Many of us use Twitter, a free cloud-based service, to market ourselves and conduct one-to-one business development. Unfortunately, hackers brought Twitter down several times already this month with Denial-of-Service attacks. This begs the question, “when should we invest in obtaining our own clouds—vs. sharing free crowds with others?”…
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Tags: Cloud Computing, DDOS, Denial-of-Service, DOS, Priority, SAS-70, Shareware, Software, SOX, TCO
Posted in Decision-making, Managing Technology, Operations/TCO, Platforms, Risk Management, SaaS & Cloud Computing | 6 Comments »
Use of modularity and encapsulation if one of the most powerful approaches to scaling architecture (your ability to built it, your cost to operate it--AND the value you can obtain from it). Those enterprises who incorporate this into the DNA of their technology create "killer networks" that can used to generate enormous value...
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Tags: C4ISR, Constitution, Donor, Encapsulation, Facebook, Intelligence, LeadGen, Leads, Modularity, Principles, SDDS, Software, TCO
Posted in Architecture, Extending the Value Chain, Lead Gen & CRM, Managing Technology, Operations/TCO, Platforms, Scaling & Reliability, Speed & Re-use, Systems Engineering & Integration | No Comments »
A few weeks back, I shared an observation from one of AOL’s former CTO’s that the US Constitution was the best architecture document in history (my apologies to my colleagues from other countries). As we approach US Independence Day, I thought it would be appropriate to begin a series that presented the Architecture Constitution...
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Tags: AOL, CIO, CompuServe, Constitution, CTO, Netscape
Posted in Architecture, Development, Internet (1.0), Managing Technology, Motivation, Operations/TCO, Platforms, Privacy, Security & Identity Management, Scaling & Reliability, Speed & Re-use, Systems Engineering & Integration | No Comments »
In the Web 1.0 world could use different approaches to scale static and dynamic data. This does not translate well into a Web 2.0 world where most content is dynamic (i.e., user-generated content) that can come from ANYWHERE…
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Tags: AOL, Caching, Content, Data, Database, DBMS, Denormalization, Partitioning, Replication, Twitter, UGC, Wharton
Posted in Architecture, Emerging Technologies, Internet (1.0), Managing Technology, Operations/TCO, Scaling & Reliability, Social Media / Web 2.0, Systems Engineering & Integration | No Comments »
Many intermingle the terms "Application Service Provision (ASP)" and "Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)." However, these can be very different. It is important to confirm what your getting when you buy and ASP-based solution to ensure you avoid surprise costs...
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Tags: ASP, SaaS, TCO
Posted in Managing Technology, Operations/TCO, Platforms, SaaS & Cloud Computing, Service Delivery | 1 Comment »
The launch of the enterprise application market was a great step forward for software. It significantly reduces the risk of using software to enhance enterprise operations and provided much-needed standardization that allowed CIOs and CTOs to acquire knowledgeable staff and adopt best practices. However, it takes a careful approach -- and a...
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Tags: COTS, Integration, SaaS, TCO
Posted in Managing Technology, Operations/TCO, Platforms, SaaS & Cloud Computing, Service Delivery | 2 Comments »
I could title this, "Confessions of a Serial In-house Build-over-buy Guy" as I was guilty of doing this many, many times. Regardless of how good your team is (I have been privileged to lead some of the best) and how unique your requirements are, it will ALWAYS be more expensive to build "it"...
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Tags: Build-vs-Buy, COTS, SaaS, Software, TCO
Posted in Managing Technology, Operations/TCO, Platforms, SaaS & Cloud Computing, Service Delivery | 1 Comment »
Regardless of your political orientation, the wrap-up of 2008 has clearly not been what we all hoped for in terms of the economy. The recent free-fall in the economy has affected much more than the financial capital markets--it has hammered the IT and software capital budgets of nearly every business (just ask any...
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Tags: ASP, Build-vs-Buy, COTS, SaaS, Software, TCO
Posted in Managing Technology, Operations/TCO, Platforms, SaaS & Cloud Computing, Service Delivery | 3 Comments »