and Cloud Computing

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:15:00 EDT

Yesterday a friend of mine was asking me what I've been doing lately in my spare time. When I mentioned that I'd been doing a lot of messing around with Windows Azure, he was naturally curious. After explaining what Azure is, he asked me what the difference was between Windows Azure, a cloud computing environment, and traditional web hosting scenarios. On a really high level, he's got a valid point : With Azure you can develop your application offline locally and then when you're done you can publish it to a remote host. To the casual observer, this looks exactly like what you might do with a web hosting company that provides space on an IIS box and let's you use ASP.NET and maybe even a little SQL server database.

The Art of Software Delivery

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:30:00 EDT

Often, estimates are initially made with an incomplete understanding of requirements. Estimation is done at the beginning of the lifecycle before the requirements are defined and thus the problem understood. How can you accurately estimate unless you know what the problem we intend to solve? At this point, they often represent wishes rather than realistic estimates. As the project progresses and the problem become better understood, estimates should be revisited. For example, NASA advocates re- estimation at defined points in the lifecycle. Often, a Project Manager will know that they should revise their estimates as they get a better understanding of the requirements, but are afraid to; they feel they will be viewed as a failure. A Project manager needs to be honest to themselves, their team and stakeholders.

The End of IT 1.0 As We Know It Has Begun

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:45:00 EDT

You may wonder whether it’s too early to make the call given the lack of interoperability standards, security concerns, and common definition of cloud computing. Well, the IPTV space shares many of the same similarities – emerging technology, emerging standards, emerging adoption, varying definitions, and yet the call was made in that space. Cloud computing is a shot across the bow for the giants of the IT industry. They are on notice. Certainly, some will make the transition, slowly, at the speed which the overall market develops or slower, as they have no incentive to drive the market and rapidly cannibalize their existing businesses for a less lucrative business model even if it is more cost effective, flexible, and efficient for most of their clients.

5GL PaaS

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:00:00 EDT

The debate has raged for some time now about the exact definition of a 5GL. One might argue that there also is still some debate going on about what exactly is a Platform as a Service PaaS. Throw together two semi-ambiguous industry-specific buzzwords and what do you get? Well, for all of you cynics out there, the answer is NOT "a great marketing opportunity!"

Five Ways to Incorporate CMMI with Agile Methods

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:30:00 EDT

There is a common misconception that CMMI and Agile are polar opposites. One relies on institutionalization and documentation of processes and methodologies, while the other emphasizes interaction among workers and “working software over comprehensive documentation” (Agile Manifesto). Process documentation and institutionalization is the lifeblood of CMMI, and it is often used in critical software development life cycles. On the other hand, the Agile approach is called into action when a project features incremental changes, particularly those that have not been included in initial requirement documents.

The Concrete Abstraction of the Business Service

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 23:00:00 EDT

Loose coupling presents architectural challenges that are at the heart of planning and implementing the SOA infrastructure. Building the Service abstraction presents a simplified representation to the business but requires additional efforts under the covers to make that abstraction a concrete reality. This is the work of SOA: implementing and maintaining loosely coupled business Services that are at the core of any successful SOA implementation.

What the Stimulus Plan Means for Your Business

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:15:00 EDT

The mantra heard most often in business these days is "Do More With Less." For many businesses, cutting costs while trying to grow—or even sustain their place in the market—is easier said than done. What could help many businesses is gaining access to some of that $787 Billion in Federal Stimulus Package monies. Not surprisingly, many small companies [94% of...

Software AG Buys Way Into BPM

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 06:45:00 EDT

Who says there are no second acts in life? After having caught its breadth with the webMethods acquisition almost exactly two years ago, Software AG has struck again with an offer to buy roughly half the shares of IDS Scheer from the company’s founders. The offer, worth roughly $320 million, is still subject to regulatory review.

Oracle Has It All Except the Cloud

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 12:00:00 EDT

With the spoils of the BEA acquisition now fully baked into the mix -- and with anticipation for what the pending Sun Microsystems buy brings -- Oracle is well on its way to obviating the middleware moniker. Perhaps we should call it "anyware."

IBM Stole the Thunder

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:45:00 EDT

IBM stole the thunder and the impending acquisition of Sun became an imminent and expected event. While hardware overlap existed in the IBM deal, IBM would have provided a much needed home for Sun's software assets. Software giant Oracle lacks a hardware portfolio, so the key Oracle / Sun overlaps are far fewer except for the $1 billion acquisition of MySQL by Sun in 2008. Given Oracle's tendency to be proprietary in its markets, ownership of MySQL by Oracle would be perceived as a great risk in the open source community.

IBM Must Now Compete with Empowered Oracle

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:00:00 EDT

In case you missed it Oracle announced this morning that it will be acquiring Sun Microsystems. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion. This news means the technology landscape is about to radically change and quite possibly, Sun hardware is now dead. The software aspects of the deal actually makes a lot of sense. It certainly seems like a very obvious fit, Oracle is buying Java. Whether Larry Ellison admits it or not, Java is the key to enterprise focused cloud computing. It's the perfect language and format for the fluid movement between existing enterprise data center's and Sun's enterprise focused cloud offering.