The Need for Cost Analytics

Vendors need to be cognizant of the economics around using their tools. This is not the typical total cost of ownership discussion. Instead, it is a discussion around the external costs of using products designed to interact with any of a number of clouds. Using a cloud such as Amazon or Azure can be cost …

Data and Software the New Durable Goods?

In talking with a neighbor, we spoke on several interesting concepts. More and more, we are moving away from manufacturing jobs and into automation and control jobs. However, fewer people are needed in automation and control, managing the robots that build things, than were needed in manufacturing. The available jobs in manufacturing, automation, and control …

Notes from the Field: The Value of an Enterprise Architecture

I’ve written before on the importance of an enterprise architecture, but during the engagement that is driving this series of articles (Notes from the Field), it has come to my attention that this topic really needs to be revisited. I’m going to cover some topics I’ve written about before, and in a later post I’ll …

Notes from the Field: Planning the Extended Enterprise

In my current engagement, there has been a lot of talk lately about “future-proofing” the overall organization. I find this puzzling, because the basic definition of that term has not been identified. As the economy becomes increasingly connected, this customer stands at the threshold where the fundamental processes of value exchange are being transformed. The sheer abundance of information …

Notes from the Field: The Rate of Change

I stated in my last article that an adaptive enterprise—or, as this customer likes to call it now, an extended enterprise—is built, not bought. It is a transformational process, and every enterprise arrives at the task of transforming itself with a different history and different goals, priorities, and needs.

IO IO it is off to Storage and IO metrics we go

There are many different types of metrics pertaining to storage and IO that can be grouped into Performance, Availability, Capacity, Economics and Energy (PACE). Every application or workload has some characteristics attribute of Performance, Availability, Capacity, Economics and Energy that can be further broken down into metrics that are more detailed.