The Real-Time Enterprise | Tony Bishop

Enterprise clouds: The secret is the workload

tonybbishop — 2009-01-21T09:06:39-08:00

The cloud is the long-term strategic delivery model that will enable IT as a service while reducing virtual sprawl in the datacenter -- if firms design, build, and operate it correctly READ MORE

Business execution and recession

tonybbishop — 2008-12-12T10:16:29-08:00

Any company wishing to emerge from the current economic slowdown in a better position needs to think about efficient execution and challenging old assumptions READ MORE

IT innovation: Cost centers to sales enhancers

tonybbishop — 2008-12-12T10:14:50-08:00

Given the costs required just to keep the lights on, how can IT convince business to innovate beyond the datacenter? READ MORE

Wall Street as the first business infrastructure as a service

tonybbishop — 2008-11-22T06:00:00-08:00

The financial markets have been riding a roller coaster in the dark for several weeks. The uncertainty and fear clogging the flow of currency is causing governments of the industrialized world to examine how global markets conduct themselves, with an eye on shorter leashes for many large financial institutions, which these governments now have a stake in. It is likely that new, stricter regulations will come from this scrutiny and will severely limit how much risk these large organizations are allowed to take. It has also become clear that the degree of understanding and transparency surrounding the troubled investments that... READ MORE

SOA realized = Enterprise computing + cloud computing

tonybbishop — 2008-10-15T10:55:40-08:00

The convergence and intersection of enterprise computing technology combined with cloud computing provides a strategy blueprint for success READ MORE

Top 4 datacenter design mistakes

tonybbishop — 2008-09-24T12:25:35-08:00

Current design limitations Previous design choices have resulted in not meeting the needs of the business. In particular, these design choices have resulted in complexity, waste, performance barriers, and cost models that don't work for the business. Lack of understanding and transparency of what has been done in the past will continue to create misalignment with business needs if not addressed. The critical design limitations include: Supply-driven management: Most datacenter infrastructure teams design and manage from the bottom up. The typical approach is to standardize, partition, allocate, and implement a "vanilla" solution of compute and storage that is attached to... READ MORE

9 design principles of a service-oriented datacenter

tonybbishop — 2008-08-21T11:44:43-08:00

A service-oriented datacenter (SOIT DC) is a top‐down, demand driven datacenter design that maximizes efficiency and minimizes traditional IT waste of power, cooling, space, and capacity under utilization while providing enhanced levels of service and control. The following design principles are proven to enable firms to create a service-oriented datacenter. Dynamic provisioning — A package-once, deploy-many application facility that incorporates application, infrastructure, and IP dependancies into a simple policy library is critical. This affords the capability to deploy in minutes versus days. Dynamic execution management - Dynamic execution management performs allocation that is managed in real time based on monitored... READ MORE

Virtual Dynamic Datacenter - Business Aligned Approach

tonybbishop — 2008-08-20T10:51:59-08:00

A recent article titled "How to create a business-boosting virtualization plan" serves as an excellent strategy model for creating a business driven dynamic virtual datacenter. The synopsis A business-driven virtual datacenter strategy would change any datacenter and infrastructure discussion from a cost-centric mindset to a strategic partnership endeavor. In essence, the conversation would revolve around the following tenants: • What drives revenue, risk and cost? • Understand what the Quality of Experience (QoE) will be for clients and executives? How to you balance performance, cost, and efficiency? • What are the key business drivers and pain points that the business... READ MORE

Meta IT: Strategy framework for change

tonybbishop — 2008-07-21T16:00:00-08:00

Meta-IT represents a new IT management framework and governance packaged into a set of results-oriented best practices READ MORE

ERP for IT (ERP4IT) - An approach to creating greater shareholder value

tonybbishop — 2008-07-16T11:15:00-08:00

Enterprise Resource Planning for Information Technology (ERP for It, ERP4IT) describes the automation of Information Technology. Wikipedia The management of people, capital, relationships, assets, and information is one of the most critical functions of business AND information technology. However, the resource planning and management of IT across the enterprise is typically either an undisciplined practice or an underinvested operation. The ramification of either of these approaches to ERP4IT results in misalignment with the business and does not maximize IT's contribution to shareholder value. The inability to understand the linkages of business execution with IT, the demographics related to how IT... READ MORE

The new CIO playbook

tonybbishop — 2008-06-19T14:41:50-08:00

According to a Smart Enterprise Magazine CIO report, three-quarters of today's CIOs help their companies develop new products or services. In my previous blog I noted that in Gartner Group's 2008 Worldwide Survey of CIOs, 85 percent of CIOs are now looking toward "IT to make the difference in their enterprise strategy." This move away from "keeping the lights on" to a focus on business strategy and external customer interaction is completely changing the day to day activities of today's CIO. The result of IT's executive leadership becoming a "part of" vs. a "supporter of" the business is forcing a... READ MORE

Innovation through IT architecture

tonybbishop — 2008-06-02T04:43:19-08:00

An interesting statistic was recently provided in the Gartner Group's 2008 Worldwide Survey of CIOs – 85 percent of CIOs are now looking toward "IT to make the difference in their enterprise strategy." This serves the theme of this blog: innovation and an architectural approach for CIOs to make a difference! Working with CIOs globally we find that in their zeal to deliver new innovative capabilities to the business, they believe the answer is to invest in large teams of developers, placing them in the business units they serve with a directive to be responsive. Although this helps to align... READ MORE

5 components of an IT economic model

tonybbishop — 2008-05-18T17:50:39-08:00

One of the steps identified in Real Time Enterprise Blog “9 Steps to a Virtual Oriented Utility” was the requirement to create an economic model. As we have been working with many CIO’s, we are finding that the discipline of creating and managing an economic model does not exist or is not understood. The Economic Model for IT can be thought of as the Business & IT linkage of demand and supply. In particular, it is the interactive dynamics of consumption of IT resources by the business and the fulfillment behavior of processing by IT. We coach CIO’s and their... READ MORE

90 Days to radical cost take-outs

tonybbishop — 2008-05-05T19:40:27-08:00

IT organizations are increasingly challenged these days just to keep the lights on. Additionally, the business is looking to cut costs, maximize efficiencies and reduce spend during these economically challenging times. IT leaders usually leverage standard playbooks of consolidation, rightsizing, outsourcing, and vendor rationalization to meet the objectives of the business. When leveraging such playbooks, IT leaders should incorporate a “lean discipline blueprint” that will not only amplify the impact of their initiatives, moreover, it will serve to create a sustaining operating model that is best in class compared against their peers. To do this, IT leaders should execute the... READ MORE

Forensics for real-time computing

tonybbishop — 2008-04-21T07:34:39-08:00

Firms IT organizations cannot become real time in practice or reality – without instituting a systematic discipline to decomposing problems within their IT infrastructure. In our experience, we found that by leveraging a forensic sciences approach to cause and effect ecreation or identification can rapidly improve IT service delivery and quality of experience. Below overviews an IT based Fo•ren•sic (f -r n s k, -z k) adj. - Relating to the use of science or technology in the investigation and establishment of facts. Meth•od•ol•o•gy (m th -d l -j ) n. - A body of practices, procedures, and rules used... READ MORE