Agile software development, Asset management, Cloud & IT Management, Configuration management database, Information technology management, Scrum, ServiceNow

ServiceNow Takes Software Asset Management to the Cloud

ServiceNow today announced a new release of its IT service automation software. By embedding new IT Asset Management application, ServiceNow enables companies to more efficiently utilize software and help achieve compliance with license terms and requirements. At the same time, companies can avoid over-purchasing of software licenses and maintenance or support contracts. The release also includes new capabilities for agile software development that ultimately lead to an improved user experience.

Enterprises today waste a great deal of money and time through improperly managed software resources. ServiceNow software can help businesses rightsize and monitor a software portfolio through a fully integrated cloud-based service for all types of IT assets, while helping achieve audit-ready license compliance automation and reporting.

“Managing software assets is increasingly complex in the age of virtualization and cloud, and enterprises are wasting millions of dollars annually due to a fundamental lack of visibility and poor management,” said Matt Schvimmer, vice president of product management, ServiceNow. “In this new software release, ServiceNow provides a comprehensive view of all assets – physical, virtual, and cloud-based – and the processes to control the full lifecycle management of those assets.”

The ServiceNow IT Asset Management application helps IT organizations significantly reduce operational costs, identify software portfolio requirements, facilitate planning and simplify compliance efforts. It works across all types of assets, including SaaS applications and subscription services, licensing of virtual resources and the use of consumable assets.

The ServiceNow IT Asset Management application is fully integrated with all of the other ServiceNow applications for automating enterprise IT operations, including asset discovery, service catalog and configuration management database (CMDB), providing a single system of record for IT management.

The new release also adds a new Scrum process pack to the ServiceNow Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) application. Scrum is a popular development methodology for managing agile software development projects in multi-team, multi-product environments. The new capabilities include planning boards, progress boards, burn-down charts, preferential ranking and the assignment of standard roles associated with this methodology, like product owner and scrum master.

Click here for a detailed webinar on software asset management.


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Thinking big

In 1919 Irish poet WB Yeats wrote ‘The Second Coming’, a work that conjured the image of a “spiritus mudi”—a vast warehouse that contained all the archetypes of human concepts. This enormous storage facility was located somewhere out in the inhospitable desert, yet magically accessible to every person walking the earth. Almost a century later, in the age of high speed data transport, intelligent networks and virtualisation, it’s easy to forget that behind the almost magical connection delivering information to the screen in front of the end user’s eyes, there is a solid, squat building full of humming electrical equipment. The datacentre is almost an abstract concept in itself. It sits at the heart of the network and carries out many of the critical tasks that keep the services fl owing; rarely, if ever, occupying the attention of the millions of customers it serves.

The vision of a datacentre as a hulking steel warehouse packed with racks and racks of servers studded with flashing lights isn’t far wrong. But what actually goes on behind the glowing LEDs? A telecom operator’s datacentre houses critical applications such as OSS and BSS and everything essential for running the Master Control Centre. As a result, a datacentre requires 24/7 uninterrupted availability, high security, high speed connectivity and lots and lots of power. That power is by far the biggest factor in running a datacentre, so if a carrier can reduce the electricity bill by 30 per cent, they can dramatically reduce cost. This consideration has influenced a number of approaches to datacentre building. Scale—a common concern in the telecoms industry—is another important dynamic affecting which approach an operator takes.

Airline, Business Intelligence, Business Processes, Revenue management, RMS

Revenue Management Systems Unveils airRMexpress for Small Airlines

Revenue Management Systems (RMS)  is launching airRMexpress, a new cloud-based airline revenue management solution designed specifically for small airlines.

With airRMexpress, RMS brings the advantages of powerful forecasting and optimization capabilities to a whole segment of the airline industry that was previously underserved. And RMS delivers it at a price that is affordable. In addition to forecasting and optimization, airRMexpress also features many other tools, such as an executive dashboard, flight analysis screens, a report builder and the popular Business Rules manager.

“There are literally hundreds of small airlines around the world today who are either spending too much time making manual inventory adjustments or are using solutions that don’t have all the features they need,” said Scott Schade, CEO of RMS. “We have designed airRMexpress for these airlines so they can quickly and efficiently optimize their seat inventory, thereby significantly improving their bottom line.”

As a cloud-based solution, airRMexpress can be rapidly deployed. Accessing the system via the internet also saves airlines from having to buy expensive server hardware.


Uncategorized

GreenButton CEO to Present at 11th Cloud Expo with Dell Cloud Evangelist

Scott Houston, chief executive officer for GreenButton, and Stephen Spector, cloud evangelist for Dell, Inc., will be co-presenting “Game Changer – High Perfomance Computing in the Cloud for Everyone,” at the 11th International Cloud Expo. Scott and Stephen will discuss how companies of all size and budgets can best leverage cloud-based high performance computing, without breaking the bank. They will also demonstrate the simplicity and cost efficient methodology for running a rendering workload in the cloud in a matter of minutes instead of hours.
GreenButton will be exhibiting at Booth #1032 on November 5 thru November 8. To schedule appointments please email sales@greenbutton.com.

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Cloud Computing as a Worldwide Commodity Service

“The cloud is so new, and is dominated by such a small number of players right now, that prices are much higher than they will be,” noted Cory Isaacson, CEO and CTO of CodeFutures Corporation, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “As demand goes up and new entrants come into the market, the cost will decrease overall,” Isaacson continued. “Cloud computing will be a commodity service worldwide within the next few years – I see this as inevitable.”
Cloud Computing Journal: Just having the enterprise data is good. Extracting meaningful information out of this data is priceless. Agree or disagree?
Cory Isaacson: This is absolutely true; data is meaningless without turning it into useful information. Almost always this involves relating the data to other data (e.g., “How many people purchased Product X last month?” involves relating a customer to a product and a time period).

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EMEA, Glasgow, Office Space, Scotland, Small business

New Ways of Working – Cloud Computing and Serviced Offices

Finding innovative solutions to problems has always been a hallmark of small and medium businesses keen to differentiate themselves from the pack. Being able to adapt to new ways of working in a modern business environment means looking at emerging technologies such as cloud computing, as well as considering alternative solutions to the traditional working environment such as serviced office spaces. We’ll look at each of these in turn to consider how using both these options work to your advantage in order to maximise the potential of any small business venture.

Cloud Computing

The main advantages of cloud computing for small business users are cost, scalability and flexibility. Gone are the days when it was necessary to purchase and maintain expensive physical infrastructure such as email servers or separate storage systems; cloud computing usually works on a subscription based model and allows your workforce to produce and collaborate on projects no matter where they are based.

Serviced Office Space

An increasingly popular option for small businesses, serviced offices offer all the benefits of more conventional office spaces but with a number of important advantages, chief amongst them being the reduced cost and flexibility that such an arrangement provides.

Fees are usually all-inclusive, saving you the trouble of having to account for additional costs such as building security and office maintenance, whilst giving you access to fully serviced premises. In Scotland, for instance, businesses looking to find Glasgow office space at i2office.co.uk can experience all the advantages such arrangements provide.

Small businesses can only benefit from advances in fields such as cloud computing and flexible working arrangements which allow them to keep costs down whilst providing an excellent service to their customers. Using the two in combination allows users to maximise their profitability at a time when economic circumstances have made it all the more difficult to survive those critical first few years and they are a welcome development for any potential new business.


Uncategorized

Servoy Named “Bronze Sponsor” of Cloud Expo Silicon Valley

SYS-CON Events announced today that Servoy has been named “Bronze Sponsor” of SYS-CON’s 11th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on November 5–8, 2012, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Servoy is the fastest and coolest way to develop and deploy cloud-based business applications anywhere and on any device. We serve ISVs that want to deliver compelling, dynamic business apps that are as easy and intuitive as any smartphone application. With Servoy, you develop once and deploy anywhere – from desktops to smartphones.

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New Strategies for New and Different Threats

Rapid and proactive containment of problems and breaches — in addition to just trying to keep the bad guys out of your systems — makes sense in today’s environment.
A lot has changed in the past five years. Two key economic trends have really accelerated our security changes. First, the US recession pushed companies to consolidate and integrate technology footprints and leverage systems. New deployment models, such as software as a service (SaaS) and cloud, help address some of the lack of capital that we’ve been experiencing and the ability to push cost from fixed to variable.

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BYOD, Consumerization of IT, IT Management

Mind the Gap – Greatest Generation Users

By Geoff Smith, Senior Solutions Architect

As this is the last entry in the Mind the Gap blog series, I wanted to tie up all of the loose ends from the previous posts. In those, I’ve asked all of us in IT to break out of our comfy IT management “snuggies” and look at how our world is changing. In the past, IT has been the gatekeeper to technology for the business, mainly because we were the only people who lived it every day. That is no longer true.

In nature, each generation of a species evolves in some way, adapting to changes in their environment, habitat, or position in the food chain. The same can be said for IT users. As each new workforce generation rolls into the business world, they bring with them a greater understanding of what technology is and what it can do for them. I’ve been supporting users since the early 80s, when we got the cross-eyed, “I don’t need that thing” look when you dropped their new computer on their desk and took away their Rolodex. Today, if they don’t have a new laptop every 2 years you are “inhibiting my ability to function.”

This shift, in a relatively short timeframe, is what I call the Greatest Generation Users, or GGU. The workforce today is filled with GGUs. They come out of high schools and colleges with more IT awareness than many of us did when we finished our degrees in computer science. It may not be true IT knowledge, but that makes it even more difficult to support them adequately. GGUs function in a completely different way than businesses typically do today, and in order to enable a business to take full advantage of those they hire, IT is often the one saying “no you can’t.”

Many in IT still firmly believe that if technology ideas or capabilities are not borne from IT, they must be inherently suspect. But all you have to do is look at where your innovation “cheese” has been moved to (see Mind the Gap – Consumerization of Innovation) and you will quickly realize that to keep up with the GGUs you have to shrug off the corporate technology chains and find solutions that enable the GGUs to work in the ways they want. Remember—your bosses are often GGUs as well.

Beyond these users and their knowledge and expectations lies the grey world of “usability.” Up time is a thing of the past. GGUs expect little to no latency in their technology solutions and watch out if they have to refresh a page just to get updated data. Usability equals efficiency in the mind of the business, and efficiency equals profit.

And it’s not just about mobile devices, remote access, work from home or other entitlements, it’s also about how you support these use cases, ensuring the same high standards you provide to traditional corporate users. Technology and work freedoms are rapidly becoming “perks” to hiring desirable candidates. People are now more than ever the intellectual property of most organizations, and if IT is the blocking force for enablement, you may soon be waving to the GGU who takes your spot on the roster.

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