SOA filling the Gaps

Did you find Apple?

2012-01-26T08:41:00.000+02:00

You can see The Top Ten 2011 Patent Leadres in Flicker.
Have you succeeded to find Apple in that image?

If not, you have a good reason to read my post:
Vendors Survival: Will Apple Survive until 2021?

Thoughts on smilarity to Iran

2012-01-11T16:23:00.004+02:00

I am an Israeli. I am an Information Technology professional not a Politician.

Mrs. Hillary Clinton USA Secretary of State was recently quoted saying Israel is becoming more similar to Iran.

As far as I understand the three foundations of the current Iranian regime are:
1. Censorship of what people do, say and wear
2. No free and independent Legal System
3. No free and independent Media (TV, Radio, newspapers etc.)

Unfortunately, I agree with Mrs. Clinton.
Groups of extreme Orthodox religious people (Not all Orthodox religious people), are trying to bring us ten or fifteen hundred years back, as far as what we are doing or wearing (The first Iranian regime foundation).

Israeli Parliament members (not all of them) are trying to limit the Israeli Court and the Israeli Media and to reduce their independence on the political system.
They are trying to impose these limitations by new laws. Most of these laws were not improved yet by the parliament. (The second and third Iranian regime foundations)

I do not know how many years back these Israeli parliament members would like to take us back.
I guess that the 1950es is a good guess, because one of them was quoted saying that he agrees with Senator Joe McCarthy's opinions.

I recently read about the American Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) Law which was not yet approved by the American House of Representatives.
SOPA is actually Internet Censorship (The first Iranian Foundation).

After reading on SOPA I have a simple question to ask Mrs. Clinton:
Is Israel the only country which is becoming more similar to Iran?

Disclaimer: I am a blogger and I also write articles in the Hebrew Wikipedia. Blogging Services and Wikipedia Services are free unpaid services, which may be replaced by electronic or non-electronic paid services if and when SOPA will be approved.

SOA and Social Business

2011-12-26T00:36:00.000+02:00

Electronic Social Networking Services like Facebook are very popular.The distinction between Social Networks services and similar Business services like Linkedin are not clear. Businesses use Facebook for commercial purposes and sometimes Linkedin users use it for social purposes. The identity of services such as Twitter is not clear as well: it is used for commercial and for social purposes.

Usage of Social Networking Services in an Enterprise context is not as simple as using it in a Consumer context. Google's Steve Yege's post published incidentally to an external Google+ circle instead of internal circle (including only Google's employees), is an illustration of issues facing an Enterprise using a Social Networking Service.

The differences between Enterprise Social Networking Services are similar to the differences between SOA Services (Enterprise context) and Mashups (Consumer context): Management and Security are essential in the Enterprise context. However, usage of Electronic Networking Services could be beneficial for enterprises.

IDC believes that curiosity in Social networking Services is turned into a business opportunity as the lines between Consumer and Enterprise continue to blur.

In an interesting Research Note titled: Becoming a Social Business: The IBM Story, IDC's analysts Erin Traudt and Richard Vancil analyze one of the pioneers Social Businesses: IBM.

According to IDC's Social Business survey, Social Software usage moved beyond the Early Adopters stage. 41% of the participants in the survey conducts in September 2010 indicated that they already implemented Social Software.

According to the IDC report, the major benefits of becoming a Social Business are:
1. Deeper relationships with customers, employees, partners and suppliers
2. Agility and Transparency
3. Higher employees' productivity and satisfaction
4. Increased engagement and feedback from customers
5. Accelerated Innovation and better intellectual capital reuse

Social Networking Software is only an Enabler. An Organizational Culture transformation and Process changes are required in order to become a Social Business. According to IDC it is a long Journey.

Social Businesses and SOA
Usage of Web technologies as well as usage of SOA in Social Networking Software is not the important part connecting SOA and Social Networking Services.

The important links between them are the following Organizational and Cultural constituents:

Sharing

SOA is about sharing Services or Service Reuse. Social Networks essence is sharing information. Sharing information by usage of Enterprise Social Networking Software can be used for analyzing and defining new SOA Services as well as for delivering information about existing Services to IT experts and Business users.

Cultural and Organizational Changes

SOA initiative failure or success depends on Organizational, Cultural and Methodological factors. Adequate Maturity Level is a prerequisite.
A previous post is a link to my presentation titled: Methodological and Organizational aspects of SOA and BPM . The presentation explains why Methodological and Organizational aspects are more crucial for successful SOA implementation than pure technological aspects. Unfortunately, the presentation, presented in the Israeli Systems Analysts conference, is a Hebrew presentation. However, High Maturity Level and Reuse Culture are required for transforming a Business to Social Business, as well.
IDC's opinion is: "A Social Business centers on "People as a Platform ...". This approach is very different from current approaches in most companies.

A Long Journey

Both SOA and Cultural Business are paradigmatic shift, requiring a long time and a lot of efforts and commitment.

Process Changes

Expect Process changes as part of deployment of these paradigms.

Agility

Research results show that Agility is SOA's most important Value Proposition. Social Business is an Agile Business which is capable to change and adapt.

Innovation

Innovation is another Value Proposition of SOA.
Flexible Architecture Agile Enterprise as well as looking for similarities and commonalities between systems encourages Innovation.

Open Social interactions in a Social Business also enhance Innovation. Receiving feedback from employees, customers and partners could drive Innovation.

Summary
Although SOA is very different from Enterprise Social Networks, they share some basic principles and.
Both are driving more Agile and Innovative Business

Not every acquisition is not a great idea

2011-12-04T13:47:00.000+02:00

On May 2010 SAP acquired Sybase. According to my post titled: Acquisition is not simple: SAP-Sybase acquisition agreement, buying Sybase was not a great idea. If you would like to know why you can read my post.

Today (December 3rd 2011), SAP buys Successful Factors the provider of Cloud-based human resource management software, for $3.4bn in cash. This time I would not argue that it is not a good idea.

Actually the last paragraph in my post about Sybase acquisition was titled: Which type of company I would acquire if I were Sap's CEO? Believe it or not, I recommended that "a successful SaaS applications company could be an adequate acquisition target".

According to Financial Times, SuccessFactors Human Resources (HR) SaaS applications provider has 5 millions subscriptions at more than 3,500 companies worldwide and it is believed to be the second largest Cloud-based provider of Enterprise software after Salesforce.com.
Lars Daalgard, SuccessFactors CEO will run SAP's Cloud business after the deal.

My Take
SuccessFactors products is a comprehensive HR SaaS suit including Workforce Planning, Employee Life Cycle and Business Performance, Compensation Management, Career and Development Planning, Employee Profile, Reporting, Workforce Analytics, Recruitment etc.

This acquisition is another evidence in the direction towards SaaS as a Mainstream approach for Business Applications.

Oracle's recent RightNow acquisition is another evidence. RightNow is a CRM vendor.

As far as ERP is concerned SaaS ERP evolution is on two axis:

1. Type of Applications - First non-core ERP applications such as CRM and HR and only afterwards Core ERP applications such as Financials, Manufacturing and Production Planning etc.
SuccessFactors applications are HR applications.

2. Enterprise Size - SMBs before large and complex enterprises.
SuccessFactors applications are used by Large Enterprises as well as by SMBs.

The SuccessFactors acquisition and its CEO Lars Daalgard's appointment as the manager of SAP's Cloud business is an indication that SAP Business by Design is a limited SaaS solution.

Will Microsoft survive until 2021? - revisited

2011-11-30T01:36:00.000+02:00

In all Vendors Survival posts (e.g. Google, Apple, HP) I argued that no company will surely survive for a decade. People may think that I am wrong as far as a giant market leaders are concerned. However, I recently read two interesting articles about a leading Virtual World company almost vanishing 5 years after its peak. The article is titled: Why Second Life failed?

The second article is more surprising: it is about a giant company included in my Vendor Survival posts, as well as in other posts. The company is: Microsoft.

On June 8th I wrote the post: Will Microsoft Survive until 2021? which discuss the possibility that Microsoft will not survive until 2021.
Less than a month prior to this post I wrote a post titled: Microsoft's Skype acquisition: Warning Signs ahead. The title depict my message: probably, Skype acquisition will not solve Microsoft's Mobile market challenges.

The Business Insider's article titled: Steve Ballmer's Nightmare: How Microsoft's Business Actually Could Collapse presents extremer scenario than my Vendor's Survival post scenario.
According to this scenario Microsoft's business could collapse soon. According to the article "many people in Silicon Valley are convinced that Microsoft is going to collapse Soon. Like in the next few years".

This interesting article describes Microsoft's major challenges and also describes Microsoft's Billion USDs or more businesses. Yes, you guessed correctly the two major businesses are still Office and Windows.

I recommend reading the interesting analysis presented in the article.

Vendors Survival: Will Google Survive until 2021? - Part 2

2011-10-30T18:51:00.000+02:00

Searching the Web
Search Engine is Google's most strategic product. Some of its other products are using it as component of the services they provide.
Limitation or failure of it, as described in Why we desperately need a New (and Better) Google cited in part1 of this post, could negatively affect Google's market position.

This is a major challenge facing Google. Google has no control of some of the factors limiting its effectiveness.

Challenges in Searching the Web
The following bullets describe major Web Data problems, which could affect Web Search:

The data is growing exponentially

The amount of data is growing fast. A Search Engine should handle larger amounts of pages and probably will find more and more number of pages in each search operation results list.

Implications: Users will not read all entries in search results list. They will focus in the first entries. Search Engines results order should be accurate so users could identify the most relevant and important pages.

No data Clean up Procedures

Think of PC Files, Server Files, e-mail messages and
Userids and Userids related information as well as other IT entities.

The common denominator of all of them is the necessity to manage them and to move to garbage items which are not in use and probably will not be used in the future. For example, you have to avoid of Virtualization Sprawl by deleting unused Virtual Machines in a Cloud, you have to delete temporary files in a PC or a Server. Spam, old or not important e-mail messages are deleted. Other e-mail messages are archived. Userids and their related information are deleted or at list should be deleted when the employee or client stops working.

Deletion and other Management Operations are done automatically or manually, but in all cases there is an owner or an administrator, who devises and performs a policy.
No one manage the Web. No one cleanup web pages except the owner of the page, who usually has no motivation for deleting web pages.

Implications: The result of high growth rate coupled with no management is too many Web pages and too many irrelevant pages.

Data Reliability

Some pages are reliable and others are not. It is not an easy task to identify the reliable and valuable pages. For information read a previous post:

Wikimania 2011: Are Internet Sources Reliable?

Search Engines should be able to assess the reliability of Web pages. It is not an easy task.

Implications: Reliable Web Pages should appear in the top of Search Results; otherwise users will read mostly unreliable sources.

Multi data types

The data is not text only. It includes Videos, Pictures and Voice etc.
Non-text data size is a lot larger than text data size.

Implications: Searching non-text pages is not as easy as searching text. The Search Engine has to support new search types e.g. search of Images or Videos or even multi-type search e.g. text or images sharing a common Keyword.

Summary
The Web expansion or Entropy or exponential data growth is a major challenge for applications manipulating Web Data including Search Engines.
Semantic Web, Web 3.0, Big Data are attempts to address or minimize the effects of this problem.

The other main challenge is rating the Reliability and Value of Web Pages. Page Rank is an example of an algorithm for addressing this challenge.

Unique Google's Challenges
In addition to the need to cope with these general challenges Google has to cope with unique challenges, due to its position as the Search market leader with approximately 80% market share.

The challenges are not as simple as using an automated or human method of multiple clicking on advertisement. They are derived from attempts to fool Google Search Engine algorithms in order to move a Web page to the beginning of search results.

The following bullets provides three frequent mechanisms for fooling Google Search Engine or at least attempting to fool it:

1. Payment for an automated service which supposed to place a Web page in one of the first entries of Google's Search results list.
The paid service will access the Web page artificially many times as possible, preferably from highly ranked Web sites. This method could improve the Page Rank rating and place it in higher position than it should be positioned in Google searches.

2. Adding unrelated popular labels to a Web Page labels list.
This technique could show a Web Page in Search operations unrelated to its content. It may also position it higher than it should in Search results list.

3. Cutting and Pacing full Web Pages or parts of Web Pages from other Web sites
For example, by copying a Wikipedia article content.
The page design may look perfect and the content could be reliable, but it attracts readers to a Web Site in which other pages are not reliable and are not well designed. Google's Search algorithm could rate the page higher than it should.
Google's Action: The Company announced recently that it will pay more for clicking advertisements in sites having original content.

Conclusions
Google's survival depends mainly upon two related domains: Web Search and its effective advertisement based business model.

The Web Search Engine is not as good as it was few years ago, due to Web Data exponential growth and fundamental changes of data characteristics. In addition to these factors, due to Google's dominance of this market users develop various mechanisms for fooling Google Search Engine.

Google challenge is to adapt and evolve its Search Engine. Google may need to find new creative ways to evolve its search Engine because nobody has Web Data Control, so the data quantity and characteristics could change significantly in the future.

As far as the Business model is concerned, it will be very difficult to replace it by entirely different model. However, the probability that an advertisement based business model will not be viable is low.

If the advertisement based business model will continue to be a viable model, Google's position will depend upon using it effectively in Search Page in conjunction with creating additional income sources from advertisement related to new services and Business Lines such as Android and You Tube TV.

Google: an insider's view

2011-10-23T18:49:00.002+02:00

I recently read Steve Yegge's very interesting post cited by Rip's Rowan. According to Rip it is "The best article I've ever read about architecture and the management of IT".

It is a very interesting post which was intended to be internal memoranda and accidently was published externally.

I read it in the right time: just after publishing in my blog a post titled: Will Google Survive until 2021? Revisited - part 1 and before publishing part 2.

You can read it here. I recommend reading it from start to end although it is a long post.

As a former Amazon employee and current Google employee he discusses the limitations and strengths of the two companies (more criticism than praise) and compares them to Apple, Facebook and Microsoft.

He discusses both technological aspects, focusing on what he calls Internal SOA and on Organizational Culture.

Few Notes

The notes do not support or dispute Steve's views. They just summarize and clarify some aspects.

1. Google's main challenge is lack of Platform

It is a products company which developed a very successful product: Search Engine. Lack of Platform is more a Cultural issue than a Technological issue, therefore more difficult to change.

2. Other major challenge is lack of openness to third party developers.

The lack of openness is not a technical only issue. It is mainly lack of openness to their ideas about what kind of applications to develop or what users of Electronic Social Networking Service would like to use.

3. Lack of Accessibility is another concern.

It can limit Service or Product use to a specific market

share of sophisticated young people.

4. Despite Google's limitations he is loyal to

Google because unlike Amazon its culture is

employees friendly or makes employees feel good.

A final note: Google should be praised for allowing

its employee to criticize its culture and products

internally (and unintentionally in the public).

A corporate culture which do not shut internal criticism

can support Innovation and Adaptation.

Will Google Survive until 2021? Revisited - part 1

2011-10-18T20:46:00.000+02:00

Three years ago I wrote one of my Vendors Survival posts. The post was titled: Vendors Survival: Will Google Survive until 2018?
The Vendors Survival posts analyze the probability that vendors will survive for at least ten years. Most of them are about leading vendors such as Apple, Microsoft, HP, EMC etc. The previous post was on Zapthink, a small SOA and Cloud Analysts and Consultants company acquired by Dovel Systems.

Ten years predictions are usually inaccurate. However,
The only leading vendor I predicted that will not survive was SUN Microsystems, who was shortly afterwards an acquisition target for IBM and acquired by Oracle.

I recently read Google's announcement about shutting down some of its products and a similar announcement about other products.
Shutting down products and services looks like a sign of weakening.

Some people argue that Google Social Software initiatives like Buzz, Jaiko and Google+ fails to compete with Facebook or Twitter.

Others focus on limitations of current Google Search Engine. Two examples: Why we desperately need a New (and Better) Google, Trouble in the House of Google

Few months ago Larry Page replaced Eric Schmidt as Google's CEO. Was that change a sign that Google is no longer as successful as it was?
So will Google preserve its position as a leader? Will it Survive for Long Term?

Google 2008 vs. Google 2011
Google of 2011 is very different from Google of 2008.
It is competing with Apple in the Smart Phone Operating Systems market with its Android (The market share of each of them is approximately 40%).

After acquiring Motorola Mobility division it is no more Software only company but also a Smart Phones Hardware vendor.

On the one hand Google become a successful player in the browsers market with Chrome and Gmail is a de-facto standard in the Consumer market and competing with Microsoft's Exchange in Enterprises.

On the other hand its attempts to compete with Facebook and Twitter in the Electronic Social Networking Services market are still unsuccessful.

Threats
In order to conclude if Google will survive until 2021 we have to examine threats that could change Google's position for the Long Term.
I do think that the threats mentioned in the post I wrote about Google Survival in 2008 are relevant. In this post I discuss or mention them briefly.

Threat 1: Significantly better Search Engine developed by another company
The issue of Web Search Engines will be discussed in part 2 of the post.

Threat 2: Loosing its innovative spirit
The section titles: Google 2008 vs. Google 2011 indicates that probably Google is still an innovative company.

Threat 3: Expanding its business domains wrongly
Google is expanding its business domains and its business services. I do not identify indicators of wrong expansion.
Stopping business services is the other side of the coin. I do not think that Google announcement of shutting services cited in the beginning of that post is an indication of wrong strategy.

An old proverb says: The only people who never make mistakes are those who are doing nothing.
Shutting an unsuccessful service is an indication of Agile and Adapting company. Its a lot better than supporting it for years.

Shutting a bunch of strategic services could imply a wrong strategy. However, as far as Google is concerned, it is not the case.

Threat 4: Legal issues
This issue continues to be a relevant issue.

Threat 5: Web X.0 (X > 2)
This issue of Web Content will be discussed in a part 2 of the post, which will be published soon.

Threat 6: failure of the simple and effective Google
Business model
I do not observe indicators supporting failure of Google's business model.
There is a growing anxiety concerning Privacy because Google hosts more and more private data in order to select adequate advertisement.

Searching the Web
Search Engine is Google's most strategic product. Some of its other products are using it as component of the services they provide.

Limitation or failure of it, as described in Why we desperately need a New (and Better) Google cited in the beginning of this post, could negatively affect Google's market position.

This is the major challenge facing Google. Google has no Control of some of the factors limiting its effectiveness.

Because addressing this challenge is so important for Google, I will dedicate a post to it. The post which will be titled same as the current post with the suffix part 2 will be published until next weekend.

Vendors Survival: Lessons from Zapthink's acquisition

2011-09-08T15:48:00.000+03:00

Dovel Technologies is buying Zapthink. It is the first time I read about Dovel.

Unlike Dovel, Zapthink is well known to me. As a SOA expert, I read Zapthink's analysis of SOA and other Architectural topics as well as short articles named ZapFlash.

SOA is Zapthink's major field of expertise. The small company headed by Ronald Schmelzer and Jason Bloomberg provides SOA training and certification, SOA Consulting Services and SOA Research.

Schmelzer and Bloomberg's work reveals deep understanding and vast knowledge of SOA.

The challenges facing small Analysts and Consultants are incomparable to challenges facing a lot larger company.
Like small software vendors many of the small Consulting and/or Market Analysis companies will not survive.

The circumstances are similar to the circumstances of smaller software vendors described in my post titled:
Vendors Survival Guide: Supermarket Grocery and Kiosk as well as in other Vendors Survival posts I wrote e.g. Software AG , SUN ,HP.

Gartner, the largest IT Research company, aquired smaller companies like Meta Group, AMR Research and Dataquest and Forrester Research acquired Giga Information Web.

However, due to Zapthink's remarkable success it is interesting to analyze its acquisition and lessons we can learn from its acquisition.

The acquisition
Dovel perspective of the acquisition emphasizes the strengthening of its SOA expertise to its USA based governmental clients.

Jason Bloomberg's view is that the acquisition is part of Dovel's strategic plan to expand their scope, Capabilities and thought leadership in Service Oriented Architecture, Cloud Computing and related technologies as well as an opportunity to add new people to the Zapthink team three of them will be regular contributors to the ZapFlash newsletter.

Ronald Schmelzer will serve as Zapthink's consultant for few months and afterwards will be moving on. His perspective is the most interesting because he was a founder of Zapthink, because he is moving on and because he already sold ChannelWave, a Boston based software company.

According to citybizlist's Brian Wolak "Schmelzer is convinced that small businesses are going to dominate the landscape in the years to come, with a combination of former unemployed workers linking up with small businesses, a general backlash against big corporations, and the government's emphasis on kick-starting the economy through startups and innovation."

My Take

The success of a small consulting company highly depends upon key people.

As far as Zapthink is concerned there are two key figures: Schmelzer and Bloomberg, so Schmelzer departure is a huge challenge. It is not easy to add or replace key figures in a small company. In case of too much success a company challenge is how to handle the large volume of tasks, while preserving the quality of deliverables. On 2007 David Linthicum joined Zapthink and was a contributor to the ZapFlash, but after a short period of time he was no longer a contributor to Zapthink efforts.

Evangelists or Thought Leaders are a must for new paradigm or a revolutionary technology not for a mature paradigm.

When the paradigm, architecture or technology is matured the number of experts who understand it or experienced it is growing and it is less a matter of Thought Leading and more a matter of actually deploying it. SOA is now Mainstream and mature.

Dovel is a company which helps governmental agencies in USA to deploy SOA as well as other paradigms and not a Thought Leader. The new Zapthink's focus will probably be SOA implementations.

A small company struggles to keep its position as a Thought Leader when newer paradigms or Technologies emerge.
If you are a Thought Leader in a new paradigm and a newer paradigm emerges, probably other experts will be better positioned for the newer paradigm.
Examining the illustration following this paragraph could provide an explanation.

New Technologies and Paradigms time overlap with older paradigms is the reason. A Thought Leader in a relatively old paradigm is too busy in assignments related to this paradigm and therefore is lagging behind new fresh Thought Leaders of the new paradigm.

This phenomenon is depicted in the simplified illustration beyond this line.

The illustration depicts three related paradigms, which are not exactly comparable to each other. SOA is essentially an Enterprise Architecture. BPM is a Business Technology and Cloud Computing is more Operational approach. Cloud Computing is a general term including a variety of technologies and concepts, in different Maturity levels

The point, which could be generalized to other paradigms and technologies, is that a small company based on one or two SOA Thought Leaders was not capable to allocate Thought Leading resources for thought leading BPM in the time BPM emerged. It was not able to allocate these resources for thought leading in Cloud Computing when it emerged.

There are many talented people, so other talented people explore the new technologies or paradigms before SOA became a mature technology and the SOA experts, saturated with many SOA related tasks, do not have the time to dive deeply into BPM or Cloud Computing.

Finally, the SOA Thought Leader have no other choice when the demand is for Cloud Computing thought leaderships, while the SOA demand is more for practical day to day skills: Architects, System Analysts and Developers etc.

But it may be too late for the SOA Thought Leader to replicate his success: other people who started earlier in Cloud Computing are positioned better.

Some of the SOA Thought Leaders will close the gap and become a Cloud Computing Thought Leaders, but it will take long time to do this.

The challenge described in the last section face small companies such as Zapthink, as far as large consulting companies are concerned they can allocate enough resources: some potential Thought Leaders could specialize in the new paradigm (e.g. Cloud Computing), while others take care of a previous buzz such as SOA.

PAAS is not Mainstream yet

2011-08-19T02:32:00.000+03:00

In a previous post titled Hyped Cloud Technologies Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) tied in the fourth place in a ReadWrite Cloud survey of Hyped Cloud Technologies.

Yesterday, I read a Forrester Research Note about PaaS, which may explain why it is rated as one of the most Hyped Cloud Technologies.
Simply, PaaS is immature technology.

Immature technologies related to in the spotlight topic such as Cloud Computing, are natural hype candidates.

PaaS and IaaS
PaaS and IaaS are related concepts: both provide technology for development and deployment of applications in the Cloud.

IaaS solutions such as Amazon EC2 or Amazon S3 provide basic platform for Application Development and Application Deployment. It is only infrastructure.

Unlike IaaS, PaaS provides a complete Application Platform which includes Development Tools (e.g Integrated Development Environment), Runtime Environment and Management tools.

Developing Applications in IaaS environment is a lot more difficult task than developing them in a PaaS environment. IaaS inferiority derived from the necessity to develop Applications Platform components which are missing in IaaS environments and hopefully are available in PaaS environmnets.

Forrester Research explains the difficulty of developing in IaaS in the following words: " You have to worry about the details of Virtual machines, storage blocks, execution threads and network connections".
However, people often use IaaS because it is a mature technology and PaaS is not mature yet.

PaaS Immaturity indicators
The Forrester Wave(TM):Platform as a Service For App Dev and Delivery Professionals, Q2 2011 written by Forrester Analysts John R. Rymmer and Stephan Ried Ph.D with Mike Gilpin, Andrew Magarie and Alissa Anderson name SalesForce.com and Microsoft as Leaders and Cordys, Longjump, Wavemaker and Google as Strong Performer. Tibco Software is the only vendor listed as Contender.

Only two Leaders is an indicator of immaturity.

The small number of vendors listed is another immaturity sign.

The list of vendors which were not listed is another immaturity indicator:
IBM, Red Hat (Jboss) and VMware were not listed because they enter the PaaS market in spring 2011.
Oracle and SAP did not enter the PaaS market yet.

Last but not least, most of PaaS vendors listed are small companies who are not market leaders in other markets. The result is, according to Forrester Research, that Microsoft's Windows Azure, Google App Engine and Salesforce.com's Force.com are the only products which get significant attention and adoption. Many potential customers neglect PaaS and use Amazon's IaaS products or wait.

Hyped Cloud Technologies

2011-08-16T14:52:00.000+03:00

What are the most Hyped Cloud Technologies? This was the question asked in a survey of ReadWrite Cloud readers.

As no details about the sample characteristics are disclosed the results couls be misleading.
The results could be biased due to some of the following factors:

1. the number of people surveyed is unknown and could be too small for supporting any conclusion.

2. The sample could be biased. Do not forget that the site is sponsored by Intel and VMware and therefore you may find relatively more customers of these companies.

3. No sample characteristics were defined, so the people answering the survey questions voluntarily may not represent the whole population.

The Results
The most hyped Cloud technologies were in decending order:
1. NOSQL
2. Software as a Service (SaaS)
3. Private Clouds
4-5. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
4-5. Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Least Hyped technologies were Infrastructure Apps and API and Data as a Service.

According to ReadWrite, the findings about NOSQL, Private Clouds and Platform as a Service, were as expected and the surprising findings are the relatively high hype rating of SaaS and Infrastructure as a Service.

My Take
I do not know if it is possible to conclude anything from the survey's findings, due to possible biases and possible small smaple size mentioned in previous section.

Even if it is possible, nobody should confuse between hyped technology and technology which is not yet matured.

I am sure that Software as a Service is a mature technology (read for example a previous post: SaaS is Going Mainstream). SalesForce.com technologies and Google Apps are not the only successful SaaS technologies. However, advertising products which has nothing to do with a new technology or concept, as if it is an implenebtation of successful new trends and concepts occurs frequenty.

This phenomenon generates a lot of hype.
It takes time until the technology is implemented in most enterprises and/or consumers and then hyping is more difficult.

I remember similar hyping pattern related to other concepts such as SOA and Object Oriented.
Instead of a lot of hype about SOA three years ago you can find now a lot of enterprises and service providers looking for SOA Architects.

NOSQL is newer concept than SaaS, therefore rating it as one of the most hyped Cloud Technologies is natural.

Never the less, there are NOSQL success stories.
I recently read how Wix found that the best way to implement NOSQL dor their product was implementing a single large MYSQL table. This interesting Case Study demonstrates both NOSQL immaturity and ease of Hyping (by others not by Wix).

Private Cloud Technology is a different story.
There are still arguments if it is a technology at all or just another incarnation of Utility Computing or hyping of Public Clouds success.

Wikimania 2011 : Are Internet Sources Reliable?

2011-08-08T11:29:00.000+03:00

Image source: Wikimedia

On August 4-6 I participated in Wikimania 2011 in Haifa! The participants were Wikipedian from many countries, including Wikipedia's founder Jimmy Wales and all of Wikimedia Foundation directors, except one.
The organizing team headed by Tomer Ashur, Wikimedia Israel's chairman and Deror Lin, Wikimania General Manager, achievements were exceptionally good both in the administrative aspects and the professional aspects.

Wikipedia is evolving and changing. It is not exactly the same community it was when I described it in one of my Web 2.0 for Dummies posts in 2008. However, the challenges described few years ago in my post titled: Wikipedia: The Good the Bad and the Ugly did not vanish.

Wikipedia case
The evolution and challenges of Wikipedia and Wikipedia's Community are very similar to challenges facing other Web 2.0 projects and communnities, including Social Networking Services. However, there are also unique aspects as well.

Not all Internet Sources were created Equal
There is growing tendency in Wikipedia to ask for Sources supporting facts or so called facts, mentioned in Wikipedia articles.

If no supporting sources are cited a big box stating that sources are missing is inserted under the article's title. The rational is to avoid of wrong information inserted deliberately or by mistake.

There are cultural differences between different languages in Wikipedia. The English Wikipedia is the most demanding supporting evidences (Sources).

I doubt if relying on Web Sources is good enough.
The reason for my doubts is based on a well known fact about Web Sources: The variability of the Reliability of the immense information in the Web is high. Some sources are trustful others are just nonsense.

So what is the Value Proposal of five or ten or fifteen sources if none of them is Reliable?

What is the Added Value of a Reliable but very superficial sources, such as some of the articles visible in some of the Electronic Newspapers ?

The real problem is that in any Web related task the user has to sort them and assign to each source a level of Reliability. It is not an easy task.
Many people are not able to perform this task properly if the subject matter is not included in their expertise.

This observation is valid for Wikipedian as well as for non-Wikipedian.

To illustrate this issue I wrote a new article in the Hebrew Wikipedia on an important Information Technology technical subject.

I was able to write a good article without using any source.

How was it possible?
My professional experience includes actual selections and implementations of technical products addressing this subject.

In order to do my job I read technical material and participated in Vendors' Presentations. I also read Analysts' Research Notes.
However, that was few years ago and I had no access to White Papers and Research Notes I read.

Finally, I decided to add only one Web based source. It was an article written in the English language by a University Professor considered as a leading expert or Guru in this area.
Few years ago I read an impressive book he wrote on the same subject.

I also read the article on the same subject in the English Wikipedia. It includes about ten sources. However, none of them was a valid source (as Wikipedia articles are a collaborative work it may be now a higher quality article including valid sources).

I read all sources cited in the English Wikipedia and decided that none of them is good enough for citation.

The Bottom Line: Not the best article based on multiple non-trusted sources in the English Wikipedia, edited by somone with no expertise in the subject and no ability to assess sources Reliability.
A lot better article in the Hebrew Wikipedia based on expertise and experience and a single trusted source.

Is there a better way?
I am sure that it is possible to partially formalize an algorithm for assigning Reliability score to Web sources.

In my opinion, it is also possible to automate the algorithm by dedicated software.
Automation will probably be partial automation and the heuristic algorithm will surely not be 100% precise.

Rating of Academic sources is possible and rating of Search Results by PageRank algorithm and other algorithms is also possible. So why not automating a similar task such as rating of sources for Wikipedia articles (and may be generalizing it to other contexts requiring relying on Web Sources)?

I guess that in addition implementing a Bayesian Probability algorithm for improving the rating of sources could be deployed as well.

Vendors Survival: Will Apple Survive until 2021?

2011-07-06T19:49:00.041+03:00

The answer yes seems as an obvious answer to the question in the title of this post.

Apple, formerly Apple Computers, is very successful company. The following articles are glances about how successful it is:

Apple Is Now Worth More Than Intel And Microsoft Combined

Apple unseats Microsoft as world’s biggest tech company

Apple now 4th largest phone maker worldwide

Even by reading only the articles' titles you will be impressed.

It is the mindshare leader in the growing markets of Smart Phones and Tablets, as well as the Music devices market.

Anyone's ten years predictions could be totally wrong. I am not an exception.
However, I already asked similar question about companies such as Microsoft, Google, SUN, HP, Software AG and EMC .

Yes was not my answer to this question for any of the companies cited above.
For some of them the answer was Probably Yes.
However, my prediction about Sun's acquisition by another company was correct.

If you will read my post about Microsoft's survival, you could read about a Mega Vendor named DEC which did not survive.

Will Apple survive until 2021?
My answer is that the probability that it will not survive is higher than the probability that the other vendors (not including Software AG and obviously not including SUN) I discussed will not survive.

An Apple or a Mountain Train?
Look at the two images in the beginning of this post. Which of them is more associated with Apple?

When I am looking at these images, I see no apples and no oranges. The Mountains Train is the image which is strongly associated in my mind with Apple.
There where lot of Ups and Downs in Apple's history,
which resemble a Mountains Train' s movement: going up and down, up again and down again.

As you can understand by reading the articles which are pointed by hyperlinks in the previous section, Apple is now up or even in a summit. But will it be in similar position or will it be in its worst position ever, i.e. will not survive at all, in few years?

Apple's History in the context of Survival
Apple Computers was founded in 1976. Steve Jobs was one of the founders. Steve Jobs was (and is) the most dominant and influencing founder.

The Macintosh was its major product of the first half of the 1980th.
It was a Personal Computer (PC) with a dedicated Operating System.

The competing PCs vendors were Microsoft, IBM and Apple.
Technically Apple's PC was the best and Microsoft's Windows Operating System with Intel based PCs was the worst.

The worst Operating System won.
Microsoft won because of better sells and marketing strategy, by supporting Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) applications and by providing cheaper products.

Apple's platform was not supported by many ISVs, so most users who need these applications preferred Windows Operating System. Apple chose a wrong strategy, which does not compel ISVs and therefore Macintosh became a Niche Product.

The appointment of Pepsi Cola's John Sculley as a CEO in 1983 was an attempt to improve Apple's marketing and sells and to reduce Steve Jobs' high R&D expenditures.

As opposed to the Macintosh positioning, nowadays Apple's I-Phone is the preferred Smart Phone platform for ISVs' applications.

On 1985, Apple's Board of Directors removed Steve Jobs from his managerial duties and he resigned and founded Next.

The Macintosh Portable and the Powerbook were Apple's successful Laptops of the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s.
Unfortunately, almost every new Apple's Consumer devices failed.

Apple's of 1994-1997 was an unsuccessful company trying to reinvent itself
The following list includes some of the failed initiatives:

AIM - Apple together with IBM and Motorola founded an alliance based on IBM's Power Processors.

Taligent - a very interesting Object Oriented initiative of Apple and IBM which failed to deliver.

Porting Microsoft Office to the Macintosh platform. Porting Office to other platforms was important to Microsoft, not because the technical merits of the Office implementation on other platforms. Microsoft's strategy was still based on binding Operating Systems and Applications, but it attempted to build a non-monopoly image by availability of Office versions on other platforms.

It is not surprising that Apple's CEO Michael Splinder, who replaced John Sculley, was replaced in 1996 by  Gil Amelio.

According to Wikipedia, Gil Amelio described Apple as follows:
"Apple is like a ship with a hole in the bottom, leaking water, and my job is to get the ship pointed in the right direction"

Gil Amelio acquired Next and Jobs returned to Apple.
Gil Amelio did not predict the future: Jobs will replace him on 1997.

iMac (1998) computers were successful as well as Mac OS X Operating System (based on Next's Operating System API and BSD UNIX) which was released on 2001.
These successful products signals a better period for Apple.

However, Transition to Intel chips based iMac begun on 2005 and ended in 2007.
Apple introduced Boot Camp which helped user to use Windows Operating System on iMac together with Mac OS X.

No need to describe Apple's successful Post PC period after 2007, which was cited in a previous section.

What may Risk Apple's Future Survival?

Less Innovation
I recently read an economic article about Finland.
Naturally, Nokia was mentioned by local people who were interviewed. The people interviewed attributed Nokia's losing its position as the leader of the Cellular Phones market to changing to a less innovative company.

Apple is currently an Innovative company.
iPhone, iCloud, iPad and Appstore are examples of innovative products and innovative services.

Who can guarantee that Apple will not become less innovative company in the future?

Do not forget that its competitors learn from Apple, as well as from their own experience and R&D and are capable of producing products not so different from the innovative products produced by Apple.
The Apple-Samsung Lawsuit is just an example.

Steve Jobs
Read the section titled "Apple's History in the context of Survival" or any other article on Apple's history and you will find the name Steve Jobs again and again (for 35 years) as the key person behind most of Apple's successful ideas and products. Yes, you can also find him as the creator of some of Apple's failing products.

Apple without Steve Jobs is totally different company.

Apple replaced its CEO very frequently, during the period Steve Jobs was working for Next

Apple without Steve Jobs was already described by one of its CEOs it the past as "a ship with a hole in the bottom, leaking water".

Unfortunately, Jobs is not young and is not healthy.
Could Apple survive or even evolve after his retirement?

It should be noticed that the risk factors cited above are not independent. Specifically, Steve Jobs is the source or the driving of many Apple's Innovative products, services and ideas.

Complexity of Sales and Support model
As far as Cell Phones are concerned Apple is currently more successful than Nokia.
Apple has only few telephone models and only one distributor.

Nokia has a large number of phone models and many distributors.

Clearly, Support, Sales and Marketing are more effective and a lot easier with a simple model (Apple) than in a complex model (Nokia).

However, Simplicity of products offering is usually a characteristic of a new vendor.

For example, Microsoft's portfolio of products in its early days included Office and Windows only.
Now the portfolio includes myriad of products, even if different versions or editions of the same product are not counted as different products (e.g. Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows Vista, multiple of Windows Server versions. For each of the Desktop Operating Systems you may find different editions such as Home, Home Premium, Professional etc.)

It is reasonable to predict that Apple too will have to support more products and more configurations or editions of the same product.
In that case will Apple be in troubles same as Nokia today or will it adapt to the new role of a Long Term Agile Market Leader?

Binding
Apple limits de-facto application development for its consumer devices to its Desktop Hardware and Operating Systems.
It is not a formal limitation, but only a practical limitation.

The future need for a Desktop Operating System as we know it is questionable.

This observation relates to End Users. Apple is trying to bind to its Desktop solution a community of application developers for its consumer devices.
It may succeed, but it could also fail if developers could prefer free selection of Desktop Operating System. In the later case they will develop apps for Apple's competitors e.g. Google Android.

What may enable Apple to survive until 2021?

So far I analyzed Risk Factors, now it is time to analyze factors supporting Apple's Survival.

Agility and Adaptation
A company whose history is paved with so many failures which is still one of the major players, must be a company which is able to adapt to new circumstances and challenges.

The company is more than able to adapt. Adaptation is one of its strengths.

Apple changed its products, services and Business Lines. Apple changed its Infrastructure and alliances. It even changed its name from Apple Computers to Apple to reflect its new focus on Consumer Devices.

Apple is an Agile company So why will it fail to adapt in the future?

Innovative Company
Apple was an innovative company through its history.

It may succeed to continue Innovations in the future and be a viable company in the next ten years as well.

Customers Loyalty
The Macintosh community is well known as a loyal community.
Will the younger I-phone or I-Pad community will be as loyal as well?
I doubt because the new generation is accustomed to frequent changes.
I may be wrong.

Concluding Remarks
As already mentioned any ten years prediction could be wrong, therefore I described Apple's history, Risk Factors and Strengths.
Notice that there are factors described both as Strengths and as Challenges or Risk Factors.
Today's Strength could become tomorrow's Risk Factor.

Will Microsoft survive until 2021?

2011-06-08T17:46:00.001+03:00

Three years ago I published a post titled: Will Microsoft Survive Until 2018?.
During the past 3 years a lot was changed, so the probability that it will not survive is higher than it was three years ago, although still it is a low probability.

The following bullets highlight some of the issues facing Microsoft:

Microsoft is not a leader in the growing Cloud Computing market.

Its position in the growing Smart Phones and the Tablet computers markets is far from being good.

The Skype acquisition is at least questionable. For more details read Microsoft's Skype acquisition: Warning Signs ahead as well as the comments to this post.

Apple Is Now Worth More Than Intel And Microsoft Combined

Will Windows 8's new Smart Phone like interface stop Microsft's Desktop Operating Systems dominance? According to John Dvorak's post titled: Will Windows 8 Kill Microsoft? the answer to this question is positive.

Microsoft's Skype acquisition: Warning Signs ahead

2011-05-15T22:40:00.001+03:00

Microsoft and Skype announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Microsoft will acquire Skype, the leading Internet communications company, for $8.5 billion in cash from the investor group led by Silver Lake. The agreement has been approved by the boards of directors of both Microsoft and Skype.

There are mixed opinions concerning the expected acquisition.
I see the warning signs ahead.

I do think that analyzing important factors such as the number of months Microsoft's profit's sum to 8.5 billion USDs or tax reduction due to acquisition of a Luxemburg based company are irrelevant or at best secondary.

Even if a company profits are high, the company could find better investment alternatives, e.g. spending more on R&D, buying other companies or investing in companies without acquiring them. The last option was chosen by Microsoft in order to invest in Facebook.

The significant factors are:

What Strategy is used for increasing profits related to the acquired company assets?

Could the Strategy realize the promise?

Is the company capable of Executing this strategy and provide large enough measured profits in reasonable time frame?

Warning Signs

Warning sign no. 1: Unsuccessful acquisition by eBay

Skype was acquired by eBay in September 2005. However, the acquisition provides no measurable Value, therefore sold by eBay to investment group led by Silver Lake in November 2009.

Warning sign no. 2: despite of millions of users Skype does not generate high profits

The volume of Skype's activity is impressive: 170 million connected users and over 207 billion minutes of voice and video conversations in 2010. The revenues are a lot less impressive. Is it because of Skype's business model or is it because it is difficult to gain money from free VOIP telephone service?

Warning sign no. 3: Microsoft's image is an image of an old conservative company, which is a laggard in new technologies and paradigms

Microsoft is not an agile company who can easily change its Strategy, Technologies and focus.

It is a matter of: size (it is easier to small companies to adapt) and fear of losing revenues in current products (for years most of Microsoft's revenues derived from traditional Office products and Windows Operating Systems).

Microsoft was late in entering to emerging technologies such as the Web (Microsoft adapted to the Web only in 1995) Web 2.0 , SOA and Cloud Computing.

Warning sign no. 4: The payment is 8.5 billion USDs in cash

If the strategy is a strategy of development and enhancement of an acquired product, then preserving leading employees is a key for success. A payment in cash does not guarantee that the key people will continue working for the company. Without the leading people a product value could be a lot less than its value when they are available for future development.

Warning sign no. 5: No history of successful acquisitions

I maybe wrong but I am able to recall only one successful Microsoft acquisition: CRM product which evolved to Microsoft Dynamic CRM.

Acquisitions are not simple (see for example: Acquisition is not simple: SAP-Sybase acquisition agreement). Assimilating an acquired company is a long multi-dimensional process requiring alignment of Organizational Cultures, Technologies, Procedures, Applications, Organizational Chart, Rewards Scheme, Development Methods etc.

Microsoft was more successful in investing in companies instead of acquiring them. Facebook and Apple (many years ago before it turned into a success story) are good examples. On the other hand, investing in Yahoo! was not a success.

Warning sign no. 6: Microsoft opposing software usage without charge

Microsoft was the leader of the anti Open Source camp. It also fought against illegal reproducing software. Both activities share a common rational: Enterprises and Home Users should pay for software and for software maintenance.

Most of Skype software usage is free of charge. It is a different revenues model.

Will Microsoft charge for basic Skype services? If yes, I wonder if users who did not pay for years, will not abandon Skype for its competitors.

My Take

The warning signs cited above suggest that Skype acquisition for 8.5 billion USDs in cash is at least questionable.

Is Microsoft going to acquire Skype for its large installed base or for its products and technology? I am not able to answer this question after reading Microsoft's and Skype's announcement.

According to the announcement, Microsoft has a long-standing focus and investment in real-time communications across its various platforms, including Lync , Outlook, Messenger, Hotmail and Xbox LIVE.

I can hardly spot significant benefits to Outlook and Xbox Live from Skype acquisition.

Skype may augment Instant Messaging of Microsoft's Messenger by its Voice and Video capabilities.

Lync is Microsoft's new Unified Communication Server replacing Messenger. I do not know if it will be improved significantly based on Skype's technology or features, but I doubt if such improvements will justify a price tag of 8.5 billion USDs.

Will Skype technology be the foundation for Windows Phone? Cannibalized to augment Windows Phone capabilities or most probably will be developed concurrently to Windows Phone? I do not know if Microsoft managers made their minds yet, but combined with potential improvements in Lync, I still doubt if the future results will justify a 8.5 billion USDs transaction.

Case Management - The missing topic in STKI Summit 2011

2011-05-09T21:20:00.000+03:00

STKI Summit 2011 was about the emerging new IT World.
The emerging game changing trends are:

Mobility

Smart phones applications and Location Based business Services

Social Commerce and the important role of Social Networks and other Social Computing software

Cloud Computing which may change the CIO's role to Business related role instead of Computing Infrastructure focused role.

High Data growth rate in general and non-structured data in particular

It should be noted that any of the new trends or technologies cited above is not game changing. The combination of all these trends together is game changing.

The growing IT-Business Gap was mentioned several times in conference presentation topics, e.g. Business Intelligence, SOA, Social Networks.
The concept of Business Technology (BT) was also discussed in the Keynote presentation. This concept originali developed by George F. Colony from Forrester Research after an open discussion.
Forrester analysts and other IT experts including myself participated in that open discussion.

Peter Drucker's ideas were also mentioned in DR. Jimmy Scwarzkopf's Keynote Presentation.

Peter Drucker originated the concept of Knowledge Worker.
Knowledge Workers are those who use actually Case Management tools as part of executing related Business tasks.

What is Case Management?
Case Management is for handlinga certiain type of Human Business Processes, which require Knowledge Workers activities.

The first topic which come to our mind in relation to Business Processes is BPM. BPM is one of of Case Management pillars.
We can classify Business Processes on the dimension of human involvement.

Relatively small precentage of Business Processes are fully Automated Processes or SOA Processes. No Human activities are required in order to execute instances of Automated Processes.

The majority of Business Processes are more complex: Human activities are required in addition to automated systems execution. In order to handle Human Processes, BPMN standrd based tools or BPEL for People, not yet standard, tools may be used.

Some of The Human Processes are even more complex and less structured. Execution of instances of these processes requires Ad-hoc decisions by Knowledge Workers.

Case Management is addressing execution of these Processes.
In order to implement Case Management, BPM tools are used in conjunction with Enterprise Content Management (ECM) tools, Business Rules Engines (BREs), Business Intelligence (BI) tools, Social technologies, Event Processing tools and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) tools.

Because at least part of the Human activities in the Process are unstructured and complex, Knowledge Workers compose process instances using the tools arsenal cited above.

The Process instance composition is based upon assembling pre-defined tasks and upon collecting and anlyzing content and information.

The Knowledge Workers responsible for Case Management are actually Business Users and not IT staff, so without any formal organizational change, Business people responsibilities were extended to include IT responsibilities. Therefore Case Management is related to Business-IT gap cited in the begining of this post.

As far as Business-IT Alignmnet issues are concerned, the implications of Case Management could be summarized in the following bullets:

Provides more Business users Process control related to Process Execution in additon to their control of Process Modeling and Process Optimization.

Extends Agility by allowing Ad-hoc process changes by Business users. The change is performed quickly without large managemental overhead.

IT still control the entire process. Business users control only the Ad-hoc part of the process

Defines a new Business-IT model which reduces conflicts and may help CIOs to "return the sheep back" as described in STKI Summit 20111 logo titled: Manage Scattered.

Case Management characterisitcs
The following bulltes highlight Case Management processes characterstics:

High variability between process instances

High knowledge level is a must

Collaborative

Social Networks and other Social technologies value is manifested due to the Collaboration requirement.

Long Processes

Process instance (or Case) elapse time could be days or even weeks.

Many people participate in process execution. The role of some of them could be changed during process execution.

Isolated Automated pockets

I read this nice term in Singualrity's White Paper. It provides visual description of a Human Process with isolated automated parts.

High Complexity

The reasons for high complexity level may vary. For example, correlation between Cases, dependence on external events while the Case is going on, participation of large number of departments in the enterprise or even outside the enterprise boundaries.

Case Management Vendors
Forrester Research use the initials DCM to describe Csae Management.

The initial D stands for Dynamic. Guess what CM stands for.

(if not guessed, see the title of this paragraph).

Leading DCM vendors according to the Forrester Wave as of 31 January are: Pegasystems, IBM, EMC, Appian, Singualrity and Global360.

IBM and EMC are well known in Israel. They are major players in other markets.
IBM's Case Management solutions are based on its BPM and BI products. IBM and EMC bring with them leading products and extensive experience in ECM platforms.

The other DCM leading vendors are less known in the israeli market. They develop and market BPM products.
Appian's product could be used as a SaaS product, as well as in the Data Center. Singualrity is Microsft's partner, focusing on Microsoft's infrastructure based enterprises.

Why Case Management was missing from STKI Summit 2011 agenda?
I do not know, so everything written in this paragraph is only a guess.
The main reason could be the current status of BPM in Israel.
The majority of israeli enterprises did not implement yet BPM.
Even most of those who impelmenting BPM are still in the early stages of BPM adoption.

It is natural to begin BPM initiative by implementing Automated Processes.
The probability of beginning BPM initiaitve by implementing Automated Processes , is even higher if a SOA initiative is performed in parallel to the BPM initiaitve.

After implementing some Automatic Processes, an enterprise may discover a process, which is not fully automated. So the next step is implementing Human Processes. In order to implement Human Processes, adaquete BPM tools should be selected and assimilated and a decision about usage of standards like BPMN or/and XPDL should be taken.

In this stage many enterprises discover that the BPM tool they used for Automatic Processes, is not good enough for addressing their Human Processes.
If selction of a new BPM product is required, in addition to the product already used or for replacement of the product in use, this stage could take longer time than expected.

The right time for impelementing more complex and less structures Case Management based Processes is only after acquiring experience and knowledge in impelementing Automated and Human Processes, is the .
In my opinion most of the Israeli enterprises did not yet reach that stage, so Case Management impelemntation is not an addressable issue for them.

The fact that many of the Case vendors are not known is an hen and egg question: Which of them preceeded the other?

Are they still are unknown in Israel because of no marketing campaigns due to lack of potential customers? or is the lack of marketing activity the reason of no enterprises experiencing Case Management due to no knowledge about Case Management and/or Case Management solutions?

I estimate that the first scenario is more reasonable: Only few if any, enterprises in Israel are mature enough for implementing Case Management. This could be the reason for ommiting this topic from a conference focusing on the Israeli market.

However, I asume that in two or three years, the circomstaces will be changed and the emerging and important topic of Case Management will be a reality in the Israeli market as well.

Oracle Fusion applications: Respect and Suspect

2011-04-19T16:23:00.000+03:00

There is an old saying: Respect and Suspect.

When someone declare, write or say something, do not decry or ignore him – respect him. It may turn out that the information he provides is valuable or useful.

On the other hand, Suspect and check whether what was manifested is true, half true or false.

This attitude is the corn stone of Scientific Research.

I am not a Scientist, but during few decades in IT, I found Respect and Suspect as very useful approach as well as in my hobby playing Bridge (respect and suspect your opponents bids and play).

The old saying came to my mind, while reading good news: Oracle Fusion Applications was released for use by Early Adopters after five years of development.

The article was published by Mark Fontecchio in PeopleSoft Planet site.

The following bullets summarize the article:

1. Oracle Fusion Applications is ready but are the customers ready for using it?

2. Potential users

Those who are satisfied with their investment in existing Oracle applications such as E-Business Suite and PeopleSoft – No near-term interest in moving to Fusion Applications

Those who adopt certain modules of Fusion Applications that live alongside their existing Oracle applications –

Co-existence mode. According to Oracle's Senior Vice President Steve Miranda, this has been and will be the most popular adoption approach.

Those opting for full-blown Fusion Applications adoption - this approach would most likely be undertaken by customers who were new to Oracle applications.

3. Concerns of Oracle Applications, PeopleSoft Applications and J.D Edwards applications customers about how long these applications Roadmaps will be supported.

According to the article these concerns are valid but customers need not worry.

4. A Gartner Report estimates that the last major release of Siebel CRM could be as late as 2013.

5. Fusion Applications require Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition and Fusion Middleware.

My Take

Fusion Applications Availability is good news

Older versions of ERP products and other Applications products value is Operational value.

Their limitations are in Flexibility and Agility.

Oracle's Fusion Project, as well as similar SAP efforts, is in the right direction of creating new Agile, Service Based and more standard Applications.

Oracle Fusion Applications is ready but are the customers ready for using it?

Are Oracle Fusion Applications ready?

Apply the Respect and Suspect principle.

After so many years of Software Products Vendor's unfulfilled promises, I suspect that Oracle could be less ready than its vice-president declares.

If you are a customer or Potential customer check it.

ERP Customers Concerns are more than valid and they should worry

For the Long Term Oracle's customers will have no choice other than migrating to Fusion Applications.

The migration may be smooth or not so smooth, but anyway it will be costly migration.

Actually, they have a choice to use other vendor Applications.

I do not recommend this alternative to satisfied Oracle customers.

It is a risky and very costly option for unsatisfied Oracle customers.

Read the next paragraph of this post in order to understand some, but not all, the issues facing companies who will chose a third alternative: Hybrid Oracle and other Applications vendor (e.g. SAP) applications.

Fusion Applications require Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition and Fusion Middleware

It is Applistructure, similar to SAP's Netweaver. Applications users will be Locked In Oracle's Middleware, BI tools and Application Development (AD) tools (The article does not mention AD tools) and probably Oracle Database in the future.

The implications of dependence upon Oracle's infrastructure products vary:

Oracle Applications users already use Oracle's infrastructure, so they do not have to worry about Vendor Lock In.

PeopleSoft Application users:

My knowledge is limited to the only product marketed in my country: PeopleSoft CRM, but the conclusions could be probably generalized to other PeopleSoft Applications.

The proprietary People Tools AD tools should be replaced by Oracle's AD tools.

Prior to Peoplesoft's acquisition by Oracle its CRM customers could chose between three Middleware platforms: BEA, IBM and Microsoft.

BEA Middleware was used more than the other two.

BEA Middleware users are lucky. Oracle acquired BEA and most of Fusion Middleware components are BEA's Middleware components.

Peoplesoft's users who chose IBM's Middleware or Microsoft's Middleware are less lucky: sooner or later they will have to migrate to Fusion Middleware.

J.D Edwards Applications users are even less lucky: usually they use IBM's infrastructure.

A Gartner Report estimates that the last major release of Seibel CRM could be as late as 2013.

Seibel CRM users should not wait. They should plan their future CRM infrastructure.

They have more concerns than ERP users.

They should use three basic criteria in order to decide which CRM product to use.

Satisfaction – Satisfied Siebel users should use Fusion CRM if it is not too different from Siebel. If it is very different they should select Fusion CRM or competitive product.

Unsatisfied Siebel users (For example see a comment to my post on Unica), should do the opposite:

Fusion Middleware should be included in the selection process, if and only if, they will find it very different from current Siebel offering.

Difference between Fusion CRM and Siebel - This criterion was discussed together with the Satisfaction criterion.

CRM as a SaaS vs. CRM in Data Center – The products list to select from will depend upon this dimension.

Planning for CRM as a Service – your Short List could include SalesForce.com, NetSuite and optionally Oracle Fusion CRM, as well as other products.

Planning for implementing CRM in your Data Center – SAP CRM (especially if you are SAP ERP user) and Oracle Fusion CRM will probably be included in your Short List together with other non-SaaS CRM products.

MRP Timeline

2011-04-17T19:05:00.000+03:00

I was asked to help extending a timeline of MRP history by publishing the link to the timeline URL.

Knowledgable readers in this domain may add and extend the timeline.

Previously I was asked to help similar effort related to ERP.
I was able to provide information, which extended the time line.
But my MRP knowledge is neglectable' so I will not add even MRP-SOA related data.

If you know more than I do about MRP you are wellcome to extend the time line.

Case Management – הנושא שלא הוזכר בכנס: STKI 2011

2011-04-11T17:03:00.000+03:00

בכנס STKI Summit 2011 הועלו נושאים רבים הקשורים בעולם המחשוב החדש המתפתח שמאפייניו העיקריים הם :

(ניידות) Mobility

אפליקציות המיועדות לטלפונים חכמים (Smart Phones) והתנהלות עסקית המבוססת על זיהוי המיקום הפיזי של הלקוח.

Social Commerce והתפקיד המרכזי של הרשתות החברתיות והמחשוב החברתי

מחשוב ענן (Cloud Computing) העשוי להפוך את המנמ"ר (CIO) למעורב יותר בעסקים של הארגון ופחות למי שעסוק בטיפול בתשתיות.

גידול רב בכמויות המידע בכלל ובכמויות המידע הגידול הוא במידע בכלל ובמידע ה Non Structured בפרט.

שילוב כל אלה מהווה שינוי בכללי המשחק.

בהקשרים שונים בהרצאות בכנס הוזכר הפער הגדל בין ה IT ל Business. עלה גם המושג (Business Technology (BT בו התחיל להשתמש George F. Colony מ Forrester Research, על מנת להחליף את המושג Information Technology, כביטוי לשינוי בתפקיד מערכות המחשוב.
השימוש במושג BT החל בעקבות דיון פתוח בו השתתפו אנליסטים של ואנשים אחרים מתעשיית טכנולוגיית המידע כולל כותב פוסט זה.

במצגת של ד"ר ג'ימי שוורצקופף הוזכרה התפיסה של פיטר דרוקר מחשובי המומחים בתחום הניהול. אותו פיטר דרוקר הוא זה שטבע את המושג עובד ידע (Knowledge Worker). עובד הידע קשור באופן הדוק ל Case Management , משום שבמקרים רבים הוא הגורם המבצע את מימוש כלים אלה בשטח.

מה זה Case Management?

Case Management הוא אופן טיפול חדש בסוג מסוים של תהליכים אנושיים
(Human Processes) שבהם מעורבים עובדי ידע.

כאשר מדברים על תהליכים ברור שהתחום הראשון שעולה הוא BPM. תחום המהווה את אחד המרכיבים של Case Management. תחום זה הוזכר במצגת של עינת שמעוני על אפליקציות בכנס STKI 2010 ונעדר השנה מהמצגת בכנס.

ניתן לסווג את תהליכי BPM על פי מימד של מעורבות אנושית:
חלק קטן יחסית מהתהליכים הם תהליכים אוטומטיים בין מערכות ממוחשבות. תהליכים אלה מכונים גם SOA Processes .

מרבית התהליכים מורכבים יותר משום שהם כוללים גם מעורבות אנושית.
הטיפול בתהליכים אלה מורכב יותר. על מנת לממש את התהליכים בהם מעורבים אנשים נעשה שימוש בכלים מבוססי הסטנדרט BPMN ובכלים המבוססים על הסטנדרט שבדרך BPEL for People.

קבוצת התהליכים האנושיים כוללת גם תהליכים מובנים פחות, בעלי אופי אד-הוקי או משתנה בין מופע למופע, כשאת ההתאמה למופע הספציפי מבצע עובד ידע. בתהליכים אלה עוסק התחום של Case Management .

לצורך מימוש פיתרון ל Case Management משלבים שימוש בכלי BPM ביחד עם: כלים לניהול תוכן (ECM), מנועי חוקים עסקיים (BREs), כלים לבינה עסקית (BI), טכנולוגיות חברתיות, טיפול באירועים (Event Processing) ו SOA.

היות שלפחות חלק מהתהליך האנושי במקרים אלה אינו מובנה, עובד הידע המטפל באותו מופע, בונה את הפעילויות המרכיבות את אותו חלק אנושי של התהליך תוך שימוש בארסנל הכלים שצוין.

בניית המופע הספציפי של התהליך עשוי להיות מתוך אוסף של Tasks שהוגדרו מראש באמצעות מוצר תוכנה ומתוך חומרים שנאספו על ידי מומחה הידע.

עובדי הידע עליהם מדובר הם משתמשים עסקיים, כך שלמעשה המעורבות של המשתמשים העסקיים במימוש התהליך מעבירה אליהם חלקים מהתהליך, שטופלו בעבר על ידי מומחי מחשוב, כך שהנושא של Case Management מתייחס גם לאינטראקציה ולפערים בין אנשי העסקים ומומחי המחשוב בארגון.

בהיבט של אופן השילוב בין אנשי העסקים ואנשי המחשוב בארגון המשמעויות העיקריות של Case Management הן:

מאפשר למשתמשים עסקיים יותר שליטה בביצוע התהליכים העסקיים ולא רק בשלבים של מידול התהליכים והאופטימיזציה של התהליכים.

מגדיל את ה Agility של התהליכים, משום שמשתמש עסקי יכול לשנות את התהליך בכל מופע של התהליך ולבצע את השינוי אד-הוק ללא צורך בתקורה ניהולית גדולה המאריכה גם את זמן מימוש השינוי.

לא פוגע במעורבות אנשי המחשוב משום שמסגרת הטיפול במחשוב התהליך נשארת בשליטתם.

מגדיר מודל אינטראקציה בין אנשי המחשוב לבין אנשי העסקים שייתכן ובחלק מהמקרים והתחומים יוכל לסייע למנמ"רים "להחזיר את הכבשים" כמתואר בלוגו של כנס STKI 2011 ובכותרתו: Manage Scattered .

מאפייני Case Management
להלן מספר מאפיינים עיקריים של Case Management:

תהליכים בעלי שונות רבה בין מופע למופע

מבוססים על רמה גבוהה של ידע

עשוי לחייב גישה למקורות ידע להשלמת הידע הנדרש לצורך החלטה על אופן מימוש מופע של התהליך ועל אופן ביצוע משימות בתהליך. בהקשר זה עשויים לבוא לידי ביטוי כלים של (Enterprise Content Management (ECM .

Collaborative - בהקשר זה באות לידי ביטוי הטכנולוגיות של רשתות חברתיות וטכנולוגיות חברתיות אחרות.

תהליך ארוך בזמן – בחלק מהמקרים מימוש התהליך עשוי לארוך ימים ולפעמים אפילו שבועות וחודשים.

משתתפים רבים בתהליך שחלקם עשויים להחליף תפקיד(Role) בהקשר של התהליך.

"כיסים מבודדים של אוטומאציה" (Isolated Automation Pockets)

זהו מונח יפה שראיתי אותו בנייר של חברת Singularity. הוא מתאר באופן ויזואלי את מבנה התהליכים הנ"ל: חלקים מבודדים בתהליך הם אוטומטיים כשיתר החלקים הם אנושיים.

רמת מורכבות גבוהה

יכולה לנובע ממכלול של גורמים שונים כגון: קשרים בין Cases שונים, תלות בהתרחשות אירועים (Events) חיצוניים בזמן התרחשות התהליך, תהליך הנוגע למספר רב של יחידות בארגון ולפעמים גם מחוץ לארגון.

יצרני פתרונות Case Management
חברת האנליסטים Forrester Research מגדירה את התחום באמצעות ראשי התיבות DCM.
ה D הוא קיצור של Dynamic. את ה CM ניחשתם לבד (מי שלא ניחש יבחן את הכותרת של פיסקה זו).

לפי Forrester Wave מתאריך 31 בינואר 2011, היצרנים המובילים הם:
PegaSystems, IBM, EMC, Appian, Singularity, Global 360.

IBM ו EMC מביאות איתן ניסיון רב בפלטפורמות ECM. הפיתרון של IBM מבוסס גם על כלים מובילים בתחומי ה BI וה BPM .

מרבית היצרנים המובילים האחרים פחות מוכרים בארץ.
את המוצר של Appian ניתן ליישם גם באמצעות מחשוב ענן ב Public Cloude.
Singularity היא שותף של Microsoft המתמקד בסביבות המבוססות על טכנולוגית של חברה זו.

מדוע לא הוצג Case Management בכנס Summit 2011 STKI?
כל מה שאכתוב בסעיף זה אינו מבוסס על ידיעה והוא בגדר השערה בלבד.
הסיבה העיקרית לכך היא שלמרות ההתקדמות השנה בתחום ה BPM בישראל, נושא זה עדיין לא מיושם במרבית הארגונים בארץ.
גם בחלק מהארגונים המממשים BPM המימוש נמצא בשלבים ראשונים.

כאשר ארגון מתחיל ליישם BPM הוא מתחיל ברוב המקרים בתהליכים אוטומטיים. אם הוא מממש גם יוזמת SOA במקביל, ההסתברות שהוא יתחיל בתהליכים אוטומטיים גדולה עוד יותר.

בשלב מסוים של המימוש, הארגון מגלה שיש גם מרכיבים אנושיים לא אוטומטיים בתהליכים.

השלב הבא יהיה מימוש תהליכים אנושיים בנוסף לתהליכים אוטומטיים.
מימוש תהליכים אוטומטיים הוא שלב מורכב ולא פשוט, צריך לבחור כלים, צריך להחליט על שימוש בסטנדרטים כגון: BPMN ו/או XPDL

לא מעט ארגונים מגלים שכלי ה BPM שבחרו אולי מוצלח בתהליכים אוטומטיים, אבל פחות מוצלח בתהליכם אנושיים. אם הם מחליטים להחליף או להוסיף כלי BPM, מימוש שלב זה עשוי להיות ארוך יותר.

רק לאחר שלבים אלה ורכישת ניסיון במימוש תהליכים, מגיעים ארגונים לשלב שבו הם מנסים להתמודד עם מחשוב תהליכים יותר מורכבים ופחות מובנים.
להערכתי מרבית הארגונים בארץ עדיין לא בשלב זה.

העובדה שמרבית היצרנים המובילים בתחום ה DCM פחות מוכרים בארץ, דומה לשאלת הביצה והתרנגולת: מה קדם למה?
האם הם לא מוכרים בארץ, משום שיש מעט לקוחות פוטנציאליים בארץ ולכן הם לא מנהלים קמפיינים? או אולי העובדה שאין הרבה פעילות שווקית בתחום זה בארץ, גורמת לכך שגם חלק מאלה שיכולים אולי להתחיל להתנסות בתחום לא עושים זאת.

לדעתי הגורם העיקרי לכך שלא מוכרת לי פעילות DCM בארץ הוא מיעוט ארגונים הבשלים ליישם נושא זה.
כנראה זו גם הסיבה לכך שהנושא לא הועלה בכנס המתמקד בשוק ה IT בישראל.

להערכתי תוך שנתיים שלוש המצב צפוי להשתנות גם בארץ. בעולם מדובר בתחום "חם" שעוסקים בו לא מעט.

STKI Summit 2011 – SOA Perspective: Business Services or only Integration

2011-03-31T17:49:00.002+02:00

On March 28th 2011 I participated in the STKI Summit by the local analysts company STKI.
The company headed by Dr. Jimmy Schwarzkopf is focused on the Israeli market.
Presentations were based on an Israeli market survey performed by the company.
The company's analysts presentations topics were Infrastructure Trends, Applications Trends, Office of the CIO trends and Infrastructure Services Trends, followed by wrap-up IT Trends presentation by Jimmy.
The survey may not be accurate but the information is valuable and probably reflects the overall market status.

The theme of this year conference was: Manage Scattered.
The prime areas appearing in all presentations were: Mobile Computing, Social Computing and Cloud Computing.

The combination of them is the basis for creation of totally different IT industry, as well as Business and Personal Interaction and Collaboration.

The theme is about IT efforts and solutions which are executed without the IT department involvement (e.g. SaaS and other Clod Computing solutions implemented by outsourcer, Inter Enterprise Collaboration by Facebook, Blogs by company's employees etc.). It was described by an analogy of a shepherd losing his scattered sheep. The The theme is about recommending to the CIO's to regain control over all scattered IT related efforts.

SOA Perspective
Pini Cohen STKI's Vice President and Senior Analyst discussed Application Development and SOA in the Israeli Market.

Unlike previous STKI summit events, SOA is no longer a prime conference topic.

The Highlights of the SOA related part of the presentation are:

The SOA implementation levels (termed in the presentation as SOA Maturity levels) are low in most organizations

SOA is used for Integration and not for Implementing Services

In most cases the implementation is ESB Centered, therefore the local SOA market was described as Integration Brokers and SOA Infrastructure.

Market Leaders are: IBM, Tibco, Oracle, Magic (Magic products are invented and built in Israel therefore the local market is biased in favor of that product in comparison to the Global market). The leaders are followed by Software AG and Microsoft.

My Take

SOA Value Proposition is in the domain of Business and IT Alignment i.e. reducing the Business-IT gap.

Usually it is not possible to realize significant benefits without implementing Business Services.

The Israeli SOA Market is actually an ESB market with limited Business Services deployment.

ESB is SOA based Integration. Many SOA evangelists believe that SOA value propisition is mostly in Business Services and not in Integration. Some of them argue that SOA did not deliever its Integration promise. Read for example Loraine Lawson post.

I already addressed the ESB-SOA issue in a previous post titled: ESB for an Orphan.

Recently, I presented in the Israeli Systems Analysts conference.
My Presentation was focused on Organizational and Methodological aspects of SOA and BPM. These aspects are crucial for successful SOA implementation.

Pini Cohen's presentation is focused only on SOA infrastructure, mainly on ESB, not because he does not understand the importance of other aspects. It is focused on these aspects, because that is the focus of most SOA implementations in Israel.

No wonder, that the ratio of successful SOA implementations in Israel is even lower than the same ratio in Europe and North America.

What is wrong in SOA implementations in Israel?

The following highlights are generalizations, so there are exceptions whose SOA efforts are better than the average Israeli SOA implementation.

The SOA initiatives are driven and executed by IT department with limited Business involvement and sponsorship.

ESB is the beginning or starting point of SOA

There are three main approaches for starting SOA initiative:

Approach 1: Planned SOA
Including training of key IT and Business staff, building an initial Reference Architecture and selecting a small pilot project which will be executed with appropriate SOA tools or sometimes prior to purchasing SOA tools.

Approach 2: Pain points
The initiative begins by addressing a Pain point by small SOA implementation, hoping that success will promote other SOA projects and even planned SOA initiative.

Approach 3: Implementing SOA infrastructure products which facilitate relatively easy SOA projects implementations
It should be noticed that for some Enterprise a Planned SOA (approach 1) may include purchasing of SOA Infrastructure product in the beginning.

In most Approach 3 cases ESB tools is the first implemented product.
Beginning SOA implementation by implementing ESB is the best approach for the ESB Vendor. In many cases the decision to begin by implementing an ESB was based upon consulting of the vendor's SOA experts.

The IT department also favors this approach: No need for collaboration with Business people is required, it is IT Department's SOA, which can be executed and controlled more easily.

The problem is that it is like looking for a lost coin near the street lampspot even though the coin was lost somewhere else.

After the ESB implementation in many cases there is no real Business Value and sometimes no Business Services implementation following the ESB installation.

In my opinion in many Approach 3 SOA implementations you should start with implementing service Registry and Repository product and not an ESB product.

If there are already many Web Services in production (and this is often the reality) implementing a Registry can save redundant efforts and stop usage or maintenance of unused or improper Web Services.

Inappropriate Governance

The vendor has multiple roles: Infrastructure Products Sale and support, Planning, Consulting, Project execution, Training etc.

No Architecture Group or Center of Excellence

Unrealistic expectations of completing transition to SOA in a short time and /or realizing SOA major benefits in short time.

SOA and BPM Organizational and Methodological aspects

2011-03-19T18:37:00.000+02:00

As promised in previous post, this post includes an English version of my presentation in the Israeli Systems Analysis Conference on March 13th.

Methodological and Organizational aspects of SOA & BPM (Hebrew)

2011-03-14T01:32:00.000+02:00

Attached a link to my presentation on: Methodological and Organizational aspects of SOA & BPM in the Israeli Systems Analysts Conference march 13th.
The presentation is in Hebrew. opefully, I will add English version as soon as possible.

The Dark side of Agility

2011-01-20T19:12:00.000+02:00

Agility is considered as a major advantage of SOA, Virtualization and Cloud Computing.
By using Abstraction we create an Agile less complex model for Business people and IT experts.
In this new Agile world it is easy to Change, Adapt and Build new entities.

Sometimes it could be too easy.

With too much Agility it may be a chaotic Enterprise rather than Elastic, Flexible and Easy to change enterprise or Virtual Enterprise.

If we would like to enjoy the Bright side of Agility we have to take into consideration the possible Dark side of Agility and by Planning and Managing the Architecture and Infrastructure avoid of too much Agility.

Virtualization as an example
The following section is an example illustrating the problems caused by too much Agility in Virtualization. It should be remembered that not necessarily Virtualization implies too much Agility. Without too much Agility it is a valuable technology both in the Data Center context and the Public Cloud context.

It should also be remembered that the following section is only illustration. It is not an exhaustive list of all challenges derived from Virtualization ease of change.

Lack of Life Cycle Management
It is so easy to define a new instance of Virtualized Operating System, so in some Enterprises and Public Clouds people forget to delete unused instances.
The results could be waste of Hardware Resources, aimless Backups and unnecessary Management Overhead.

Too much usage of Hardware Resources
Enterprises which use about 10% of Intel based Servers CPU ,easily build Virtual Server after Virtual Server on a single Physical Server. The CPU usage could be about 110%. As well as high Memory usage rate.

After defining too much instances the CPU usage rate is too high in most cases and instead of improved Performance the Performance is less optimal than before. In case of a Physical Server downtime it may be impossible to find another server to run the Virtual Operating Systems instances of the overloaded server.

The Best Practice Rule of Thumb is to use about 60% or 70% of the CPU in peak times. 60% is a lot better than 10% to 15% used before virtualizing the Servers.

A upper threshold for CPU usage is not new: back in the 1970s a maximum threshold for Mainframe CPU usage was defined in case of Online Transactions workloads.

No planning of Virtual instances distribution on Physical Servers
Too much Usage of Resources is one of the scenarios of lack of planning.

Other scenarios examples are: placing CPU Bound instances on the same physical server causing Performance degradation, Placing all instances of an Application on a single server so no Business Continuity is possible in case of Physical Server failure.

No Network traffic optimization
If two Virtual Machines which are communicating often with each other and transforming huge amount of data, are placed easily, on different Physical Servers the result is a lot of Physical Network traffic.
By locating them on the same physical server and transmitting the data using internal server resources instead of physical network resources could save Network resources.

The result of placing them on differnet Physical Servers is degraded communication Response Time due to usage of the physical network which is a lot slower than memory to memory data transition on the same server and due to higher network contention.

Is it possible to move the Storage together with the Virtual Operating System Instance?
It is possible to move easily a Virtual Machine from one physical server to other using technologies such as VMware's VMotion. CPU and Memory resources movement is a part of this process. However, Storage movement or reallocation is not part of this process, therefore it may function less optimally in the new server environment.

Conclusions
The Value Proposition of Agility is ease of Change and ease of building new entities. However, when it is too easy to make changes, many enterprises will not resist the temptation of too much, quick and unplanned changes or additions.
The consequences could be no Value at all or even worse results than traditional non-Agile architectures and systems.

I used Virtualization as an example to illustrate the damage of too much Agility.

Cloud Computing is based upon Virtualization and therefore the conclusions about Virtualization could be applicable to Cloud Computing as well.

I could also use SOA as another illustration of the same issue. For example by describing very Agile implementation based on large number of fine grained Services. In that case Change is easy but Management is a nightmare.

SOA in 2011

2011-01-05T23:34:00.002+02:00

My prediction as posted in ebizQ SOA Forum:

The most promising area in SOA developments in 2011 could be Services for Social Networks.

I would expect SOA related key developments in Business Process Management (BPM), Business Intelligence (BI) and Case Management.

I doubt if we will see key developments in SOA related to Cloud Computing in 2011. As far as Cloud Computing is concerned, we may see Service Oriented Infrastructure (SOI) related developments, which will also be related to Virtualization.

Read also other opinions in ebizQ SOA Forum and Zapthink's prediction.

Unfortunately, failure rates of IT projects are high, and more unfortunately SOA endevours failures rates are even higher.
will 2011 be the year in which SOA endevours rates fall gradually? I am not sure it will.

Revival or no Death at all: Burton Group and The Lazarus Effect

2010-11-05T13:04:00.000+02:00

On January 05, 2009 Burton Group's analyst Ann Thomas Manes published her famous blog post SOA is Dead; Long Live Services. She arguied that "SOA met its demise on January 1, 2009, when it was wiped out by the catastrophic impact of the economic recession. SOA is survived by its offspring: mashups, BPM, SaaS, Cloud Computing, and all other architectural approaches that depend on “services”.

Recently, Burton Group published a Research note titled: The Lazarus Effect: SOA Returns. According to this Research Note, SOA demised during the Recession, but SOA is returning now after the recession. In Burton Group's words:

"As the global economy struggles back to health and organizations seek to redefine themselves and make strategic investments, many organizations are reconsidering SOA".

Unfortunately, I did not read Frank Herbert's and Bill Ransom's Science Fiction book titled The Lazarus Effect, so I could only imagine that it is about recovering from death or almost death. However, in the real world, SOA was far from death, despite of the Recession and despite of many SOA initiatives failures.

It is only another example of IT Evolution Spiral Model I described in a previous post.

It should be noticed that in a presentation titled: SOA a means for Leveraging Business Development? I argued that Recession may be beneficial for SOA initiatives in case of organizations adapting their SOA initiatives for the new circumstances.

It should also be noticed that Burton Group was acquired by Gartner.

Leading Gartner analysts' Research Notes (e.g. Research Notes written by Yefim Natis, Roy Schulte) never shared the opinion that SOA is Dead, but view it from more balanced perspective: Less enthusiasm during Hype preiod and no premature death notices.