The Norfolk Punt on IT-Director.com

Easing the pain of change

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Wed, 16 May 2012 06:00:00 +0100

Well, I think that Configuration Management (rather than just Change Management) is what eases the pain of change - but there are various points of view on this. What is important is that people... [Read More...]

OMG comes back to Europe

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 07:00:00 +0100

The OMG Real-Time, Embedded, and Enterprise Scale Time-Critical Systems Workshop will be held in Paris between 17-19 April:. This will interest readers who've been following the Data Distribution... [Read More...]

Scala, the next Java?

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 06:00:00 +0100

Software development is increasing in complexity, and not just because the business being automated is getting more complicated. A significant, additional issue is that we are seeing the end of the... [Read More...]

The missing ITIL Manual you always wanted

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:00:00 +0100

Some time ago I reported on the ITIL 2011 update and commented that ITIL might have trouble in future if the robust logical model behind it wasn't separated from its implementation. I commented... [Read More...]

ITIL 2011 Update

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 07:00:00 +0100

If Service Management is important to you then the ITIL 2011 update is something at the top of your agenda. If it isn't, then I'm sorry, you're missing a trick. How can delivering a business outcome... [Read More...]

An operational approach to managing Big Data

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 07:00:00 +0100

Some time ago, I expressed concern about whether current IT approaches could cope with the need of the emerging universe of things - machines and sensors in machines, all generating vast amounts of... [Read More...]

BCS CMSG Conference 2012

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:00:00 +0100

It's that time of the year again, when I remind people of the annual Conference of the Configuration Management Specialist Group of the BCS - I'm on its committee. I'm on the Committee, not because... [Read More...]

Business process automation - the business fights back?

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 07:00:00 +0100

Sorry if this isn't hot news, but sometimes the business really doesn't like the IT group very much. The IT group is seen as the people who say NO when the business comes up with a neat new idea. And... [Read More...]

IBM Rational to acquire virtualised testing environment.

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 07:00:00 +0100

I am always rather concerned about the testing of large, complex, virtualised (cloud) automated business services, especially those involving 3rd-party applications such as SAP. Constraints on... [Read More...]

Newest but not bestest?

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 07:00:00 +0100

I've just been persuaded to revisit CIX (now under new owners; the latest CIX Roadmap is here) by an old online friend I met F2F for the first time a day or so ago. For the many that won't remember... [Read More...]

SAM Revisted

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 07:00:00 +0100

I never cease to be amazed at what customers will put up with from IT vendors. Software licensing is a case in point. Of course, customers shouldn't assume that because software is an intangible... [Read More...]

Configuration Management or Versioning?

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 07:00:00 +0100

I was speaking at a Unicom workshop a week or so ago. We were exploring two new freedoms - Cloud and Agile - and wondering how the business was going to assure itself (without compromising agility)... [Read More...]

The Open Group on Cloud Computing

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 08:00:00 +0100

One of the things that worries me about the Cloud is exactly what everyone is talking about when they use the term, especially when the meaning appears to change as the conversation develops. I can... [Read More...]

Data centre schizophrenia

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 06:00:00 +0100

I'm coming down with a bout of schizophrenia. I know that IT is now taking a further lurch in its continuing journey towards abstraction, with cloud computing. The business is beginning to care much... [Read More...]

Bribery, no longer an option

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 14:00:00 +0100

Just a heads-up about the new Bribery Act 2010 (implemented July 2011), in case IT people think this doesn't affect them, This Act creates four new offences and commercial organisations now commit an... [Read More...]

Stop press: mainframe finally dead...

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 06:00:00 +0100

OK, some twenty years after InfoWorld editor Stewart Alsop announced the death of the mainframe (see the New York Times article here), it's time to put the poor thing out of its misery. I... [Read More...]

Versioning, versioning everywhere

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 06:00:00 +0100

Perforce exemplifies the conservative approach of Christopher Seiwald (CEO and founder of Perforce Software)-do just one thing (version management) and do it really, really well. Don't expand into... [Read More...]

Innovate2011 - Fytte the 3rd, Keeping legacy going

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 06:00:00 +0100

Well, I'm back in the UK now and as I said in my last Fytte I was impressed by OSLC and IBM's Jazz platform and its power as an open basis for collaboration between tools, not necessarily all from... [Read More...]

Sybase - an SAP company

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 06:00:00 +0100

I've been at Sybase's Analyst Summit at the New York Stock Exchange. The immediate point of interest, of course, is that Sybase still seems happy with being acquired by SAP—perhaps partly... [Read More...]

Innovate2011 - Fytte the 2nd, Software Economics and Collaboration

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 07:00:00 +0100

Well, as another IBM exec says, I wish I were as energetic as Steve Mills (head of IBM's software group). Personally, I suspect it's tiring. Anyway, Millls' key point perhaps was if you still want to... [Read More...]

Innovate2011 - Fytte the 1st, Complexity to Clarity

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 06:00:00 +0100

Well, here at innovate, perhaps� the first point of interest is the new General Manager IBM Software, Dr. Kristof Kloeckner, who once headed up IBM's Hursley lab and has a great track record in... [Read More...]

Governance and Cloud at IBM's PCTY, Part 1

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Tue, 31 May 2011 08:00:00 +0100

Marc van Zadelhoff (Director, Worldwide Strategy, IBM Security Solutions at IBM) is speaking at PCTY�(Pulse Comes to You), 2011, London, an offshoot of IBM's big Tivoli User Conference in Las Vegas,... [Read More...]

Many independent cores

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Tue, 10 May 2011 06:00:00 +0100

I've just been at an Intel analyst/reseller/partner symposium, and it's been rather interesting (quite apart from how wonderful the marble pavements in Dubrovnik are). So, what's new from... [Read More...]

Configuration Management Event

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Mon, 09 May 2011 08:00:00 +0100

Well, it's that time of the year again - the BCS CMSG�(Configuration Management Specialist Group - I'm on its committee) annual conference on 7th June 2011 at the BCS London office. And, looking at... [Read More...]

The Data-Centric World

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 11:00:00 +0100

In my opinion, the application-centric paradigm is no longer fully up to the task of implementing the world of things, the increasingly pervasive collection of connected, intelligent devices... [Read More...]

Governance and Cloud at IBM's PCTY, Part 2

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 07:00:00 +0100

In Part 1, I was talking about using the public cloud, with appropriate business-level SLAs, for business-critical processing. As usual, however, the devil will be in the detail and cloud services... [Read More...]

The need for Software Tagging

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 07:00:00 +0100

Leaving aside the software licensing problem, surely no-one reading this will have problems finding out what software they use! It's a no-brainer, people aren't allowed to run open source software;... [Read More...]

The death of applications?

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 07:00:00 +0100

For much of my working life, I've been involved with applications development. But this seems, to me, to exemplify the essential, dysfunctional, siloisation of IT in practice. Business users don't... [Read More...]

That old spectre: proprietary systems lock-in

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 07:00:00 +0100

Recently, I've been looking at modern approaches to to automating business process by working with high-level abstractions (also called models) and wondering why the world switched to writing... [Read More...]

Mainframe Knowledge Transfer

rss@it-analysis.com (David Norfolk, Bloor Research) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 07:00:00 +0100

I make no secret of the fact that I think the modern mainframe offers an excellent enterprise technology platform. But there are issues—in particular, that mainframe people (and technologies)... [Read More...]