Enterprise

Enterprise Clouds Require Service-Level Discipline

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:00:00 EST

The Enterprise Cloud Requires a real time infrastructure and a management discipline that understands and can enforce service level discipline. Organizations have become increasingly dependent on technical infrastructure to enable customer interactions. As such, the business has a vested interest in making sure its technology partners understand what constitutes good customer experience so that it’s prepared for projected volumes and rapidly knows how to resolve any impediments.

Cloud Analytics

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:30:00 EDT

Business analytics is a major established sector of the IT industry, but it's one that's ripe for disruption. Cloud analytics is hot. Gartner's top two strategic technologies for the enterprise in 2010 are cloud computing and advanced analytics. Venture capitalist Ann Winblad, in a recent video, points out that the coming era of realtime cloud analytics will have a revolutionary impact on the enterprise, creating a radically new "innovation palette" for businesses of all kinds.

Join Me at the 1st Government IT Conference & Expo 6 Oct

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:00:00 EDT

I hope to see you at the SYS-CON sponsored GovIT Conference and Expo 6 Oct 2009. I’ll also spend time during the day attending the day thinking through everything I’ve ever written and learned about Cloud Computing and Federal IT and hope to bring that to bear in my interactions with Jeremy Geelan, Terry Woloszyn and Barry X Lynn at the end of conference panel on Cloud Computing and Federal IT. Jeremy will focus this panel on the future and I’m sure this action-oriented panel will help bring clarity to this fast moving subject. Related posts:

A Three-Step Process to Getting Started on Twitter…

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 23:00:00 EDT

Because Chris had reviewed “Collapse of Distinction,” he and I have shared a dialogue. He’s interesting, smart, funny, and profound. In other words, an extraordinarily cool guy. I noticed that he was having a Tweet-up…an in-person “get-together” for people who follow one another on Twitter…for those who had been a part of a conference where Chris was speaking. I sent him a Tweet, asking if it would be appropriate for me to come by, even though I was not attending the meeting he was addressing — as I had a speech of my own that same time. Being the nice guy he is, he immediately told me to come by, and he’d buy a drink.

Cloud Gets Endorsement From Events

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:45:00 EDT

Many of the concepts first proposed and extolled during the Internet hype curve in the mid-1990s are now bearing fruit. Perhaps we should think of cloud computing as less than a separate hype curve, and more as the realization of the original Internet value curve , now some 15 years into its mainstream maturity.

Twitter 101 Guide for Business

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:00:00 EDT

Twitter is a communication platform that helps businesses stay connected to their customers. As a business, you can use it to quickly share information with people interested in your company, gather real-time market intelligence and feedback, and build relationships with customers, partners and other people who care about your company. As an individual user, you can use Twitter to tell a company (or anyone else) that you've had a great—or disappointing—experience with their business, offer product ideas, and learn about great offers.

Groupware Meets Social Networks

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 11:45:00 EDT

With its latest software update, open source groupware innovator Open-Xchange is previewing the ability to integrate social network information. For example, adding LinkedIn contacts into the Open-Xchange address book.

How Virtualization is Changing the Way We Think About Availability

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 09:00:00 EDT

Analyst firm The 451 Group has just released some very interesting findings about virtualization and availability in a recent report by Chief Analyst John Abbott. Some of the key take-aways include:

• Virtual infrastructure can form the basis of fully automated availability processes. Availability becomes a default property of the virtual machine.

• ‘Dial up’ levels of availability can be implemented, depending on the requirements of specific applications or departments.

• If a system restore is required after a disaster, it’s usually much easier and much quicker to restore a virtual machine than a physical machine.

• Virtualization infrastructure is already a core component in datacenter automation, unified computing (the bringing together of servers, storage and networking) and cloud computing. Availability services based on top of a virtualization layer will slot right into any of these longer-term initiatives that customers may be working toward.

• Industrial-strength storage networks, currently a best-practice requirement for virtual availability, will lose ground to alternatives, which are maturing.

• The worlds of high availability and disaster recovery are coming together as virtualization is added to the mix.

• Tools more friendly to end users are likely to emerge, reducing the load on enterprise IT support staff, but requiring sophisticated underlay technology.

The 451 Group hosted a webinar a few days ago on this topic, which is available to download for free here: http://www.451group.com/report_view/report_view.php?entity_id=58563

SOASTA Announces Cloud-Based Performance Certification Program

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 07:45:00 EDT

SOASTA, the leader in cloud testing, today announced a Performance Certification Program designed to enable companies deploying software in the Cloud, at hosted data centers, or behind corporate firewalls to certify that their website has been tested and has met or exceeded industry benchmarks for performance at peak levels of user traffic. Whether due to cost, complexity or lack of resources, the vast majority of web applications and sites have not been tested at normal user volumes, much less for unexpected spikes in traffic. The user community has become the testers for most Web 2.0 sites, a risk that has proven very costly time and again.

IT Architecture Is Not Enterprise Architecture

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:15:00 EDT

For many years I have observed lots of confusion with some basic definitions such as IT and Enterprise Architecture among other terms. I will not try to define the meaning of Enterprise Architecture by myself (despite I have my own view on this) as this is something being right now redefined by the Open Group (which by the way used to call their events “IT Architecture Practitioner Conference” and changed only recently to “Enterprise Architecture Practitioner Conference”).

The Value is in Ideas and Distributed Contribution

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:00:00 EDT

No individual wants to believe they are under control, but society needs to have a sense of order which means we exchanged control along the way with our institutions. With that control being exchanged, we gave power and influence to a centralized few. I feel there is a collective yearning to splinter control and to no longer allow for the gross centralization of control. A belief that the risk of that power being used against us in some way goes down dramatically if that power is distributed among the many. A sense of order is more guided by the mores associated with a community which is upheld by the participants. If an individual ignores these guidelines, they are in essence, cast out of the community. Admittedly, this doesn't work well for areas that are life-threatening, but I'm pretty safe in assuming that most businesses aren't involved in life and death situations.

Why People Like Open Source Software

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:15:00 EDT

Why developers want the software to be open sourced? I like quotes by great minds. Here's my favorite quote by Henry Ford: If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right. Some of these chapters of our upcoming O'Reilly book "Enterprise Development with Flex" had opening software-related quotes. Our editor suggested that for consistency, it should be done in every chapter, which makes sense. Chapter 6 of the book is titled "Open Source Networking Solutions", which begs for a specific quote on open source software, but I'm not aware of any pundit who said something short and catchy in this field.

Red Hat Named "Platinum Sponsor" of Virtualization Conference & Expo

Thu, 29 May 2008 14:30:00 EDT

Red Hat is a trusted open source provider. Red Hat offers enterprise customers a long-term plan for building infrastructures on the quality and innovation of open source. Combining open source operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, together with applications, management, and Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) solutions, including the JBoss Enterprise Middleware Suite.

How RIA - AJAX Technology Can Help Linux Seize the Enterprise Desktop

Thu, 23 Feb 2006 20:00:00 EST

Despite its success in the mid-tier, Linux has not been widely adopted on enterprise desktops - primarily because there is currently very little in the way of standards-based support for developing platform-neutral, enterprise-class GUI applications for Linux. Enterprises will not undertake the major effort required to move applications off of Windows unless they know those applications will be portable - a lesson learned the hard way in the move to Windows over the past decade.

Enterprise Open Source: Where Are You Going, OSS? Supply and Demand

Wed, 07 Dec 2005 12:15:00 EST

Bob Young recently spoke at the TriLUG Linux Users Group in Raleigh, North Carolina. His talk covered several topics, from why he founded Red Hat, to his latest online publishing venture, Lulu (www.lulu.com), to the need for greater public debate about copyright and patent law. In response to a question from the audience about where he thinks Open Source Software (OSS) will dominate and where Proprietary, Closed Source software will excel, Mr. Young offered a very useful commentary.

Taking Linux, Apache, PostgreSQL, and PHP to Their Logical Extreme

Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:15:00 EDT

Let's play word association. I say 'Web Hosting.' I bet 'fat margins' didn't jump into your head. More likely, you thought of some of the 'where are they nows' of the bubble, like Exodus and PSINet. Let's do another round - I say 'New York City,' and I'd wager that 'cheap rent' wasn't the first thing you thought of, either. So it may surprise you to learn that one hosting company that's been around since 1993 and that's actually making money, Logicworks (www.logicworks.net), just happens to be based in New York City.

Migrate and Consolidate by Leveraging Linux With Lower Costs

Sun, 16 Oct 2005 15:45:00 EDT

In an all too familiar saga taking place in small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) everywhere, file/print, Web, e-mail, and application servers are multiplying at an alarming rate in response to ever-increasing demands for processing power. Initially, the decision to bolster capacity-constrained servers by adding more seems like a reasonable remedy for managing aggressive growth. However, when two-to-three additional servers grows to 10-to-20 over time while being provisioned for extra cycles to accommodate peak loads, this quick-fix solution mushrooms into a major IT problem, leading to accelerated operating costs, increasingly complex administration, and ineffective resource utilization.

Enterprise Linux Systems Management Headaches

Fri, 12 Aug 2005 15:00:00 EDT

One of the obvious driving factors around enterprise Linux adoption has been the significant cost savings on software and hardware. Quite simply, the hardware is cheaper and the OS is cheaper. By taking advantage of the explosion of commodity Linux boxes - and by going the Linux route to get around costly licensing issues on the software side - enterprises are finding the economics around Linux to be quite attractive.

Aduva Helps Companies Deploy Linux Across All IBM eServer Platforms

Fri, 05 Aug 2005 15:45:00 EDT

'This is excellent news for IBM customers who want to manage their mission-critical applications and make price/performance decisions incorporating the unique features of different hardware platforms to the optimal needs of enterprise applications,' said Zev Laderman, CEO of Aduva, as Aduva announced today that its OnStage product provides single console management of all IBM eServer brands: zSeries, xSeries, and OPEN POWER architectures of pSeries, iSeries, and BladeCenter JS20.

Linux-Based Groupware

Fri, 08 Jul 2005 16:00:00 EDT

In the IT world today, there are many reasons why Linux and other Open Source solutions can replace closed source products from Microsoft and other vendors. When it comes right down to it though, the software that's chosen in business is the software that provides the most value to the business.

IBM Workplace Managed Client

Fri, 08 Jul 2005 16:00:00 EDT

What if your desktop applications didn't care what operating system was running on your computer? If IBM's Workplace group delivers on the vision they laid out for me in a recent demo of their Workplace Managed Client (WMC), IT departments will have exactly this degree of freedom in their desktop OS selection.

OSDL - Promoting Linux Enterprise Servers

Fri, 08 Jul 2005 16:00:00 EDT

This article provides a brief introduction to the Data Center Linux (DCL) initiative sponsored by the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL). I'll describe our goals, show how we achieve those goals though our committees and working groups, and provide some examples of some DCL-driven activities and challenges.

Small Business Linux Management

Tue, 14 Jun 2005 10:00:00 EDT

With Linux now officially 'mainstream' in the enterprise, the industry pundits are starting to pay a little more attention to Linux penetration figures further down the food chain. Early stats show that we still have a ways to go before Linux penetration in SMEs (small to medium-sized enterprises, or companies with 100-249 employees) and SMBs (small to medium-sized businesses that have 1-100 employees) hits the levels we're seeing in the enterprise.

Inside View: Parasoft Insure++ 7.0 for Linux

Thu, 07 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EDT

My first encounter with Parasoft Insure++ and Parasoft Corporation was in the mid-'90s when I was working for a small company developing parsers and translators for languages used in semiconductor chip design. Like developers on almost any development project, we ran into a 'runaway' memory situation -typically called 'leaks,' ours was more like a 'flood' - that took quite a bit of time, effort, and frank conversations to debug by hand.

Data Warehouse Adoption of the Linux-Based Platform

Wed, 23 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST

Data warehouse implementations represent one of the most challenging types of deployments for the enterprise. Several factors contribute to the challenge of deploying a successful data warehouse. Among these are large-scale and complex system configurations, sophisticated data modeling and analysis tools, and high visibility in a broad range of important business functions within the company.

Data Center Linux

Mon, 27 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EDT

In recent years, the adoption of Linux in the data center has progressed beyond infrastructure services such as e-mail and file, print, and Web serving. Today, Linux is widely used as a business application server and is moving deeper into the data center as a database and content server.

SAS: World's Largest Privately Held Software Company...

Tue, 31 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EDT

SAS (www.sas.com) is the world's largest privately held software company and a global leader in business intelligence software. SAS, founded in 1976 and headquartered in Cary, N.C., has taken a different path than many of the 'Johnny-come-lately' software vendors, starting from modest beginnings and spanning 27 years of continued revenue growth to $1.34 billion in 2003. This accomplishment is not only a testimony to the value of its products and the execution of its business, but also to its knowledge of good business practices. Ninety-six of the top 100 companies on the 2003 FORTUNE Global 500 use SAS products to analyze data and make decisions about their enterprises through data warehousing, intelligence storage, analytics, and business intelligence.

Emulex First Company to Gain Red Hat and SUSE Certification for HBA Boards

Mon, 09 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Costa Mesa, CA, based Emulex Corp., announced that future version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 will support the networking company's drivers for its host bus adapter (HBA) boards.

Linux.SYS-CON.com Analysis: Red Hat Sales - How Do They Do It?

Mon, 26 Jul 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Former Aberdeen Group analyst Bill Claybrook shares his thoughts on how it is that just 50 sales staff at Red Hat were able to generate some 98,000 subscriptions to RH Enterprise Enterprise Linux in the quarter it just reported on.

The Functionality of the Future Is Here

Mon, 19 Apr 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Computing virtualization is a popular term these days, but the concept is far from new. Back in the sixties, Star Trek's Captain Kirk had the ideal virtual computer. Aboard ship, he called out his question or command and the computer responded.

The Rise of Linux in the Enterprise

Mon, 11 Aug 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Given the rise and rise of Linux in the enterprise, LWM invites one of the giants of the commercial computing world, Computer Associates, to sketch for us its 'take' on what the rest of 2003 has in store...

Enterprise Management for Linux Server Consolidation

Mon, 11 Aug 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Many businesses are exploiting the cost-effectiveness, stability, and scalability of running applications on Linux, today's fastest-growing operating system. However, managing multiple distributed applications can be costly and difficult.

Why an SCO win is a slam dunk and why you need not care

Fri, 30 May 2003 00:00:00 EDT

SCO alleges IBM improperly extended its licensed use of Unix Source code and related information to Linux. This is a big problem for IBM but of little importance to the general Linux community. (1200 words)

Is the sky falling and the end near for open source?

Tue, 13 May 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Open source offers a better option for XML, thus making the real bottom line on Microsoft's use of XML in Office 1X a simple one: follow and lose, or continue to diverge and win by offering a smarter alternative that also happens to be cheaper. (2,900 words)

Is Windows 2003 Server really faster than Linux/Samba?

Fri, 09 May 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Microsoft claims Windows 2003 Server is twice as fast as Linux, at least when it's used for file serving. I spoke to Jeremy Allison, head of the Samba team, who provided a few insights into the test configurations that don't leap out at the reader because they are hidden away in appendixes to the benchmark document. Allison feels this, in itself, is substantially responsible for the outcome.

Virtual case study: Unix brings sanity to an accounting services firm

Mon, 07 Apr 2003 00:00:00 EDT

At Big Four accounting-services firms like KPMG, computing is completely dominated by the Microsoft PC. Paul Murphy looks at what Linux could mean for these firms over the next two-to-five years and finds, not surprisingly, that adopting Linux would save them money. More interestingly, however, he argues that open source complements other ongoing changes and trends that could make the profession fun again. (3,400 words)

Debunking the Linux-Windows market-share myth

Fri, 14 Mar 2003 00:00:00 EST

There are dozens of reasons why people have underestimated how quickly Linux has been grabbing Windows' market share. Windows starts out with a false boost and maintains its illusory market share even as it gets replaced by Linux. In 2004, don't be surprised when Linux overtakes Windows to become the main focus for developers.

KDE 3.1 vs. GNOME 2.2: How GNOME became LAME

Fri, 28 Feb 2003 00:00:00 EST

KDE is delivering a better version of what GNOME's goal has apparently morphed into: becoming a great component framework that you can write to in multiple languages. Nicholas Petreley rebuffs the common GNOME battle slogans and explains why the window-manager's name needs reworking. Part 2 in a series. (2,000 words)

A strategic comparison of Windows vs. Unix, version 2.0

Wed, 26 Feb 2003 00:00:00 EST

Murphy's October 2001 TCO analysis generated much reader comment. In this article, the first installment in a two-part series, he revisits the Linux-versus-Windows decision for the faculty of a small college or university. (3,000 words)

How Sun can pull out of its slump

Wed, 29 Jan 2003 00:00:00 EST

If Sun doesn't get a turnaround at the top, its shares could sink to the point that management would have to look for a white knight... which would destroy the most innovative company in the business. In the end, Sun is rock-solid; getting there is a short-term problem for which we offer a modest proposal (or two). (3,000 words)