Neil Maiden is an amusing guy. He is also professor of systems engineering at City University London and the editor of the IEEE Software requirements column.

Information security incidents and privacy breaches often result from risky behavior by personnel who are unaware that the way they are handling information is unsafe. A significant factor for this problem can be attributed to a lack of security policies, along with inadequate or nonexistent training and lack of awareness communications. According to a recent Cisco study [1]:

As an EA and SOA consultant and authority, I get a lot of questions about architecture, its value, how to implement it, and how to roll it out to an organization. Occasionally (like last week), the questions are so off base that they amaze me. Are managers really this out of touch (no need to answer that)?

Enterprise data warehousing specialist Teradata Corporation is the latest analytics database vendor to join the cloud movement. Last week, Teradata introduced its first product offerings targeted at organizations wanting to take advantage of virtualization and cloud technologies for data warehousing and BI applications.

Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) is an XML-based standard for exchanging authentication and authorization data between security domains. SAML is a product of the OASIS Security Services Technical Committee. The single most important problem that SAML was created to solve is the Web browser single sign-on (SSO). However, there are limitations to SAML 1.1 for that purpose. In fact, the problem that SAML 1.1 solves more efficiently is the authentication and authorization of SOAP Web services by using SAML as a WS-Security token.

A spider is an eight-legged arachnid that has a head attached to a central body. Pull a leg off a spider and most can still walk, even if a little lopsided. Cut off the head, and the spider dies. Not so the starfish. While many people know that if you cut off a starfish's leg, it will grow back, most don't know that a starfish's major organs are replicated throughout its body.

From a certain perspective, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software architecture is just plain silly.

From a certain perspective, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software architecture is just plain silly.

From a certain perspective, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software architecture is just plain silly.

NOTE: Viewing the Webinar requires the use of Adobe Flash Player 8 or higher (Adobe Flash Player 9 or higher for Linux and Solaris) (download the player from the Adobe Web site).

A follow-on to the wildly popular Cutter IT Journal issue of the same title, this webinar will help you better understand the implications of applying semantic web technologies to business problem domains where traditional enterprise systems have fallen short, such as BI, data mining, and CRM.

As the death toll has reached 1,000, there has been a lot of press coverage in the US this past week concerning the shortages in the availability of the swine flu vaccine. Planned vaccination clinics for the millions of high-risk individuals in the US, including pregnant mothers, children under the age of 10, and healthcare workers across the country, have been postponed en masse with no word on when they will be rescheduled.

Open source software (OSS) has been entering the enterprise almost invisibly for a number of years, initially in infrastructure as Web servers and replacement for proprietary Unix and then branching out into a diverse range of infrastructure components, embedded code, and applications. It has been invisible for a variety of reasons:

Many open source components initially introduced were highly technical and, therefore, beneath the radar of corporate executives.

In my last Advisor ("How EA Shapes Urban/Transportation Planning," 7 October 2009), I restated some of the reasons that my colleagues and I have chosen urban (and transportation) planning as the model for thinking about EA while developing the Business Enterprise Architecture Modeling (BEAM) methodology.

In an outsourcing arrangement, many of the risks to personally identifiable information (PII) are the same as for internally processed information. Controlling the spread of PII within the outsourcer's IT environment is key, as is ensuring that access controls are effectively used, the outsourcers networks are secure, and encryption is used in association with organizational sensitive data and PII. Even administrative controls, such as employee background checks, have applicability in an outsourcing arrangement.

In an outsourcing arrangement, many of the risks to personally identifiable information (PII) are the same as for internally processed information. Controlling the spread of PII within the outsourcer's IT environment is key, as is ensuring that access controls are effectively used, the outsourcers networks are secure, and encryption is used in association with organizational sensitive data and PII. Even administrative controls, such as employee background checks, have applicability in an outsourcing arrangement.

I've said for some time now that the use of mashups in the enterprise would increase, especially when it comes to their use for BI and other applications that support decisions. One reason for this is that the technology has been evolving rapidly and vendors focusing on mashups have been growing in number. End-user organizations have also expressed a definite interest in using mashups.

Enterprise 3.0 is about the radical changes that will move us away from talking about business technology alignment and closer to business technology convergence -- the inevitable outcome of technology, business, and management trends.

Enterprise 3.0 is about the radical changes that will move us away from talking about business technology alignment and closer to business technology convergence -- the inevitable outcome of technology, business, and management trends.

Enterprise 3.0 is about trends -- and outcomes. It's about radical changes that, taken together, move us away from silly debates about business technology "alignment" and closer to business technology convergence.

Enterprise 3.0 is about trends -- and outcomes. It's about radical changes that, taken together, move us away from silly debates about business technology "alignment" and closer to business technology convergence.

Enterprise 3.0 is about the radical changes that will move us away from talking about business technology alignment and closer to business technology convergence -- the inevitable outcome of technology, business, and management trends.

Enterprise 3.0 is about the radical changes that will move us away from talking about business technology alignment and closer to business technology convergence -- the inevitable outcome of technology, business, and management trends.

Enterprise 3.0 is about trends -- and outcomes. It's about radical changes that, taken together, move us away from silly debates about business technology "alignment" and closer to business technology convergence.

Enterprise 3.0 is about trends -- and outcomes. It's about radical changes that, taken together, move us away from silly debates about business technology "alignment" and closer to business technology convergence.