Category Archives: Tools

Dell, Legacy system, M&A Activity, Make Technologies, Tools

Dell Acquires Make Technologies for Cloud Transition Tech

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Dell announced today it has finalized the acquisition of Make Technologies, a leading application modernization software and services company. This acquisition, combined with the recent acquisition of Clerity Solutions, enables Dell to empower customers to reduce the cost, risk and time required to transition business-critical applications from legacy systems to cloud infrastructure and open, standards-based platforms. Through this technology, Dell is positioned to help organizations leverage more flexible platforms, allowing them to better leverage social and mobile technologies, enhancing workforce productivity and helping to deliver better business results.

The acquisition significantly augments the applications expertise Dell offers to customers with the following services enabled by the Make Technologies Transformational Legacy Modernization (TLM) suite:

  • Detailed application portfolio assessments to help customers define a
    modernization roadmap
  • Faster, lower risk, and cost-effective approach to application and
    data re-engineering

With this acquisition, Dell is better able to provide customers IT modernization solutions to reduce operational costs, migrate to an easier-to-maintain, standards-based architecture, and move to an application and data architecture that more effectively aligns with their business strategy. With a comprehensive mix of software and services dedicated to application modernization, Dell is well positioned to help scale Make’s offering and adds another tool in its suite of solutions that can help relieve customers from the inefficiencies of legacy applications and legacy infrastructure.

By better aligning their environments with current and future business processes, Make can empower customers’ modernization efforts by providing fully re-architected applications that provide a foundation for growth. The company differentiates itself in several ways:

  • Provides customers with end-to-end application portfolio
    transformation solutions that modernize entire portfolios of legacy
    applications in less time and with higher precision
  • Provides code and data migration tools to re-architect legacy
    application software to a more modern architecture
  • Reduces cost of maintaining and managing legacy applications
  • Drastically reduces the amount of custom code in legacy portfolios,
    while protecting the legacy information and business processes of the
    business functions it supports
  • Increases business agility through a re-engineered application that
    better aligns with our customers’ current and future business processes

“The addition of Make Technologies to our Dell Services portfolio allows us to offer customers a complete suite of application modernization services to help them move their legacy IT environments to more modern architectures,” said Steve Schuckenbrock, president, Dell Services. “At Dell, we are focused on solving some of our customers’ most complex problems with powerful IT solutions. With Make and Clerity we believe we have the industry’s most robust offering to help customers meet their modernization goals in an efficient, reliable and cost-effective way.”

“If Dell embraces the MAKE process as well as the tooling, it will gain a formidable weapon for its services arm. The sky truly is the limit for Dell – if it plays its cards right¹,” wrote Forrester Research, Inc. principal analyst, Phil Murphy.

“The combination of Make Technologies and Dell provides the market with a single vendor solution for any modernization activity and is an exciting step in expanding growth opportunities for our core application modernization software and services,” said Bill Bergen, president and CEO of Make Technologies, Inc. “Together, with Dell’s global reach, scale and reputation for customer support, Make’s methodology and tools will become even more accessible to more customers struggling with the dilemma that surrounds legacy environments.”


Application Tools, Constellation Research, Consumerization, Guest Post, iPad, Tools

The Consumerization of IT: No Longer Just About Phones or Tablets

Pete Khanna of TrackVia

Pete Khanna is the CEO of TrackVia, a cloud-based application platform that allows business users to build and deploy their own enterprise-grade SaaS applications.

Guest Post by Pete Khanna, CEO, Trackvia

What CIOs Need to Know – And Consider Doing – About the Emergence of Build-it-Yourself Enterprise Applications

It used to be that when a department or even a single employee wanted a new business application, they submitted an IT ticket and patiently waited for an answer. IT would evaluate the request, and decide whether to buy something, build something or simply do nothing. Often, this process took weeks, months and sometimes even years.

Emboldened by the “Consumerization of IT” trend and empowered by new cloud-based build-it-yourself application platforms, more front-line workers are bypassing IT all together, using their corporate credit cards to buy, build and deploy their own enterprise-grade SaaS applications within hours or days.

Experts agree this trend is likely to continue – and even accelerate. Analyst research firm Gartner predicts that “citizen developers” will build 25 percent of all new business applications by 2014.

Early case studies showed employees were building and deploying highly specialized or one-of-a-kind ‘rogue’ applications. These were the type of applications where an off-the-shelf software or SaaS solution either didn’t do the job or simply didn’t exist. However, more and more often, workers are using these build-it-yourself applications to deploy highly customized versions of common department applications, ranging from CRM SaaS solutions and inventory applications to HR systems and even customer service software.

The benefit of building your own department solution is that it’s often as much as 80 percent more affordable than off-the-shelf software or SaaS solutions. More importantly, these build-it-yourself solutions can be designed, customized and tailored by the users to meet the exact needs and requirements of the business. So instead of departments changing their processes or workflow to match that of the solution, users can change the solution to match their own processes. Simply put, features can be added, removed, changed or tweaked with a few clicks of the mouse. This leads to both greater efficiency and satisfaction by users.

All of this poses a growing challenge to IT professionals. Namely, how does IT manage the implementation of these so-called rogue applications without impeding employee productivity? The biggest concern from IT professionals is that they don’t want to be in constant clean-up mode, fixing or supporting solutions that end-users built themselves. A close second is that they want to be assured that the application is secure, ensuring that sensitive company information isn’t being compromised.

Having worked with thousands of businesses – from small cash-strapped start-ups to Fortune 100 companies – to implement their own custom applications, we’ve complied this list of best practices.

Step 1: Surrender to Win

The first and perhaps most important (and difficult) thing to do is decide whether or not to fight or embrace the “Consumerization of IT” movement. Even in highly regulated industries like banking and healthcare, where they use airtight firewalls, employees are finding ways around the lockdown mode of their internal IT organization. Doctors are bringing iPads into the examination room with their own apps installed. Marketers within banking organizations are using social media tools to distribute information. USB ports can be used to transfer information from unsecured laptops to company computers. The simple question becomes whether or not you want to use your limited IT resources and time policing employees or educating and empowering them. Getting alignment on this critical question at the highest levels of the organization is key.

Step 2: Offer Something Secure, Scalable and Supportable

Rather than hope you’re employees find and pick a secure and reliable build-it-yourself solution, many companies get out in front of their users and identify a single platform that meets both IT’s requirements and end-users’ needs.

This is where cloud-based application platforms are showing the most favorable response from business users and IT managers alike. Most organizations have larger, more complex enterprise-level applications that on some level need some customization. By adopting and implementing a secure, cloud-based application platform, CIOs proactively meet their own requirements while still providing end-users with a solution they can use to meet their own unique individual or department-level needs.

Implementing a single platform solution also helps streamline ongoing management and support, while making it faster and easier for employees to learn. For example, if all in-house applications are built atop a single platform, employees don’t have to learn to use multiple solutions. It also means IT doesn’t have to support multiple solutions. Everyone wins.

Step 3: Consider the Reliability

Nothing gets CEOs cackling faster than an email about a server or a critical system going down and employees checking out for the rest of the day. It’s also no fun for CIOs or IT Directors who have to deal with the hundreds of emails from employees asking, “Is the server back up? When will the CRM system be back up? What’s going on?”

A recent Constellation Research study shows most SaaS vendors report internal reliability ranging from 97 percent to 99.1 percent. However, it’s not uncommon to expect or demand that your cloud vendor partner demonstrate four-nine reliability. Most vendors will bake this guarantee into a standard SLA agreement. And as always, check the vendor’s track record and ask for customer references.

The Road Ahead

Like water, businesses and workers will always find the path of least resistance when it comes to working faster, more efficiently or effectively. The role of IT has always been to help clear technical obstacles for users, and protect them along the way. That hasn’t changed.

What has changed, however, is that IT has the opportunity to get out in front of the cloud computing and the “Consumerization of IT” trends, while playing a more proactive and strategic role in the overall organization’s future, versus trying to play catch up and doing damage control.

And that’s something I think we’d all agree is a good thing.


IT Management, Load Balancing, Microsoft, Partnerships, System Center, Tools, Windows Server

F5 Showcases its BIG-IP Solutions for System Center 2012 and Private Cloud

F5 Networks, Inc is demonstrating its F5 BIG-IP solutions for Microsoft private cloud deployments at the Microsoft Management Summit 2012, held this week in Las Vegas. During the event, F5 is emphasizing BIG-IP compatibility with System Center 2012 to help organizations maximize cloud benefits and productivity.

“F5 cloud computing solutions provide customers with a flexible foundation to dynamically provision services and tap the full value of cloud deployments,” says Calvin Rowland, VP, Technology and ISV Alliances at F5. “We’re excited to connect with customers at this event and share our cloud vision and products, which are key building blocks for private cloud environments. For over a decade, F5 and Microsoft have worked together to bring superior IT solutions to our customers. And with our close collaboration on Microsoft private cloud solutions, we’ve extended the value of this relationship.”

Using the BIG-IP system, customers can build dynamic data centers that eliminate deployment barriers and lay the framework for long-term, sustained efficiencies. For the Microsoft private cloud, F5 solutions help organizations unify their network architectures and consolidate their management environments. Together, BIG-IP products and System Center 2012 provide a clear view into how applications are performing over the network. This gives customers the ability to update and optimize configurations to increase performance, scale, automation, flexibility, and security.

Further, the updated F5® Monitoring Pack for System Center helps customers optimize resource utilization by discovering available BIG-IP devices and surfacing health statistics within System Center 2012. As administrators shift the allocation of resources, the BIG-IP system is automatically updated to ensure that the network is in sync with changes to computing and storage resources.

“System Center 2012 enables the private cloud, and the F5 Monitoring Pack for System Center gives customers the added strengths of F5’s BIG-IP solutions,” said Mike Schutz, General Manager, Product Marketing, Windows Server and Management at Microsoft. “Customers need the key components of their private cloud infrastructure to work well with each other, and the deep compatibility of System Center 2012 with F5’s BIG-IP platform can help increase efficiency and reliability while helping reduce operational expenses.”

Cost Effective, Automated, Flexible Cloud Control

BIG-IP solutions for Microsoft private cloud take advantage of key features and technologies in BIG-IP version 11.1, including F5’s virtual Clustered MultiprocessingTM (vCMP™) technology, iControl®, F5’s web services-enabled open application programming interface (API), administrative partitioning and server name indication (SNI). Together, these features help reduce the cost and complexity of managing cloud infrastructures in multi-tenant environments. With BIG-IP v11.1, organizations reap the maximum benefits of conducting IT operations and application delivery services in the private cloud.

BIG-IP solutions for Microsoft private cloud also include:

  • F5 Monitoring Pack for System Center, which provides two-way
    communication between BIG-IP devices and the System Center management
    console. Health monitoring, failover, and configuration
    synchronization of BIG-IP devices, along with customized alerting,
    Maintenance Mode, and Live Migration, occur within the Operations
    Manager component of System Center.
  • The F5 Load Balancing Provider for System Center, which enables
    one-step, automated deployment of load balancing services through
    direct interoperability between the Virtual Machine Manager component
    of System Center 2012 and BIG-IP devices. BIG-IP devices are managed
    through the System Center user interface, and administrators can
    custom-define load balancing services.
  • The Orchestrator component of System Center 2012, which provides
    F5 traffic management capabilities, takes advantage of workflows
    designed using the Orchestrator Runbook Designer. These custom
    workflows can then be published directly into System Center 2012
    service catalogs and presented as a standard offering to the
    organization. This is made possible using the F5 iControl SDK, which
    gives customers the flexibility to choose a familiar development
    environment such as the Microsoft .NET Framework programming model or
    Windows PowerShell scripting.

Availability

The F5 Monitoring Pack for System Center and the F5 PRO-enabled Monitoring Pack for System Center are now available. The F5 Load Balancing Provider for System Center is available as a free download from the F5 DevCentral website. The Orchestrator component of System Center 2012 is based on F5 iControl and Windows PowerShell, and is also free.


Business Processes, Data migration, JD Edwards, Tools

Best Practices for Managing Data in the Cloud

Managing Data In the CloudThe importance of data management is increasingly evident as companies find themselves having to respond to change faster than ever to remain competitive. Without best practices, volumes of data cannot be leveraged effectively to give companies a competitive advantage.

The way to mitigate this is to implement efficient business practices that are regularly evaluated and streamlined to generate results in a real-time environment.

What Are Best Practices for Managing Data in the Cloud?

Businesses hire analysts to manage data in real time. Online analytical processing (OLAP), online transaction processing (OLTP) and specialized reporting are all required to help businesses improve processes and increase revenue.

Data warehouse information and OLTP data may be combined in cloud-based solutions to provide organizations with more flexibility. For some enterprises, cloud-based solutions meet the “practical sense” test and for others these solutions do not. Common factors of the “practical sense” test include: Cost effectiveness, scalability, migration capability and return on investment. Once these factors are determined, a set of best practices can be implemented.

Efficient Infrastructure Solutions. Efficient infrastructure solutions allow IT professionals to focus on mission-critical tasks rather than managing infrastructure problems. The infrastructure supports the integration, design and configuration of a database in a cloud-based solution. Consolidation efficiency should be monitored and a set of practices should be developed to achieve optimal performance. With efficient best practices, IT can use the cloud to eliminate some customization issues and deploy solutions in a fraction of the time.

Data Migration. Best practices for data migration require that businesses learn to convert data efficiently at a database level. Efficient migration must occur regardless of the format generated. Databases, which are not required to be combined for security or operational reasons, can be migrated to a virtualized server. All source data must be converted into a standardized format to facilitate consolidation before migration to a shared server. 

Consolidate to Minimize Costs. Consolidation reduces costs associated to hardware, cooling and power. It also reduces operational complexity which reduces the time required by IT management to complete projects. Consolidation can also assist IT managers with developing disaster recovery strategies and adopting best practices for a uniform backup routine. Best practices for an update and patch schedule should also be established. 

Use Cloud-Based Data Center to Meet Demands of Faster Service. A cloud-based data center allows companies to share the capacity and equally divide the workload of applications across numerous servers for more efficient data manipulation and recall. This allows for faster innovation and ability to meet customer demands. Overall performance will not be affected when large amounts of data can be processed in the cloud.

Next Steps…

JD Edwards helps businesses integrate data management best practices into organizations. Consultants help clients understand how to apply best practices and how to maintain competitive advantage in a fast paced work environment. The result is an affordable and high performance cloud-based solution. Cloud-based solutions are easily scalable, easy to deploy and cost effective.

The result: lower operating costs and increased efficiency.

 


Cedexis, Network performance, Networking, Research, Tools

Cedexis Launches Internet Performance Reporting Tool

Cedexis has released a new data visualization interface available at www.cedexis.com/country-reports/ which provides statistics on the performance of IT providers (Hosting Companies, CDNs and Clouds) providing valuable information on the SOH (State Of Health) of their Internet services as end-users actually see them.

The performance measurements of each of the cloud/CDN providers is generated by the users themselves. This is achieved through the integration of a probe (JavaScript tag) on a Cedexis customers’ web, mobile or business application, which only becomes active only after a page has been fully loaded so that an end-users experience is not impacted.

Cedexis combines these quality and performance measurements with an additional service called OpenMix, which enables real-time traffic routing changes to maximize the end-user’s experience.  Thanks to this realtime decision making service, end-users are always sent to the best provider for them at that point in time, with content owners comfortable in the knowledge that 100% availability and optimal performance for each and every end-user is a reality.