Enterprise Technology Thought Leadership in a FTSE 100
I have been subscribing to TechTarget emails for sometime because of the low signal to noise ratio covering a broad technology spectrum that is important to me as I'm keen to hear from more than just a few vendors so it comes as no surprise that IT Knowledge Exchange (ITKE) was recently voted one of the 10 Great Media Web Sites. ITKE is on of those dead-handy site that I keep in the 'Favourites' when I want to find an answer. It's not so good for Microsoft .Net Development questions, better off going ......
Job titles are often effortless in their descriptiveness. Project Manager, Business Analyst, System Tester and .Net Developer are good examples because the subject is concise and the predicate modifies successfully, all meaning some semblance of what a person does can be derived from it. However with 'Enterprise Architecture' and 'Enterprise Architect' it’s not entirely obvious what the position is and what someone holding that position does, inevitably leading to the need for further description ......
As I've been helping out with VMware I wanted to consider the old question of whether developers really could work inside virtual environments? As we know virtual environments can help maximise under utilised resources, CPU, RAM, diskspace and save on space, power, HVAC and TCO with centralised support and maintenance. Another main advantage of virtualised environments that is particularly attract to many developers is the ability to remote work which is a requirement that has become far more common ......
If you are still writing code using .Net 2.0, why? WCF rocks! I don't usually get excited about development technologies but this one I do! WCF really does save time and large amounts of connectivity code and makes a big difference in SOA projects, this I discovered awhile ago when WCF was code-named Indigo. From a SOA perspective, the most important reason to use .Net 3.5 is the ability to use WF and WCF together. Before hand it wasn't really possible so an upgrade to Visual Studio 2008 is well ......
The question being asked today is do you prefer Internet Explorer or Firefox? to mark the launch of Firefox v3. Well I have both installed on this machine, both patched and uptodate but shockingly I'm not in-love with either program. I don't find browsers sexy. OK, so I liked tab's that for me is the single biggest innovation in the last few years but I was using those in IE before Firefox went mainstream. What about security, what about compatibility and adherence to standards? Security is important ......
IBM are offering $25,000 for 20,000 users to have unlimited remote support for a year, the product itself is free just like OpenOffice which Symphony grew from, that's $1.25 per user. According to Directions, Microsoft Office costs, licence and support, $151per user for 20,000 users, however Microsoft will discount depending on what else is purchased. I don't have to do the sums for you, the difference between the pricing could pay for a migration project which could be tempting for companies looking ......
I've turned my hand to a bit of Infrastructure Architecture and lending a hand working out what physical servers would make good candidates for making the transition to virtual. IBM, HP and DELL, to name afew, all offer services to work out what would make good candidates for you. There is also tools that can also help such as the popular PlateSpin's PowerRecon but to be fair these methods only really give potential technical candidates, that’s half the story! What about the business perspective? ......
I just had to post this video as I was so impressed! My Wii is looking old and crude.
According to James McGovern, I probably am! Why? Because I don’t code … very often. I don’t sit in an Ivory tower either making up my dictions via, Visio & Powerpoint. I think the key to being a good Architect is taking responsibility for designing a technical solution for business requirement with those who are going to built it, implement it, look after it and use it. Making good technical decisions often means getting your hands dirty and trying afew things out, if that is writing code or ......
Ask almost any Enterprise Architect and more seriously anyone who has to work with Enterprise Architects, what Enterprise Architecture is? and I guarantee you will get a great number of differing responses. Yes, obviously you will get a number that that only describe their individual relationship and won't fully encompass the role but then again will they know the rest of what an Enterprise Architect can do? ... and if they don't know and they are a manager could they make a mistake and create another ......
Jeff Schneider over at Momentumsi has stirred up some EA’s with his post Why Enterprise Architecture is a Joke in particular John McGovern with this post which Jeff Schneider replied to with this. In Jeff's post, point 3 hit home the most ... "3. Silo Organizations promote Silo Funding. Many EA's never had a chance. They live in organizations that fund everything according to business silo's. Then, the EA is expected to bridge the silos with nickle and dime funding. Their inability to perform Herculean ......
Graham Berrisford has set aside part of his website with a project to create a Glossary of Terms for Enterprise and Solution Architects. I think this is a simple and fantastic idea as discovering what words and acronyms mean is actually a pain in the neck. Yes, Wikipedia is great but sometimes a simple sentence rather than a full page of explanation is all that is required. Also, acronyms like 'MDA' have several meanings depending on context so it is handy to have a resource that is from the Architects ......
Roles in Perth, Scotland Business Analyst Support Analyst/Programmers for Home Services systems Roles in Basingstoke, England Analyst/Programmers for Energy Sales systems with C#.Net or PL/SQL skills Roles in Havant, England Project Managers Business Analysts Senior Analyst/Programmers with ORACLE skills Analyst/Programmers with ORACLE skills Analyst/Programmers with ORACLE E Business Suite skills Lead Systems Designers IT Security Engineers Database Administrators (DBAs) ORACLE or SQL Server skills ......