We believe that vulnerability, resistance, and 'resilience' are all shaped with the help of diligence, proactive ability to put the right blend of resources available. What if we have the technology know how and the resources to make this happen in the real time as well. Then, the question arise who has the onus in a cloud context - technology companies or the cloud providers or the cloud community or may be all to some extent. Let's find out how technology and new era concepts are evolving - creating cloud technology environment, cloud community's gift through open source platforms, and the ability of the technology companies to make an effective blend of technology that can really make a difference in our lives. Creating the right cloud delivery strategy is critical to reducing our organization’s risks and building its future. Most of the IT organizations want to start small, to build a pilot or proof of concept for the cloud, and expand from there. No harm i...

A grid infrastructure may not be the case for certain organizations. The reasons for this may be one of enterprise size, IT policy, outsourcing model, lack of budget, or ISV certification. In these circumstances it is generally recognised as good practice for applications with non-intensive workloads to use server virtualisation in order to consolidate. However, where maximising consolidation, availability and agility are of paramount importance, a combination of server virtualisation and grid-based solutions are the best way to maximise the benefits of consolidation, availability and agility. Working in tandem, they can ensure enhanced server virtualisation, the ability to dynamically scale within and across nodes, and the dynamic resizing of virtual nodes. Compared to other models of computing, IT systems designed and implemented in the grid style deliver a higher quality of service, at a lower cost, with greater flexibility. Higher quality of service results from having n...

Business IT maturity is expressed, the way IT in totality tags it’s prices for the products and services. Nevertheless, How it recovers its costs? Life as a consultant is tough. I’m not complaining, but we have to find small ways to introduce humour and keep our sanity. I wrote recently about how a consultant can use language clues to quickly assess both business and IT maturity. Sometimes, you don’t even need the clues! One of the ways I can put a sparkle into my day, when I meet a CIO I’ve never met before, at an organization I know nothing about, after a few minutes conversation, I pronounce, “I think your IT funding model is broken!” In every case, they look surprised, then reveal, “How did you know so quickly?” Of course, the answer is, funding models are nearly always broken. However, IT funding is one of the dominant causes for being intact at mid-Level 2 Business-IT Maturity. Below that point, much IT spend is funded by the project. To a degree, business clients underst...