Enterprise

Get Greater Business Insights and Relieve IT Cost Pressure?

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 06:00:00 EDT

With heightened pressure on today’s businesses from the current global economic woes, figuring out what to do next on many business and technology decision-making levels, and making sure they are the right moves, can make or break your business. Take a moment to consider the following questions.

Open is a Four-Letter Word

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:00:00 EDT

The past decade certainly been boom years for the IT industry. Not necessarily from an economic perspective, but rather in the growth of the number and variety of standards that have been proposed. One of the key properties of Web Services and the Service-oriented architectures built upon them is the fact that they are based upon open standards. After all, standards are an essential element of the maturation of any technology. In the case of distributed computing, open standards promise to increase interoperability, reduce total cost of ownership (TCO), widen the base of skilled developers, and increase vendor choice. With so much riding on the power of open standards, you would think that there would be broad agreement as to just what "open" and "standard" mean. Unfortunately, there is still plenty of confusion about the meanings of these two terms.

Cloud Balancing, Cloud Bursting, and Intercloud

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:30:00 EDT

One of the things that’s frustrating about new technology and concepts is that terminology often confuses the discussion. We periodically still see discussions – and debates – around the definition of cloud computing, after all, so that shouldn’t be surprising at all. Intercloud is another one of those terms that is going to cause some contention because it sounds like a technology, but apparently it’s not. According to the folks who started using it (like James) it’s more akin to the Internet in that it’s a description of what will grow out of interoperability and portability standards once they’re applied to actual implementations. Not to get all Euclidian, but the intercloud is a lot like the set of all clouds connected via standards-based mechanisms. What those mechanisms are may be up for discussion and there are certainly groups devoted to defining those mechanisms but suffice to say that right now the “intercloud” does not exist. It (probably) will but we’re a ways off from that.

Thoughts on How to Select Between COTS and Open Source

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:00:00 EDT

Organizations continue to wrestle with the COTS vs. Open Source question and continually look for guidance on how to select one vs. the other. Many organizations make the frequent mistake of basing the decision on the capital investment cost or up front investment with no thought to any other criteria. While cost is an important factor, there are other areas that organizations should consider as part of their selection process. These include:

The Future of Enterprise Software

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 08:00:00 EST

It's no secret that open source has turned into a market force, which is giving enterprise software some tough competition. The same can be said for SaaS businesses, which are steadily eating into the market share of the established on-premise players. While it could easily be assumed that ultimately SaaS and open source will battle each other for dominance of the software business, I don’t think that’s likely.

Open Source and Cloud Computing Take on Enterprise Software

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 11:50:00 EST

Enterprise software is under attack. Traditional infrastructure players like BEA are seeing their core products replaced with free open source projects, while traditional application vendors like Oracle/Siebel are being displaced by SaaS. But is this a slugfest with only one winner? Will SaaS and open source ultimately turn against each other for dominance of the software business model – WWF Smack Down style – where the once united tag team, after conquering their opponent, starts to fight between themselves?

The Role of Event-Driven Architecture in Business Applications

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:45:00 EDT

Three-letter acronyms (TLAs) are hardly new in Information Technology: EAI, ESB, SOA, BPM, BAM, ETL, MDM; the list goes on and on. This article is about yet another three-letter acronym, EDA, which stands for Event-Driven Architecture. EDA is not a brand new technology, but rather a proven paradigm in system-level programs, war and military simulator applications, gaming, and other areas. EDA has started to shape how general-purpose business applications are architected.

Software Appliances: Delivering Open Source

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:45:00 EDT

Appliances. The very word is emblematic of stability and strength. Think of the appliances in your kitchen. Unless you're particularly unlucky, 99.9% of the time your refrigerator, stove and dishwasher just work. You don't have to give it a second thought. When we talk about software appliances, we're talking about a similar stability.

Service Management and Enterprise Architecture

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:00:00 EST

Governance is currently a key topic for many IT functions. Its definition varies, but its key themes are true for all companies: effectiveness, efficiency, and reliability. Business value and risk mitigation are also at its center and represent a significant part of enterprise governance overall.

SSO, Open Source and the 'Modern' Enterprise

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 12:00:00 EST

Efforts to modernize enterprise infrastructure have never been more complex. While the need is certainly there on multiple fronts - competitive edge, cost savings and new business initiatives, to name just a few - new hurdles seem to pop up no matter where an IT administrator might look. That includes not just management issues such as cap/ex costs and user resistance, but also an increasing pancake stack of integration layers within and among applications.

Selecting an Open Source Content Management Solution

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 09:15:00 EST

When it comes to Content Management Solutions (CMS), 'one size' does not fit all. When considering open source CMS for a real-world client experience, it's necessary to focus on the project needs, evaluate various CMS solutions in the context of these project needs, and to explore experiences with the strengths and weaknesses of the solutions.

Enterprise Open Source Is Not Just the Code

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 13:00:00 EDT

Within Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM), many companies have enjoyed a blossoming of open source software. By harnessing the collective wisdom, experiences, expertise, and requirements, the model has ensured that needs have been rapidly met while the open source code has provided the wanted flexibility and low cost. Everything made possible through the Internet, which has enabled easy zero-cost distribution and improved global collaboration. By leveraging large user communities the software products have grown fast and made it possible for open source companies to challenge major proprietary vendors.

Making Sense of Virtualization

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 16:15:00 EST

Companies are finding it increasingly difficult to manage their enterprise data centers as they become highly complex, expensive to build out, and difficult to reconfigure as needs change. In an effort to address these challenges, many IT professionals are turning to virtualization technologies.

Adopting an Open Source Approach to Software Development, Distribution, and Licensing

Fri, 05 Jan 2007 09:15:00 EST

Since the beginning of the software industry, nearly every software company in the world has followed the same business model: its own employees develop the software, which is closely held intellectual property, the software is delivered to clients in binary form, and users run the licensed software on their own computers. Today, this model has been challenged by a new paradigm: open source. Developed and maintained by volunteers across the world, distributed to users at no cost, and available as source code, open source software is radically different from its proprietary counterpart. Each of the new characteristics of open source software forces organizations to develop new ways of thinking about how they procure, implement, test, and deploy it.

Opening Up the Enterprise

Sat, 05 Aug 2006 13:00:00 EDT

A quick Google search of 'enterprise Open Source' returns over 1.5 million results. There are Web sites devoted to the topic; there are dedicated conferences and trade shows, and even a fairly large number of books. There's even a magazine - the one now in your hands! - devoted entirely to the subject of enterprise Open Source. Most of these sources discuss using Open Source applications and infrastructure in one's business, and tacitly assume that this defines enterprise Open Source. This implied definition falls short of what I think of when envisioning an 'Open Source enterprise application' however.

Aha! What Your Refrigerator Can Teach You About Selling Software

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 14:30:00 EDT

Great ideas often come from the most commonplace occurrences. Take the story of Sir Issac Newton's 'discovery' of gravity. According to the legend, he was sitting under an apple tree minding his own business when - bonk! - an apple dropped onto his head, and suddenly all the complex mathematical formulae he'd been considering became crystal clear. It's what's known as an 'Aha!' moment.

The High Cost of Independence

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 13:00:00 EDT

The acronym ISV stands for Independent Software Vendor. Historically, independence was important to protect customers from the proprietary lock-in associated with third-party components such as hardware or system software. A greater choice of interoperable components gave customers greater flexibility to procure and assemble a system that met their needs. Microsoft alleviated some of this concern with the Windows platform because customers could always choose multiple hardware providers when selecting applications that ran on Windows. Of course, an application that only runs on Windows isn't exactly an 'independent' application, but customers seem to accept hardware independence as sufficient freedom. (More on Microsoft and Windows later.)

Selling Software in China

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 13:00:00 EDT

Technology companies have been taking a beating lately because of their efforts in China. Google and Yahoo are torn between the evil of government censorship and the prospect of doing business with the world's fastest-growing economy. Microsoft, Adobe, and content providers like the American movie studios face serious problems with piracy. A recent report by the China-Britain Business Council stated that only one in four people in China has purchased software legally.