by John Schmidt on February 2, 2012 – 5:58 am
Lean management practices have been applied in recent years to virtually all business functions and processes, including of course Lean Integration. IT architecture is no exception. But what exactly does a Lean Architecture look like and how could you measure its “leanness”? Since there is no generally accepted definition lean architecture, and since I won’t bore you with mine, it might be easier to describe what a non-lean architecture looks like. Or to ask it differently, what are some non-lean approaches to architecture? Read More »
by John Schmidt on January 26, 2012 – 8:25 am
Many years ago (over 30 to be precise) I can recall walking the halls of more than one fortune 500 company and seeing four-foot high stacks of boxes with computer printouts in the hallway outside of managers’ offices. In fact it was not uncommon to see pallet-loads of computer printouts in some companies. When I asked one manager what the reports were and why they had so many, he said “we don’t look at the reports any more but we don’t know how to get the data center to stop sending them.” Read More »
by Ash Parikh on January 23, 2012 – 10:18 am
If you haven’t already, I think you should read The Forrester Wave™: Data Virtualization, Q1 2012. For several reasons – one, to truly understand the space, and two, to understand the critical capabilities required to be a solution that solves real data integration problems.
At the very outset, let’s clearly define Data Virtualization. Simply put, Data Virtualization is foundational to Data Integration. It enables fast and direct access to the critical data and reports that the business needs and trusts. It is not to be confused with simple, traditional Data Federation. Instead, think of it as a superset which must complement existing data architectures to support BI agility, MDM and SOA. Read More »
by John Schmidt on January 5, 2012 – 7:45 am
The cost for 1GB of magnetic disk storage 20 years ago was $1,000 – now it’s eight cents. 1GB is enough to store about 20 thousand letter-size scanned documents. To store the same number of paper documents would require two four-drawer filing cabinets which would cost about $400. The cost of electronic data storage is five thousand times less than paper storage.
Costs have dropped consistently 40% per year which accounts for the more than 12,000 times reduction in cost since 1992. The cost for RAID or mainframe disk storage is somewhat greater, but the historical trend for other storage devices has been similar and the forecast for the foreseeable future is that costs will continue to decrease at the same rate. Twenty years from now we will be able to buy one tera-byte of storage for a penny. Read More »
by John Schmidt on November 23, 2011 – 12:10 am
If you answered NO, then consider some recent developments which may cause you to re-think your organization’s position. Loraine Lawson in her recent blog Organizations Demanding More from Data Integration Tools writes that “customers are demanding more from their data integration tools” and, by inference, from their integration vendors. The article goes on to highlight advice from Gartner to “Seek out vendors that support a range of styles.” Read More »
