Will Social Media lead to Management Topsy Turvy?

Today's question on the ebizQ Web 2.0 forum was about whether "social" would lead to the demise of top-down management.

I'll be honest... I just don't understand the premise for this question, even after reading the blog that it was referring to.

• Did the post office end top-down management?  
• Did telephony end top-down management?  
• Did email end top-down management?  
• Did instant messaging end top-down management?

Then, why would social end it?

Social media is just another channel that facilitates the same communication that had been happening before with the post office, telephones, email, and IM. Now, will management be impacted by social media? Absolutely, just like it was impacted by other previous advancements in communication styles and technologies.

* Originally posted in the ebizQ Web 2.0 forum on July 27, 2011.

Does Facebook's loss of users signal a shift in Social Media?

An interesting question came up on the ebizQ Web 2.0 forum today. As everyone must know by now, Facebook lost more than 5% of its user in the U.S. last month, and if you haven't heard, here's an article at Computerworld. The question is whether this signals an underlying shift in social media?

Most answers came down to something along the lines of "Social Media is a fad and all fads fade away eventually..."

But, is the fad Social Media or is the fad really facebook, twitter, etc.?

Social media is a broad category of media that enables social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable communication techniques, and by leveraging web-based and mobile technologies to turn one-way communication into a two-way interactive dialogue. Facebook and Twitter are just tools. For technology geeks like myself the distinction is akin to that between SOA and Web Services.

A couple of reasons can help explain what's going on:

1. Facebook fatigue as users get tired and/or bored with facebook.
2. More exciting or relevant options become available. The Social Media landscape is lush with tools of which facebook is just one option.  My gut tells me that if we added up all the new users across the many different Social Media sites they would more than make up for the 5% loss that facebook had. Also, more than likely these 5% users that defected facebook went to one of the other options thus having no impact on Social Media usage overall. 

So, I agree facebook usage might go down as the fad loses intensity but Social Media on the whole is here to stay.

* Originally posted on the ebizQ Web 2.0 forum on June 15, 2011.

Eenie meenie miney mo - Packaged Apps Vs. Custom Apps

Today's question on the ebizQ Tech forum was about which one is better - packaged apps or custom developed ones? The question was inspired by Mike Gilpin's Forrester blog, Packaged Versus Custom Apps: The Debate Rages On, where he writes that it wasn't that long ago that packaged apps ruled the application delivery landscape and custom development was decidedly the second choice. He contends, however, that today, the decision is not so cut and dried, as firms struggle to find the right balance between the quick time-to-market of packages and the competitive distinction custom development can create.

The simple answer is neither is better. An enterprise needs both. The question is akin to asking "what's better - peanut butter or jelly?" How often have we heard of just a peanut butter or just a jelly sandwich. Definitely not as much as we hear about a "peanut butter and jelly" or "PBJ" sandwich. Similarly, it would be rare to find an organization that did not have both custom and packaged applications weaved together.

Make no mistake however that this by no means implies that both custom and packaged apps are the same. There are different reasons why a situation might warrant one over the other. For example, a core strategic business process most often requires a custom application in order to create and maintain maximum competitive advantage. Packaged apps typcially standardize "best practices". Since packaged apps can be bought and used by anyone, they (and therefore standardized best practices) rarely yield a true competitive advantage. But if a business process (such as billing your customers) is routine (i.e. is not the source of your competitive advantage) then by all means leveraging a packaged app and customizing it makes perfect sense.

The moral of the above is that one thing is rarely better than another in the absolute sense. It's the situation that might make one solution more appealing than the other.

* Originally posted in ebizQ's Tech forum on May 4, 2011.

And we wonder why Enterprise Architecture efforts seldom succeed...

It's been a while but worth the wait since I have finally been rewarded with a question on the ebizQ SOA forum worthy of attention :).

Gartner recently stated "Enterprise architecture (EA) is a key strategic initiative, as the majority of practitioners have shifted their focus to their business's strategic vision, not focusing on the IT organization alone. By 2016, 30 percent of EA efforts will be supported as a collaboration between business and IT, up from 9 percent in early 2011."

The question on the forum was "Do you agree?"

All I can say is "Wow!!!"

A 30% collaboration on EA between business and IT by the year 2016! I wish I could have heard and seen Betsy Burton, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner, as she quoted these numbers. I would have loved to see how she would have managed to keep a straight face while quoting these numbers without any hint of sarcasm in her voice. 

With abysmal numbers like these is it any wonder why most Enterprise Architecture initiatives fail miserably? If only 9% of EA efforts today are a collaboration between business and IT then what the heck are the other 91% efforts doing? 

Want to see more wins for EA? Then don't wait for 30% collaboration by 2016; instead strive for 100% collaboration by the year 2012.

Click here to follow the entire discussion on the ebizQ SOA forum.  

Back to the Future - The Role of an Enterprise Architect

My first question on ebizQ's Enterprise Architecture forum is an interesting one that was inspired by a blog entry titled Enterprise Architects' Role In Aligning IT With Business by Forrester Research VP Gene Leganza as he ponders what the Enterprise Architect role would look like in the future based on what he is seeing happening today. 

While it's a question worthy of serious thought, I believe that the role of an Enterprise Architect (EA) has always been and will always be to implement an organization's business strategy with a supporting and complementing IT strategy. Different companies have different names and reporting structures for this role depending on their size, vertical, and geographical location. Some call the role an EA, some a business architect, some a chief architect, and some call that role a CTO or CIO, but the role always exists. The biggest game changer that I see is that our global, innovation-based economy is just accelerating the pace at which "EA"s that don't fit this role are exposed and replaced.
 
* Originally posted on ebizQ's Enterprise Architecture forum on February 23, 2011.

Have Cloud... Bye bye IT Department?

It's been a while since I've participated in the ebizQ forums. But I'm back now! :)

Today's question on the Cloud Computing forum was whether the advent of the cloud will one day make IT departments a thing of the past - especially for "smaller" companies. Will the cloud at some point allow smaller companies to do away with their IT department?

I think the question needs some further clarification. Is it do away with the IT Department or with IT Capital Assets?

Although it may seem trivial on the surface, there is a major distinction between the two. An IT department has more than just physical "IT" or technology. It has people and processes as well. Cloud Computing might be able to replace all of the technology but not all of the people and processes. So, my answer is "Yes" to doing away with IT Capital Assets but "No" to doing away with the IT Department.

By the way, way back in early 2010, Gartner had made the bold proclamation that one-fifth of all businesses will own absolutely no IT assets come 2012. While I don't know if that number (20%) will hold true, I would like to point out that they too mentioned "IT assets" as opposed to IT department.

* Originally posted on the ebizQ Cloud Computing forum on February 9, 2011.

Implementing Clouds - What can a baby teach us?

According to a recent survey quoted on this blog by DevX, companies are more likely to virtualize their apps than move them to the cloud.

Maybe it's just me but is that really news?

Honestly, so much has been said and written about this very topic over the past couple of years that I won't bore you by rehashing the details. Suffice it to say that in most cases virtualization is the stepping stone to a Cloud. Typically a virtualized data center leads to what is known as a "private" Cloud, which ultimately helps companies figure out - realistically - what makes sense to farm out to a "public", "hybrid", or "community" Cloud and what to keep in house.


The above analogy is akin to saying that "babies are more likely to crawl than to walk and run". Motherhood and apple pie, anyone? :)

* Originally posted in the ebizQ Cloud Computing forum on January 11, 2011.

Is your precious data safer in the Clouds?

It is if you believe this blog that states Cloud computing offers 'no data security fears'. Well, that's a fairly bold statement that sparked a healthy discussion on the ebizQ Cloud Computing forum today.

But, honestly, does it even matter today - whether your data is really safer in the Clouds or not?

From a purely technical perspective the seemingly blatant statement made in the above referenced blog entry might even be true but as the saying goes "perception is reality" and the Cloud is no exception! So while Cloud providers might be the most technically capable of securing data (the potential reality), organizations will still continue to be very leary (because of their risk averse perception) of actually letting go of their control over the data by putting it in the Cloud.

In their defense, though, data security is not just limited to technical ability. Rather, most of the complexity in securing data is actually around legal and privacy issues, which have yet to be figured out adequately such that organizations can adjust their perception.

To be clear, the issue of perception is not just a challenge for Clouds. I still encounter people (even in the technology field) who will not use online banking in the fear that their account information might be exposed. These same people who will not trust SSL to protect their account or credit card information over the Internet will happily hand over their credit card to a complete stranger to take to a backroom and charge them for their meal. And they do so fully knowing that with the right equipment it would only take a few minutes to make a complete working copy of the credit card!!!

So, yes, perception is reality, and thus the real question then is not whether Clouds are safer than in-house data centers but rather if they are or will ever be perceived as such.

* Originally posted on the ebizQ Cloud Computing forum on January 4, 2011.

Looking back - Cloud's biggest victory in 2010

Well, the year is coming to an end, and the question was bound to come up on ebizQ's Cloud Computing forum.

So, what was the biggest thing to happen to the cloud in 2010?


Indeed, 2010 was indisputably a big year for the cloud. However, if I had to pick one event as cloud's biggest victory in 2010, it would have to be the adoption of a cloud-first policy by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget Agencies (OMB) that requires Federal Agencies to consider cloud as their first choice while proposing new IT programs as part of the 2012 budget process. This open willingness to adopt cloud by the U.S Federal Government is a really big deal for the cloud especially when you consider that the Federal Government has spent over $600 billion on IT related inverstments over the past decade and has a current annual budget of close to $80 billion.


* Originally posted on the ebizQ Cloud Computing forum on December 21, 2010.

SOA... is the answer as simple as "outsourcing it"?

Today's discussion on the ever-lively ebizQ SOA forum was inspired by the article Why I Outsourced Application Development to China on CIO.com, which gives some lessons learned on IT outsourcing specifically related to SOA.

Hence the question on the forum: Does it make sense to outsource your SOA?

I think the following paragraph from the article is key to understanding the context of the question:

"...Tactically, Lee wanted to replace Interval's core applications and move to a service-oriented architecture (SOA). Strategically, she wanted to create an agile IT organization better able to respond to changes in the business. Outsourcing new application development to an offshore provider with experience in SOA and agile development would enable a quicker—and cheaper—transformation on both fronts..."

Two noteworthy points include:

1. SOA was seen as a tactic for realizing the agile IT strategy.
2. Only new applications were being considered for SOA.

So, while the approach Lee took might have achieved her vision, I have fundamental disagreements with both points above.

First, SOA is not a tactic but a long-term strategy for achieving an agile IT organization. In fact, most of the so called "failures" can ultimately be traced to a near-sighted, short-term approach to SOA.

Second, limiting SOA to only new applications and their development misses a primary benefit of SOA - the benefit of breaking down the highly fortified silos of functionality to create a more transparent, open, and collaborative IT environment.

So, in conclusion, while outsourcing application development definitely makes sense, outsourcing "SOA", in my view of the world, does not.

* Originally posted in the ebizQ SOA forum on December 15, 2010.

The Service Orientation Conundrum

Today's question on the ebizQ SOA forum was inspired from Joe McKendrick's ZDnet blog posting where he refers to the classic SOA conundrum: Does good service-oriented architecture result from having a “service-oriented” focus and organization, or does SOA help lead to a more service-oriented organization?


We've all heard about questions that have no answer. To me this is an example of just the opposite - a question that answers itself!

The simple fact is that you need both - the service oriented organization (culture) and the service oriented architecture (technology); neither one is the master; and they form an iterative, virtuous circle.

So, which came first, the chicken or the egg?


* Originally posted in the ebizQ SOA Forum on December 1, 2010.

Virtualization, Bundling, and Browser Wars?

What do "Virtualization, Bundling, and Browser Wars" have in common. Well, an hour ago I would have probably said "What???!!!"

I feel a bit differently now.

The question on ebizQ's Cloud Computing forum today was about how private clouds is impacting the virtualization strategies of companies and referred to a blog posting by Mike Vizard.
Mike brings up a few very interesting points. However, what really grabbed my attention was the following statement:

"... Canonical this week partnered with Convirture to add an open source virtualization management platform to its Ubuntu distribution of Linux."

Now that is interesting. Imagine every operating system/platform with its own virtualization capability. Wait, it's already happening! Furthermore, the built in virtualization is optimized for the platform and vice versa.

Pretty cool, or is it?

Now think back to the time when Microsoft bundled its browser, IE, with its Windows Operating System.

If you can't recall, here's a refresher:

"United States v. Microsoft was a set of consolidated civil actions filed against Microsoft Corporation pursuant to the Sherman Antitrust Act on May 18, 1998 by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and 20 U.S. states who alleged that Microsoft abused monopoly power. The issue central to the case was whether Microsoft was allowed to bundle its flagship Internet Explorer (IE) web browser software with its Microsoft Windows operating system. Bundling them together is alleged to have been responsible for Microsoft's victory in the browser wars as every Windows user had a copy of Internet Explorer. It was further alleged that this unfairly restricted the market for competing web browsers (such as Netscape Navigator or Opera)..."

Funny how history has a way of repeating itself. Let's just hope that in this case it stops repeating itself at the "bundling" part and not at the "billions of dollars spent in legal fees" part!

* Originally posted on the ebizQ Cloud Computing forum on November 4, 2010.

SOA - The Second Coming?

According to a recent post in InfoQ "Nearly two years after proclaiming that SOA was dead, the Burton group has changed their mind and now writes that SOA is set for a comeback."


So, it is no surprise, that ebizQ, picked up on this and posed the question on their SOA forum "What reason do you give for the initial failure of SOA?"


Well, the question as posed has a BIG assumption built into it - that SOA had failed!

ebizQ readers were quick to pounce upon the assumption. The general consensus was the SOA itself had never really failed.

I agree.

SOA, the architecture, had never failed; rather it was the implementation and execution that never measured up to expectations. Conversly, we might have a better chance of success with SOA in its so called "second coming" since

1. The hype has been tempered down considerably with a healthy dose of reality, 
2. The technology has matured significantly to support a service architecture (think Clouds, Virtualization, ESBs, etc.), and 
3. We, as an IT Community, have matured significantly.

* Originally posted on the ebizQ SOA Forum on November 17, 2010.

SOA - I Wish, I Wish With All My Might...

Today's question on the ebizQ forum was "What Improvements Would You Like to See With SOA?".

Once upon a time...
 
On a more serious note though, we read a lot about the convergence of SOA and Cloud Computing. There's an excellent book on the topic by David Linthicum and even I have written an article on the topic titled The Cloud SOA Ecosystem published on ebizQ in October 2009.
 
So, the one improvement I yearn for is the cementing and formalization of the relation between Cloud Computing and SOA. Today, cloud computing has three main delivery models: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).
 
I propose including a fourth model called Information-as-a-Service.

Information-as-a-Service is the delivery model that formalizes the relation between SOA and Cloud Computing. It is a delivery model that is enabled by SOA at its core just as Virtualization is a key underpinning of IaaS. In other words, SOA is to Information-as-a-Service what Virtualization is to Infrastructure-as-a-Service. Put yet another way, Cloud Computing is the overall enterprise architecture pattern; SOA is the architectural pattern that enables one model of the overall Cloud: Information-as-a-Service.

* Originally posted on the ebizQ Cloud Computing forum on November 4, 2010.

Make a Wish - Improvements to Cloud Computing

The "question de jour" on on ebizQ's Cloud Computing forum was "What Improvements Would You Like to See With Cloud Computing?". Answers varied from "portability" to "security" to "standardization" to "privacy".


Yes, I agree, all of the above are challenges with Cloud Computing today. However, I am going to make a different wish...

Honesty

Truly, everything is not a cloud. We've seen this with SOA where everyone wanted a piece of the SOA action, so vendors started putting "XML interfaces" on their "objects" and renamed them "services". All of a sudden, SOA "did not perform" became a widespread belief. Let's not repeat that story with clouds. Virtualization is not Cloud Computing. Hosting a software application remotely such that "everyone can access it" is not Cloud Computing.

Can we be honest for a change?

* Originally posted on the ebizQ Cloud Computing forum on October 26, 2010.

The Business Case for SOA... in ONE sentence

EbizQ editor, Peter Schooff, asked the question "In One Sentence, How Would You Make the Business Case for SOA Right Now?" on the ebizQ SOA forum today.

So, here's my take:

Do it or risk becoming irrelevant - it's no longer a competitive advantage; it's the cost of doing business.

 * Originally posted on the ebizQ SOA Forum on October 21, 2010.

Are SOA and Enterprise Architecture Now the Same Thing?

ebizQ editor, Peter Schooff, started an excellent discussion today on the ebizQ SOA forum today asking the question as to whether SOA and EA have converged into the "same thing". The question was inspired from David Linthicum's blog, Do SOA and enterprise architecture now mean the same thing?' Yes, they do.

So, where do I stand in this heated debate?

I cannot answer the question definitively. However, my hypothesis is that if they are the same thing then you should be able to map ANY accepted EA Framework such as TOGAF with the elements of SOA.

So for example, continuing with TOGAF, which defines EA as the aggregation of four different architectures, namely:

1. A Business Architecture that defines the business strategy, governance, organization, and key business processes.
2. A Data Architecture that describes the structure of an organization's logical and physical data assets and data management resources. Data architecture does not include the design of the actual physical data stores (or database).
3. An Applications Architecture that provides the blueprint for the individual application systems to be deployed, their interactions, and their relationships to the core business processes of the organization. The application architecture in TOGAF is not concerned with the actual software applications but rather limits the term application to a logical grouping of functionality.
4. A Technology Architecture that describes the logical software and hardware capabilities that are required to support the deployment of business, data, and application services. This includes IT infrastructure, middleware, networks, communications, processing, standards, etc.

So, does SOA map to each of these four architecture subsets of TOGAF? The bottom line is: Making an assertion is one thing; proving your assertion with a fact-based mapping is the proverbial "the proof is in the pudding."

* Originally posted in the ebizQ SOA forum on September 30, 2010.

Mainstream Adoption of Cloud Computing - Decades Away?

On August 23, 2010, Brian Stevens, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Red Hat Inc., mentioned that the "evolution" of Cloud Computing was still "decades" away from where we would see the kind of maturation necessary to sway the big business to the cloud.

As one would expect, it was only a matter of time until ebizQ editor Peter Schooff picked this story up and asked the question on the Cloud Computing forum.

Make no mistake Cloud Computing is already here just as much as Open Source (for example, Red Hat Linux) is already here. Asking the question whether Cloud Computing will ever be mature enough where every big business is comfortable using a Public Cloud is similar to asking whether Open Source will ever be mature enough where no business will ever use any commercial software.

Is Cloud Computing only limited to Public Clouds? Even the most widely accepted definition of Cloud Computing from NIST identifies three other deployment models for Clouds - Private, Hybrid, and Community Clouds. With that in mind, isn't it ridiculous to claim that the adoption of Clouds is decades away? There are already so many well-documented examples of businesses (and government agencies) successfully adopting Cloud Computing.

* Originally posted on the ebizQ Cloud Computing Forum on September 7, 2010.

Cloud Computing - Not a Substitute for Proper Planning

"How Should Companies Prepare for When the Cloud Goes Down?" was the topic of discussion on ebizQ's Cloud Computing forum today. As this SearchCIO article, Time to lay down the cloud computing law for uptime, points out, it's when -- not if -- the cloud goes down. So how should you prepare for the inevitably of the cloud going down?

I agree... with the following clarification:

The technology might be new but the problem is NOT.

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BC/DR) have always been risk management considerations... they were considerations before clouds, are still consdierations with clouds, and will remain considerations even after clouds.

Wikipedia defines DR as "the process, policies and procedures related to preparing for recovery or continuation of technology infrastructure critical to an organization after a natural or human-induced disaster."

DR is a subset of business continuity as BC involves planning for keeping all aspects of a business functioning in the midst of disruptive events, while DR focuses on the IT or technology systems that support business functions.

So, in short, Clouds DO NOT eliminate the need for proper BC/DR planning and testing. Don't make the mistake of confusing or blurring the lines between a technology (cloud) and legitimate business issues (survival and profitability).

* Originally posted on the ebizQ Cloud Computing Forum in August 2010.

It's a bird, it's a plane.... no, it's a CLOUD

Will Cloud Computing save the day or rather the economy was the question that recently came up on the ebizQ Cloud Computing forum.

As I understand it the primary reasons behind our current economic conditions are:

1. The burst of the housing bubble.
2. Questionable ethical practices of lenders with rampant subprime loans coupled with Mortgage Backed Securities and Collateralized debt objects of such loans.
3. Fiscal irresponsibility of borrowers.

Can anyone say "Cloud Computing" to the above?

I certainly CAN NOT. :)

Well, Cloud Computing fans need not despair for even Superman is powerless in front of Kryptonite!

* Originally posted on the ebizQ Cloud Computing Forum in July 2010.