Infrastructure

The foundation of any BYO device initiative is a robust BYO device policy. The policy must set the boundaries for acceptable use, costs and security. Ensure device security is driven by business stakeholders and is based on pragmatic risk analysis rather than technical concerns from IT staff, or FUD from vendors who are anxious to sell their wares. Robust policy, strong corporate culture and proper training can be more effective than technology in securing corporate data and controlling costs and risk. Use policy, culture and training to drive compliance, minimising the need for complex and expensive technological controls.

The forecast growth of data transmission over the Internet in the next decade means the role of content distribution networks will probably rise. As demands on bandwidth grow, efficient management of online data will be at the centre of many organisations’ online delivery strategy. While it may seem that improved broadband and the arrival of the NBN (when that occurs) will solve the issues of speed, it will not because more users, richer media and more applications will fill the bandwidth. Consequently a content distribution network (CDN) strategy ought to be part of any organisation’s online planning.

The idea of Bring-Your-Own (BYO) Laptop has been bandied about for the last seven years, but it is not as common as implied by the press. Few ANZ organisations have BYO Laptops, however some have implemented BYO smartphones and many intend to do so in the next 18 months. The driver of BYO device in the organisation is not avoidance of the capital costs but rather the need to accommodate users’ expectations of technology, which have been significantly increased by the consumerisation of IT, and largely driven by the iPhone and iPad.

Oracle will continue to excel in the Application, Middleware and Database markets, but it also intends to radically transform and simplify IT infrastructure. Oracle’s strategy is to eliminate complexity, create significantly greater business value and reduce infrastructure costs using an Integrated Systems approach. The objective is to enable customers to focus on applications, instead of infrastructure, in the hope they consume more Oracle software. IT executives should keep abreast of Oracle’s infrastructure innovations, as well as the competitors’, and be prepared to rethink their existing infrastructure approach if an Integrated System can create a significant new opportunity for the business.

The discipline of Enterprise Architecture has evolved from the need to articulate and maintain a big picture overview of how an organisation works, covering organisational structure, processes, and systems. Whilst Enterprise Architecture can assist in implementing industry best practices, several-fold improvements in productivity and quality are only possible if the organisation makes a conscious effort to attract and retain top-level subject matter experts, and if it commits to a so-called Domain Engineering / Software Product Line approach to the strategic analysis of market needs and the design of products and services.

Poor quality and incomplete requirements continue to be a leading cause of IT project failure. While the more widespread use of iterative project management techniques is minimising the impact of bad requirements, it is still not addressing the underlying cause. Accountability for improving the quality of requirements remains elusive. Enterprise architects must take a stronger role in the validation of requirements, and be prepared to intervene when necessary.

Mature Unified Communications (MUC) is more than a blending of messaging, voice, and presence information. The coming wave of unified communications will be executed as part of a larger ’worker mobility’ strategy and be more closely coupled with business processes. This type of unified communications allows significant organisational structural change. Thus, planning for MUC begins with an examination of organisational processes and discovery of where knowledge is located within the organisation, and then evolves into a discussion regarding how to restructure teams to gain a competitive advantage.

VMware’s vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) is the beginning of the end of the modular storage market. While built for the low end of the market, the VSA will scale-up over time and disrupt the modular storage market. The key benefits of the VSA in a VMware cluster are: lower infrastructure complexity, lower capital costs, greater workload agility and reduced IT skills. SMBs should consider the VSA at their next major infrastructure refresh. Enterprises should experiment with a standalone environment, such as dev/test or a new departmental application, and become familiar with this technology. Enterprise should then create an adoption strategy to replace modular storage in their VMware server cluster as the VSA matures and scales up .

As a consequence of the Internet, and with it, the development of several technologies, and e-commerce (and piracy, too) and now, all things ‘social’ there is an expectation that disruptive innovation is critical to success. More than that: disruptive is the key to success, and without it businesses will die. Survive or die; it’s either/or. The choice is clear. In the US, ...

Australian IT organisations should be setting the bar higher to extract maximum value from outsourcing arrangements. Furthermore, if the level of outcomes for many providers has been exceeded, it is often only because those expectations were set so low, with a focus on organisations pushing off low-hanging IT functions. Clearly the blame in allowing the sub-optimal outcomes to occur is shared by both vendor and customer. Organisations must ensure that they are evolving the way in which they manage their outsourcing vendors to take advantage of cloud and utility based service delivery.