IT Governance

Baseline – What Employees Say They Must Have From IT

Information workers are expressing frustration with what they view as a lack of tech tools and space to pursue collaboration, according to a June 2016 survey commissioned by Prysm and conducted by Forrester Consulting. The resulting report, “Digital, Disparate, and Disengaged: Bridging the Technology Gap Between In-Office and Remote Workers,” reveals that IT and facilities professionals feel that the situation is much better than information workers describe, leading to a glaring perception gap on the issue. Similarly, when it comes to having access to the “latest and greatest” technology, only a minority of information workers said they have what they need.

More of the Baseline slideshow from Dennis McCafferty

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26
Sep 16

Continuity Central – The unintended consequences of risk reporting

In this article we posit three questions. The first question is: “Is it a social responsibility of companies that they undertake a comprehensive risk assessment?” The second question: “Does the notion of conscience and its application to the generation and use of risk information and information in general, create an obligation for the organization to disclose the results of the comprehensive risk assessment?” The third question: “How do the people in the organization communicate the information from the comprehensive risk assessment to stakeholders and yet preserve security and protect the organization?”

The three questions may, at first, appear simple and straightforward. However, as we dissect each, we find that there is significant complexity intertwined in these questions. While this article does not attempt to provide a rigid framework or hard and fast answers to the above questions, it is our intent to set in motion a dialogue regarding corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its relationship with governance risk and compliance (GRC) activities/obligations that form a social contract between the organization and its stakeholders.

More of the Continuity Central article from Geary W. Sikich and Joop Remmé

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26
Sep 16

IT Business Edge – C-Suite Identifies IT Leaders as Technology Drivers, Deloitte Survey Finds

According to the newly released results of a survey of mid-market executives in the United States, CIOs and other IT leaders are increasingly likely to be identified as the individuals who drive technology adoption in their companies.

The findings, highlighted in Deloitte’s 2016 Mid-Market Technology Report released earlier this month, showed that 49 percent of respondents said IT executives direct the adoption of new and emerging technologies, up from 36 percent in 2015. I spoke with Steve Keathley, national technology leader of Deloitte Growth Enterprise Services, about what’s driving this trend, and he attributed it to the promise of technologies such as cloud, analytics and IoT having been fulfilled. In other words, the C-suite is now full of believers.

More of the IT Business Edge article from Don Tennant

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19
Sep 16

ZDNet – 5 ways cloud computing is transforming software vendors

It’s never easy being a software vendor. Demanding users, incredibly smart competitors, and rapidly evolving technology mean constantly being on top of one’s game. Now, cloud and Software as a Service have added a whole new dimension to what it means to be a software vendor.

For starters, it means more, much more, than simply shifting the delivery model from on-premises installation to online download. A new report from PwC — its Global 100 Software Leaders report — states “cloud computing changes how software vendors run their companies. Sure, there are technical issues such as reliability and security. But there are also business and cultural issues affecting all phases of a company, from product development to marketing and sales, extending to customer service and support.”

This shift has accelerated since PwC issued a similar report two years ago. At that time, the report’s authors state, “it was clear that cloud computing was already starting to change the software industry. It wasn’t clear how much it was going to change the industry.”

This year, cloud is sweeping into every corner of the industry. “SaaS/ PaaS revenues of the Top 50 software vendors now approaches 10% of their total,” PwC reports. The cloud model, of course, means lower revenues, and perhaps cannibalizing existing business. But market realities are pushing this transition. “Software vendors who’ve made the transition are well on their way to restructuring their operations to the new realities of lower average sales prices and margins,” according to Mark McCaffrey, PwC global software leader. “The companies that haven’t done so may not be on the 100 list anymore — and we haven’t seen the effects shake out yet.”

More of the ZDNet article from Joe McKendrick

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15
Sep 16

ComputerWeekly – The pros and cons of cloud bursting

It’s fun to think about the possibilities of bursting and brokering, but countless barriers stand in the way of enterprise customers. Dynamic porting of workloads is an interesting concept, but not yet an agenda item.

Brokering refers to dynamic relocation of cloud workloads based on the lowest-cost platform at that time, whereas cloud bursting looks to optimise the cost and performance of an application at any time. For average use, an enterprise can pay for persistent usage in its own virtual machine (VM) environment, and it can use public cloud resources for additional capacity.

In 2011, the idea of dynamically sourcing and brokering cloud services based on real-time changes in cost and performance was the future vision of cloud’s pay-as-you-go pricing – and it remains a vision.

The first tools are only just emerging and the use cases are limited, especially since costs for public clouds don’t vary enough to drive significant brokerage demand.

More of the ComputerWeekly article from Lauren Nelson

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14
Sep 16

CIO Insight – Why IT Has Fallen Behind the Pace of Business

Business users of the digital generation expect immediate access to information and apps, and IT is having trouble keeping up with these demands.

Very few IT and business leaders feel that their organization is extremely nimble in responding to future business needs, according to a recent survey from Unisys Corporation. The resulting report, titled “Meeting the Demands of the Digital Generation: Get Good at Cloud Now!” indicates that it’s critical for tech teams to re-examine IT processes and resources to better support a digital business model. Today’s users, findings show, highly value the cloud as an essential business driver. And while it’s encouraging that most companies have migrated apps to public or private clouds (or both), it remains troubling that cyber-threats to data and systems outages remain a way of life for modern business users. “Collectively dubbed ‘the digital generation,’ this group has very specific requirements and perspective—and more so than previous generations,” according to the report.

More of the CIO Insight slideshow from Dennis McCafferty

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12
Sep 16

IT Business Edge – The Cloud: Not Just Better IT, All-New IT

It’s fair to say that the cloud is fast-approaching the tipping point as the dominant means of deploying enterprise infrastructure. But while the broad outlines are coming into view, the exact architecture and the host’s location are still very much “up in the air.”

The latest estimate on cloud deployments came from 451 Research this week, which pegged the current cloud workload at about 41 percent of the enterprise total with a likely rise to 60 percent by the middle of 2018. In breaking down the numbers, the firm noted that the majority of deployments are taking place on private clouds and public SaaS infrastructure, and that going forward the private side will see largely flat growth while SaaS will jump by 23 percent. As well, IaaS deployments, currently only 6 percent of the total, will double to 12 percent in the next two years.

More of the IT Business Edge post from Arthur Cole

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02
Sep 16

PM Times – Implementing IT Governance – A Perspective

Today businesses rely on information technology (IT) as an integral part of their overall enterprise strategy. For the same very reason, a new field of thought called IT governance has been under development for several years. Just as business management is governed by generally accepted good practices, IT should be governed by practices that help ensure
-An enterprise’s IT resources are used responsibly
-Risks are managed appropriately
-Information and related technology support business objectives
In other word IT governance is the process by which decisions are made around IT investments.

Although the level of maturity and acceptance of IT Governance varies considerably across different organizations and sectors but a number of different views emerge in its favor. These view, though present conflicting arguments but favor the implementation of IT Governance.

IT alignment to the business is the highest rated driver and outcome of IT Governance practices. A large majority of organizations recognize the importance of IT alignment in order to deliver sustainable business results, and feel IT Governance is the best means to achieve this. A general understanding among all the organizations and their CIOs is

“The successful application of IT Governance principles can provide a mechanism to increase the effectiveness of IT and, in turn, meet the increasingly high demands from business for IT.”

More of the PM Times article from Atul Gupta and Alankar Karpe

Bi-Modal IT / CIO Strategy / Cloud Computing / Cloud infrastructure / Data Center / Digital Transformation / IT Governance / IT Security / IT Strategy — Comments Off
01
Sep 16

IT Business Edge – Preparing for the Evolution of the IT Administrator Role

Just as writing has come to mean texting, blogging or any form of digital writing, the cloud today means one or all of the three Cs: computing, connectivity and communication. And just as nearly all thought to putting pen to paper has disappeared, all reference to the natural cloud is long forgotten. The three Cs have altered the way we consume services. The adage, “change is the only constant,” holds true in the IT landscape like no other, forcing IT admins to constantly learn new skills and make strategic decisions.

In this slideshow Vidya Vasu, head of the ManageEngine Community, takes a closer look at how the role of the IT administrator is changing and how individuals can prepare.

ZDNet – Delta outage highlights how airline industry needs new IT approaches

Delta blames a power outage in Atlanta for bringing its systems down, canceling flights, and stranding passengers. Southwest’s systems stumbled last month after a faulty router and nixed about 2,300 flights. United Continental grounded flights over a bad router in July and June. Welcome to the world of cobbled together legacy systems and an industry that needs to move toward cloud computing much faster.

IT outages are a fact of life. And now that technology is no longer a separate entity from business, screw-ups hit more people and damage reputations. The big question is why in 2016 airlines are being brought down by single points of failure when cloud services offer resiliency zones, backup options, and redundancy to keep critical systems running.

Delta cancels more flights as it recovers from system-wide outage | Delta Air Lines says power problems are behind computer outage that grounded flights

More of the ZDNet post from Larry Dignan

Doug Theis Leave your comfort zone.