Strategies and Trends for Information Technology Leaders
In recent years service catalog has grown in awareness and a growing number of commercial products are available. Yet the majority of implementations have been developed as in-house or ad-hoc projects. This article outlines the evolution of service catalog capabilities and the trade offs involved in building rather than buying. As the broad movement toward…
McAfee, the world’s No. 2 security software maker, said on Monday it plans to buy Internet security company Secure Computing Corp. for $465 million in cash. The move gives McAfee a suite of software, services and hardware products to protect hackers from getting past the perimeters of computer networks. McAfee is already the No. 2…
As service orientated architecture (SOA) hits mainstream, anecdotes about SOA deployments gone awry become increasingly commonplace. Like the report of Mark Twain’s “death,” in which his illness was distorted by word of mouth into the ultimate departure, reports of the demise of SOA have been greatly exaggerated. No doubt about it SOA is difficult. However,…
The Millennial Generation (those born roughly between 1979 and 1999) is entering the workforce, bringing with it new expectations that affect the way these professionals are managed. To keep Generation Y employees productive and engaged, employers may need to make adjustments from the way they’ve led previous generations. The good news is that most companies…
Today many organizations are considering whether to keep IT functions internal or outsource them to a third party. There a number of factors that need to be considered when choosing a service provider. (Or, if you already have one, you can still evaluate their role in your organization using these guidelines.) First and foremost this…
An important responsibility for many CIOs today is aligning IT with the overall business. Regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLB) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) have made this a priority as companies evaluate how their IT systems can be more secure in the context of larger…
Service-oriented architecture (SOA) adoption is on the rise—promising businesses improved agility, closer alignment between system solution and business need and increased efficiency through reuse. To the CIO, an SOA approach expands options for cost reduction, speed-to-market and custom solution fit. As businesses realize the early benefits of SOA deployment, adoption has increased significantly. In addition…
In the Information Age, collecting information alone is not enough; it’s what you do with that information that counts. In a trend marked by urgency, if not downright panic, investors and CEOs are looking to CIOs to figure out how information can be used to speed extra cash to bleeding company coffers in the midst…
Mature organizations have long recognized the importance of service level agreements (SLA) in driving up value from outsourcing but service quality often falls short of the mark. Turning the magnifying glass on an organization’s internal working practices through the use of operating level agreements (OLA) holds the answer. A truly mature service delivery model will…
With the release of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) version 3 (v3) last fall CIOs now have a far more useful tool to help them provide their businesses with the services they need. Where ITIL version 2 (v2) was focused on how to provide the services you already provide better, v3 takes these best practices…