The Highlander Principle » All the rest

Has private cloud already been ‘done’?

Mark Preston — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 09:39:39 +0000

I have learned that things mean different things to different people. I don’t think many organisations have fully adopted private cloud capabilities (in fact some are nowhere close). (and there is probably no correct answer here – highly subjective).

So what should a private cloud offer – my 2 pennies:

1. To virtualise the existing estate and [...]

What are some of the technical challenges for cloud adoption?

Mark Preston — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 09:38:57 +0000

Challenge Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Platform as a Service (PaaS) Software as a Service (SaaS) Provisioning Need to adapt in-house processes to 3rdparty providers tools.Once provisioned resources can/should be managed by internal tools. Need to adapt in-house applications/packages to deploy on a 3rd party managed platform Need to manage entitlement of users within the 3rd party application Monitoring Need performance / SLA monitoring [...]

What are the CxO challenges before cloud adoption?

Mark Preston — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 09:35:43 +0000

Role Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Platform as a Service (PaaS) Software as a Service (SaaS) CEO Why did we invest in our own datacentre capacity? What’s the roadmap? Why do we not go direct to SaaS? Does this improve our business agility? Can we change business processes more quickly? CFO How do we forecast the costs if they are variable? Does this impact our [...]

Windows 7 upgrade and replacement from XP and Vista

Mark Preston — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:41:41 +0000

It looks like 2010 could be the year most organisations kick start a desktop refresh. I suspect many held off on upgrading to Vista so for many it’s a Windows XP to Windows 7 upgrade path. I wanted to revisit some of the old challenges in these projects and look at some of the new [...]

DataCenter Buzzword Bingo

Mark Preston — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:32:23 +0000

I recently finished an exercise defining the technical standards for one of Europe’s largest managed service providers. As part of the exercise I gathered the key capabilities across the various infrastructure silos across the Data-centre.

I found that it was a trawl to separate the facts from the fiction in the vendor marketing. I have gathered [...]

How to establish a TOGAF9 Enterprise Architecture Practice – Phase A

Mark Preston — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:15:31 +0000

TOGAF has a method called the ADM (Architectural Development Method), the good news is that the same method applies to defining any Architecture (including setting up the Architecture Practice itself).

The ADM breaks down into phases that are run iteratively (not always in a set sequence). So lets get started with Phase A:

Phase A – Setting [...]

How to establish a TOGAF9 Enterprise Architecture Practice – Phase B

Mark Preston — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:15:07 +0000

TOGAF breaks down Architecture into the following pillars:

Business Architecture Application and Data Architecture Technology Architecture

Phase B on our quest to establish an EA practice focuses on Business Architecture:

Terminology: Define a set of standards so that everyone is talking consistent language (formal term here is Ontology) Process: The ADM (architectural development method) is open to be tuned to suit [...]

How to establish a TOGAF9 Enterprise Architecture Practice – Phase C

Mark Preston — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:14:48 +0000

TOGAF uses a term “Enterprise Continuum” and I wish they would think of a different phrase as it throws me each time. It’s important we know exactly what it is as it’s the key deliverable for Phase C.

It relates to three elements:

Architecture Continuum Solutions Continuum Architecture Repository

Consider the repository as a folder full of documents, the usual [...]

How to establish an TOGAF9 Enterprise Architecture Practice – Phase D to H

Mark Preston — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:47:01 +0000

The good news is that most of the legwork to get the ball rolling is done in phases A to C. Here is what is left:

Phase D: Define the technology that is used within the EA practice, ideally a TOGAF aware repository. If nothing else set standards for people to follow; for example always create [...]

How to establish a TOGAF 9 Enterprise Architecture Practice

Mark Preston — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:44:29 +0000

Let’s start by establishing what does an EA practice do for your organisation. The EA practice should identify

Where are you? Where do you want to be? How do you get there?

The reason the methodology is so important is that all three of these answers are always changing. The wind of change blows in for a huge array [...]