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Adoption rates for SharePoint and similar technologies continue to be high, with nearly one-fifth of
enterprises surveyed having already implemented. Among those that have not yet done so, many
express interest in these solutions. The data represented in Figure 1 below is from the Budget & Staffing
survey, where the respondent base comprises a broad range of IT professionals – not only those
interested in SharePoint.
Beyond the organizations that are actively using or planning for SharePoint or an equivalent
solution, an additional 24% are interested but do not have a defined timeline for implementation.
As adoption continues to spread through the enterprise world, those companies may face
pressure from business units and collaborative partners to adopt as well.
from Collaboration Potential Drives SharePoint Adoption (IN-6365)
Service-Oriented Architecture
During a SOA implementation, design decisions will be made that will either constrain or enable future
phases. The most common issue here is the design of the services themselves.
If a bottom-up, technology-driven analysis is chosen (as might be the case where SOA is introduced to
satisfy an application integration requirement) then services are most likely to be defined as a simple
virtualisation of the functionality of the existing application portfolio. This is unlikely to be a good match
with business requirements, leading to poor reuse of services in later developments. However, if a purely
top-down approach is taken by analysing current and planned processes, then a good business fit and reuse
might be achieved at the expense of performance issues and difficulties in mapping the required services
to available application functionality.
Organisations should adopt a deployment methodology that guides them through this critical design stage.
from SOA Platforms: Software Infrastructure Requirements for Successful SOA Deployments (BG-0041)
Trends in IT Security
Malware attacks are the infection of the organization’s systems or network by viruses,
worms, trojans, adware, spyware, or other program code where the owner of the target
machine has not given explicit permission for its installation. The effect of malware can be
merely annoying, as with adware, or it can act as a vector for more serious attacks, as with
spyware programs that log user keystrokes, sniff passwords, or steal credit card numbers.
Respondents are almost evenly divided in their perception of the threat
of malware. Thirty-six percent consider it a moderate threat, 22% judge it a major threat, and
the same percentage call it a minor threat. However, 13% consider malware to be a very
serious threat. Only 6% of respondents do not view malware as a threat at all. This disparity
of views concerning the seriousness of malware is most likely due to the variation among
organizations in terms of their ability to defend against this threat. Some organizations have
good anti-malware provisions, and thus consider the threat not very serious. Others have not
taken adequate measures and thus view the threat more seriously. The good news is that
such defenses are available and they do work, as long as they are deployed in a
comprehensive manner with well-developed policies, procedures, and user training.
from Trends in IT Security Threats (CE-4003)
Aligning IT Staff with Business Results
One of our most dramatic findings was how little time any of these professionals spend
interacting or communicating with their business colleagues and/or the real customers of the
business. The average IT professional spends less than 15% of his or her time (fewer than 6
hours per week) in direct contact with clients - the business professionals who fund and use the applications and technology that IT builds and supports. While the survey respondents reported spending an additional 3-4 hours a week communicating with clients electronically, we can see why their basic understanding of business issues and business practices leaves something to be desired - they are generally very isolated from the business.
That isolation becomes even more clear when we look at how much contact these IT
professionals have with the real customers of the business - who pay for the goods and services their businesses produce. For the entire group, median number of days spent with customers is precisely zero (the average is actually slightly more than 4 hours per week, but the variance across the 143 respondents is so large that the average has no meaning). The only group who reported spending any significant time at all with customers were the relationship managers, and the median amount of contact for them was just 2 hours per week. All the other groups essentially never see or interact with a paying customer.
from Focusing IT Professionals on Business Results: Techniques for Teamwork, Account Management, and Enduring Education (CG-4522)
Implementing Service Oriented Architecture
Introducing SOA requires the organisation to move away from the vertically constrained architecture and
embrace a horizontally layered approach. However, this could be initiated from the top down or the bottom
up, and in reality both are used. Ideally, the definition process should start from the top using business pain
points and objectives as the driver, but in practice many SOA initiatives start in the IT department using the
new technology with no regard to business requirements - something that should be discouraged if a
collection of services are not to be accumulated that are never used by the business.
Critical to the whole concept of SOA is BPM. Having a business process layer that enables change as the
organisation alters is vital. This means that composite applications will address specific business problems
by drawing together the business logic and data sources from multiple underlying systems that already exist.
The recent emphasis for IT departments on systems consolidation and compliance with information
legislation, has led to a backlog of development work, which must be accomplished in an effective and
timely manner. Addressing this need, significant benefits in both speed and development costs can be realised by utilising composite applications, which draw together business logic and data sources from multiple underlying systems.
from Planning and Implementing SOA: Ensuring the Successful Deployment of a Services-based Approach (BG-0038)
Information Lifecycle Management
IT storage vendors would agree that there is
no such thing as an all-embracing single ILM
‘solution’ available; it is a concept and a goal.
But vendors have brought out components and
suites of software that implement aspects of
ILM and these will make a difference - as will
the preparatory work in analysing and
categorising existing system-held information.
So users should be planning and then
implementing strategies that will move them
towards the ultimate ILM goal, a goal which
can be summarised as:
Extracting better value and performance
from key information while permanently
reducing the total burden and cost of
storage and its management.
If this is done properly, improvements will
come that will help avert a looming
catastrophe. Experimenting on a small section
of the data can show what is possible,
whereas doing nothing will just allow the
problem to grow out of control. Commonsense
dictates that the more ‘worthless’ information
that is retained online the worse the
performance will be trying to reach truly
valuable data. So working to identify
information that is truly of value to the
business is an obvious step. This may then be
used for strategic advantage - which will help
senior executives to drive the organisation’s
success. Anything removed from primary
storage will help performance and reduce the
cost of storing it.
from Information Lifecycle Management (BL-5553)
