Advisors provide a continuous flow of information on the topics covered by each practice, including consultant insights and reports from the front lines, analyses of trends, and breaking new ideas. Advisors are delivered directly to your email inbox, and are also available in the resource library.
It's Not Nice to Fool Mother Nature About Risk
Architectural Issues
What Is HTML5's Impact on Enterprise Application Development and Delivery?
Over the past 15-plus years, the Web has proven to be the quintessential delivery vehicle for enterprise applications. Instead of delivering native desktop clients with additional infrastructure to handle updates, versioning, and ensure privacy and security, the Web browser is an IT manager's deployment shell. It's guaranteed to exist on every OS platform and the Web itself is the deployment infrastructure.
Are Social Technologies the New Pocket Calculator?
Thierry de Baillon, in a challenging blog, talks about "organizational redefinition and the pocket calculator." In this context, unleashing the power of horizontal networking inside and across organizations represents a promising answer to some of the toughest chal
MetaScale, Kognitio, and "Big Data as a Service"
Last month, I said that the biggest challenge facing traditional enterprises seeking to implement Hadoop applications is not a lack of suitable tools, but a shortage of skilled personnel knowledgeable in implementing the technology into corporate IT environments (see "Talent Shor
Labor and Work
Improve Your Architecture with Abstraction
The Impact of HTML5
For the past 20-plus years, the Web has been based on a document-centric model, despite recent workarounds to provide enterprise-quality applications, new types of user experiences, and multimedia and real-time capabilities. With a renewed focus on applications, programming interfaces, enhanced graphics, offline behavior, and modern communications, the Web is entering its next phase of life. Today's Web has become a standardized, programmatic framework for developers to create exciting, active applications.
Food for Thought: Bedtime Reading for IT Management
Cutter Business Technology Strategies Director Ron Blitstein, Piet Ribbers, and I are working toward a book on the characteristics of successful and effective relationships between IT and business organizations and their managers.
Understanding Resilience
Cloud Architecture Practice: Sharing a Few Observations and Lessons Learned
In my last Advisor ("Cloud Architecture: Leveraging Strategies, Blueprints, and Roadmaps -- What's Different Today?"), I shared some common chal
The Line Has Blurred
[From the Editor: This week's Advisor is from Cutter Senior Consultant Jim Love's introduction to the May 2012 issue of Cutter IT Journal, "The Consumerization of IT: Blessing or Curse?" (Vol
Why You Need a Platform Strategy
Information technology in the modern large enterprise is becoming increasingly expensive. With new IT systems going online every week and an ever-increasing range of products and systems flowing into the enterprise, there is a vital need for a governance structure to control the amount and quality of IT systems on which the business is based.
Pitfalls of Agile XXII: Maturity vs Compliance
Goldilocks Governance
Change the Game: The Four Pillars of Collaboration
Collaboration, like all human interactions, can indeed be like a game. But this game is played for very high stakes. The future of our companies and our careers -- the standard of living we enjoy -- are all based on our ability to not just play the game, but to change the game. You can build a true culture of collaboration, despite the barriers.
What Can Open Source Teach Us About Building Software?
Open source software (as I am sure you know) is software that can be freely copied, modified, and redistributed, either in its original or derived form, for sale or for free. There are many variations in open source licenses defining the conditions for these activities, but those are the core issues.
Agile Values
When adopting agile, many teams focus on specific agile techniques and methods and lose track of the values that motivate agile software development. These values are described in the Agile Manifesto:
Securing M-Banking and M-Commerce Through Biometrics
With the explosive growth in mobile payments, security becomes a paramount concern. Increasingly, the security focus is turning to biometrics. Biometrics facilitate the automatic authentication of a living person based on his or her unique physiological or behavioral characteristics. Common physical biometrics include fingerprints; hand or palm geometry; retina, iris, or ear shape; or facial characteristics. Behavioral characteristics include signature, voice, and gait. Of this class of biometrics, technologies for signature and voice are the most developed.
"Leadership" Vs. "Management"
There are those lucky few: the ones who strive, thrive, and succeed in spite of the chaos and confusion in the ever-changing landscape of IT. For the rest of us, senior executives need to be mindful of what environment is best suited in helping emerging leaders grow. It's not complex to create an environment conducive to supporting and developing leadership, but nor is it easy given the unique nature of the IT industry.