Cloud Takes Center Stage in 2012 Tech Discussions
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Cloud strategy continues to be at the center of tech discussions with virtually every aspect of technology feeling the impact. In addition to the benefits to underlying infrastructure, using the cloud to take advantage of new business concepts or to scale existing business capabilities has come to the forefront in cloud strategy.
Although surveys vary, the breadth of public cloud adoption is definitely growing. A large 2011 survey done by AlphaWise for Morgan Stanley found that 28% of respondents run workloads in a public cloud today. In in three years, that percentage is expected to expand to 51%, an 80% increase.
The range of cloud capabilities continues to increase as vendors create variations on the as a Service trio of Infrastructure (IaaS), Platform (PaaS) and Software (SaaS). Cloud also plays a role with other major trends around mobility and predictive business analytics.
As use of the cloud evolves, Trillium recommends that you regularly review the cloud component of your business and technology strategy. Your business and technology architecture for cloud should now be a major component of your technology strategy.
As with any rapidly changing technology, separating the reality from the hype, and understanding the value and risks, are keys to your success. Trillium's cloud services practice works with you to insure that you have the right strategy and decision process in place to take advantage of the rapidly changing cloud environment.
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What Does Strategic Sourcing Mean to You?
A sourcing strategy should answer questions such as: What are the critical resource roles to accomplish the strategy? How effective and efficient are our current capabilities? What are the incremental opportunities? How can we get there? What is the roadmap? Developing and implementing a strategic sourcing strategy is influenced by changes in leadership, market shifts, technology changes and resource demand. These elements need to inform your sourcing strategy in both development and implemention. The advantages of sourcing programs are compelling. A sourcing strategy is a process, not an isolated decision. It continuously balances internal and external activities; services and know-how; aligns strategy, processes and technology, and, keeps the goals that must be achieved clearly in place.
In a competitive environment, all major projects need to be aligned with organization objectives. Sourcing has the potential to deliver significant benefits, but major projects require substantial effort and often result in considerable change in the organization. These projects demand resources and management attention that, depending on corporate priorities, may be better directed elsewhere. Good contracts often founder because alignment with the corporate operating model is not adequately addressed. All of these factors should be considered prior to initiating sourcing activities.
In the Ocean of Data are You an Explorer or Detective?
 The ocean of data to be analyzed is getting deeper and wider. The New York Times recently published an article on the data deluge in DNA sequencing. They reported that the largest genomics research institute, BGI, generates so much data that it can not send it to clients over the Internet anymore, as that would take weeks. So they send computer disks containing the data, via FedEx! The article highlights that data handling is now a key constraint for their industry. Data quickly becomes dated or runs into an overwrite issue so making sense of data quickly is paramount. It’s hard to believe but according to the NY Times article, "It costs more to analyze a genome than to sequence a genome." It is not at all clear what you do with all that data. Every industry is heading towards this problem.
So, what’s the solution? In addition to the need for large scale distributed storage, there needs to be concerted focus and disciplined approach to analytics. The typical used Christopher Columbus mentality of sailing into data and hoping to find insights is not going to work anymore. Suppose you are given a task of finding sunken treasures from the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific is enormous. How would you approach finding the lost treasure? Would you rent a submarine and start cruising the ocean like an explorer? Or, would you look for clues to where the treasure could be and use that as guide to direct your attention and effort like a detective?
If you go the explorer route, you are guaranteed the views. The nice corals, beautiful wildlife, and emerald-green waters, but the chances of you finding any sunken treasure are slim. Essentially you are not directing your effort of finding treasure, just finding “something”. Your actions of exploration are independent of what you are looking for, you could have been tasked with looking for killer whales and you would still take the same action.
If on the other hand, you choose to be a detective, if you look at historical ship routes and ship wrecks, and use depth as a way to filter, you can start identifying potential areas to explore. Once you have identified those areas, you can prioritize the top areas and then use submarines or deep sea divers to go explore. You are more likely to find gold in much shorter time. You will either succeed fast, or you will fail faster and then re-strategize to attack the problem again.
Trillium works with clients to put business intelligence and predictive analytics to work to find and leverage meaningful and often game changing information.
Trillium is committed to delivering the right people, technology, and consultative insight to ensure the success of our clients.
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The virtualization battle will rage on in 2012 between VMware and Hyper-V. While VMware once dominated the market, Microsoft is catching up quickly. If you are considering a virtualization initiative for servers or desktop, Trillium's Technology Selection practice can work with you to make the right choice for your organization.
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