Betting on Winners

Discussion for EA874 Topic 4 > Technology Infrastructure Architecture

Post # 3

Continuing with the previous blog's theme of risks in technology choices and acquisitions for infrastructure, Gartner's recommendation for installing an Advanced Technology Group (ATG) in the organization is a key step in minimizing such risks, and allows the organization to pursue their investments with better  odds. I would think that as part of a robust EA governance being in place in the organization, creating the strategic technology planning function that Gartner speaks of can truly bring the necessary defined process for prioritizing and transferring potentially high-impact emerging technologies. Doing so will strengthen the company for avoiding the potential disasters of personality-driven investment decisions.

Five Styles of an Advanced Technology Group
Working with various organizations in the past, I can relate to the five styles described for ATG's as presented by Gartner. I would also go further to say that even in companies without a formal ATG, the five styles can be present - particularly the Guerilla kind, with characteristics, strengths and challenges most akin to small to medium-sized enterprises. As pointed out by the article,  ATGs can combine qualities from more than one style, but a single style is usually dominant.  I would also add that the idea of an ATG can be a venue of sorts, in which the members can come and go to contribute, but usually with a core group to maintain control and direction. And I think in some places, I've seen that the notion of an ATG can actually be a process -- again an open model that allows the free exchange to deliberate  technology options and directions. Lastly, I think I have also observed that while a group can display a particular style as dominant, the styles can be fluid, and shift from one to another depending on context, and the particular posture and requirements of the organization to which the service of the ATG is called upon.  The following styles descriptions can be useful: 1.) Navigator: Determining the strategic business impact of emerging technologies, through tracking and evaluation. Usually challenged by: Finding a willing home for a technology at the end of a successful evaluation. 2.) Guerrilla: Tactical and pragmatic "SWAT" team helping business units deploy new technologies. Usually challenged by: Carving out time for strategic planning and tracking activities. 3.) Priest: Educating senior management on emerging technology issues and potential. Usually challenged by: Lack of hands-on evaluation activities. 4.) Conductor: Coordinating and leveraging advanced technology activities performed in other parts of the organization. Usually challenged by:  Making its recommendations a reality by working primarily through other groups. 5.) Scholar: Research and development group investigating technologies ahead of business need. Usually challenged by: Avoiding acquiring a reputation as an “ivory tower” out of touch with current business needs.

Timing-Decisions for Adoption Opportunities
I think one of the more challenging decisions for ATG's or any group that functions to provide strategic technology planning is when to jump in to adopt a new technology. A strong prioritization criteria should be in place, and a clear view of enterprise portfolio is requisite to arrive at timely technology decisions with the restraint to jump along on hype. In performing the prioritization process, Gartner points out that it is also important to identify, and thus avoid, the commonly occurring wrong reasons for which companies adopt technology. The high level of hype surrounding technology in the marketplace is one of the factors that frequently drives companies to a poorly timed adoption of technology (typically too early). As noted in our other discussions, Gartner's model of the Hype Cycle characterizes the typical progression of a technology, from over-enthusiasm through a period of disillusionment (because of the inevitable failures that arise from inappropriate application), to an eventual understanding of the technology’s relevance and role. If a company launches its efforts too soon, it will suffer unnecessarily through the painful and expensive lessons associated with deploying an immature technology. If it delays action for too long, it runs the even greater risk of being left behind by competitors that have succeeded in making the technology work to their advantage.

Reference:
Fenn, Linden, and Fairchok. (2003 July). Strategic Technology Planning: Picking the Winners. Gartner Research.

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What should we expect from Infrastructure Architecture?

Discussion for EA874 Topic 4 > Technology Infrastructure Architecture
Post # 2

As one of the pillars of enterprise architecture, the technology infrastructure architecture should be developed and delivered to respond in support of the business mission and strategies. The technology infrastructure architecture as a service model is changing as it is driven by expected business outcomes which demand that information technology in the organization be an enabler  for the business innovation, with the business organization as a key influence in buying decisions, and where the business need for speed, agility, flexibility and cost-efficiencies are effectively provisioned .

Adaptive to  New Technologies
Gartner's key findings back in 2012, still resonates today, with continued indications of  accelerated spending on new technologies -- mobility, cloud, analytics and social computing services -- will be driven by the segment of buyers that seek untapped value from these technologies. Buyers have increasingly focused on speed to market, business impact of their enterprise applications and efficiency of their application portfolios; these choices guide and underlie new preferences for applications, application services and provider selection. Crowd and community sourcing continues to grow to create distinct "application management communities," which contribute on both the development and maintenance space, with outputs that clearly benefit all enterprises. The increased focus of providers in developing/maintaining reusable intellectual property (IP) assets is evidence of a future in which cloud-based platform development, assembly-based software strategies, IP leverage, and configurable solutions will be an option -- if not the norm, for some buyer solutions. The intentions of legacy application modernization efforts will shift conclusively from an IT-centric cost view to business enablement through new technologies -- such as analytics, mobility, and software as a service (SaaS).

Enabling Infrastructure
These trends and scenarios result in innovative solutions similar to GE's "Industrial Internet Platform,” which links GE’s products and sensors with analytic applications built with components from new ecosystem partners.  This essentially creates a platform that bridges operational technology (OT) sensor data with IT-based equipment service history, inspection details and other unstructured data for actionable insights. IT/OT alignment involves aligning and integrating traditional information technology with devices, sensors and software used to monitor and control physical equipment. Clearly these trends give us an  insight into how IT/OT alignment will impact device control technology, enterprise architecture and other mission-critical processes in key industries, including utilities, defense, transportation, healthcare, mining, manufacturing, media and telecommunications. Such an enabling infrastructure provides a platform where airlines can use big data analytics to predict maintenance issues, cut operating costs and improve on-time rates; where utility enterprises can analyze combustion turbine data with weather details to optimize asset performance against emissions constraints and fuel cost changes.

An architecture minimizing technology risks
Organizations will expect to have an infrastructure architecture that is designed to minimize technology risks for each life cycle stage. Organizations will always find the acquisition for technology infrastructure to be challenging to one degree or another,  and is only right to tread carefully. However, whatever buying strategy they come up with, organizations will need to ensure a sustainable infrastructure framework that can withstand the different degrees of risk for each of the Five-Stage Technology Adoption Life Cycle: Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, Laggards;  a framework that can address technology risk areas such as technology death (too soon), vendor defocus, deplorable levels of vendor support, runaway maintenance costs that become prohibitive, availability of support expertise in the market.  Given all these risks, we should appreciate how the provision of this backbone for all our information systems -- i.e. the infrastructure for network, security, storage, process platforms, database, integration, and presentation models --  is truly a daunting task. A big part of Infrastructure architecture, because of it nature as a big-item acquisition, needs a strong governance process that can deal with heavy-duty decisions.  Such decisions should be designed to keep the pain of change to a minimum, hopefully strongly guided by EA principles,  with well-placed acquisitions of systems and products that will not cost the organization an arm and leg to replace or maintain.

References:
Mike Blechar. (2006 December). Managing Technology Life Cycle Risks. Gartner Research paper.

Kristian Steenstrup. (2011 July). IT and Operational Technology Alignment Innovation Key Initiative Overview. Gartner Research paper.

Gartner. (2012 November). Predicts 2013: Business Impact of Technology
Drives the Future Application Services Market. Gartner Research paper.

Sallam, Kart, and Rhodes. (2013 June). GE's Planned Industrial Internet Platform Shows Promise, Faces Hurdles. Gartner Research paper.

Infinite Data From Every Direction

Discussion for EA874 Topic 4 > Technology Infrastructure Architecture
Post # 1

As new web technologies have unleashed to bring in a tidal wave of data, the resulting increased requirements for handling "infinite data" has increased the possibilities for storage in every part of the Web. The Gartner article (Monroe, et al, 2012) reminds us that we are only beginning to see the enormous implications of that simple fact. As enterprise architects, we should be wise to consider these predictions in the course of work of designing systems, allocating resources, or selecting products for our organizations. The article relates to my own reflections on big data and data lakes in a previous blog.

As pointed out in their key findings, traditional content types, including simple unstructured user data, are seeing growth rates of up to 60% to 80% year over year as of 2012., and new enterprise infrastructure configurations associated with virtual servers are compounding this problem. And while Big data infrastructure and platform purchases are still driven by data management considerations, end users are now beginning to realize that underlying storage architectures are an important and often misunderstood cost center.  Good news is brought to consumers as Conditions in the generic cloud storage markets in both the consumer and enterprise arenas have opened the gates for severe price wars, and providers are seeking to differentiate themselves through platform/device partnerships and by targeting specific market segments. Moreover, hardware and software technologies have evolved to the point where it is now practical to avoid the high costs of proprietary solutions, at least for non-mission-critical data.

We should take action as part of our diligence and pass along the following advise to our respective organizations: 1.) Data must be managed according to policies that make sense for the business rather than by content type, owner, age or size alone. 2.) Do not remain complacent with your current storage technologies and big data implementation, and work to increase your organization's use of information management dimensions, such as volume, variety and velocity of data, through emerging and potentially disruptive storage architectures and designs; and 3.) Examine your relationship with your enterprise storage vendor to see which cloud storage providers it integrates with, and potentially seek to increase the serviceability and compliance of such an integration/partnership.

As part of our strategic planning, we should now have all included efficient, cost-effective information management as one of the top three measures of the business health for our respective organizations.  If we haven't joined the inescapable trend, we should make our organizations aware of the value of insights big data brings to the business, and that 80% of big data projects will use architectures that account for less than 20% of total storage spending today because of current cloud opportunities,  and the increasingly favorable buyer's market for cloud provisions. And as computing power and costs favorably continues to follow Moore's law, infrastructure architects should brush off their cobwebs and look away from  traditional storage arrays that are now increasingly replaced by more intelligent servers which bring a paradigm shift of what is now generally observed as gargantuan proportions.

Reference:
Monroe, Chandrasekaran, Childs, Deshpande, Filks, Zaffos, Unsworth. (2012 November). Predicts 2013: Managing Infinite Data From Every Direction. White paper. Gartner. ID G00245437.
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