SMARTER STRATEGIES

Building Smarter Technology Requires Investment

Stephen Wellman | Date: 10-16-09 | Comments

Now is the time for government and business to invest in infrastructure that can deliver on the promise of renewable energy and flexible, adaptable IT architectures.

In today's business climate, many economists and pundits have compared the current U.S. economy to Japan�s in the 1990s, the infamous �lost decade.� Enterprise IT in the United States has gone through something of a lost decade of its own since the first downturn at the end of 2000. With the exception of a few years during the middle of this decade, most IT departments have been in cost-cutting mode, and in the existing economic environment, the temptation to cut even more is stronger than ever.

If we are ever going to rebuild our nation�s economy, our businesses must stop cutting IT spending. We as a nation, both corporate and civil, must begin investing in our infrastructure. It�s time for our government to invest in our national infrastructure, and it�s time for corporate America to start investing in technology again.

Recently Smarter Technology writer Dave Greenfield took a look at the promise of the smart grid, a new national power grid enhanced with network technologies, many of which were originally designed for IP communications.

The smart grid promises to make the electric car a real, viable product, by allowing for power on demand�and more efficient electrical distribution to charge those vehicles.

The smart grid will require a substantial federal investment, along with close collaboration both from politicians and key business stakeholders. If we invest in the smart grid and execute it properly, we may at last fulfill the promise of energy independence.

A new grid also promises new products and services�in short, a new market for alternative energies. But if we don�t make this investment, the rest of our plans for a green tech economy may not pan out.

Smarter Technology also looks at service-oriented architecture (SOA), with a set of strategic recommendations and a selection of helpful tools and research. Check out the following links:

SOA Consortium Announces Phase 1 Success

SOA for Dummies, v2.0

Delivering Actionable Enterprise Architecture

SPEC Launches SOA Working Group for Benchmark Definition

IBM WebSphere Enhancements and PureScale DB2 Tackle SOA at Scale

Can the Internet Lead to Smarter Health Care?

Five Steps to Smarter Collaboration in Your Business

World Community Grid: Brother, Can You Spare Some CPU Time?

Five Smart Augmented Reality Tools for Mobile Devices

While most large enterprises have deployed some kind of SOA, many of these deployments are almost a decade old. Businesses that hope to leverage the investment in these systems in the next decade need to plan now to upgrade and expand their SOA infrastructures. They also must be able to better leverage new Web 2.0 technologies, such as collaboration.

In many cases, the businesses that deployed SOA systems five or 10 years ago are completely different today from what they were like when their systems were installed. This often means that new business processes have been created, but the technology that powers them has not kept up with the innovation in processes.

IT leaders need to adapt their SOA systems to meet the constantly changing needs of the business processes they power. And this adaptation often requires investments in technology, either through upgrades of existing components or, in some cases, replacing the entire SOA.

CIOs and other senior IT executives who want to keep up with current trends in IT�especially the move to more personalized access to corporate data for different users�will need more efficient and robust SOAs to enable them to achieve that goal. For example, many IT managers are being pressured to create multiple application dashboards, each personalized for the individual needs of different departments and even, in some cases, of different employees within the various departments. Any IT organization looking to create this kind of customized, personalized access to business intelligence data or CRM systems will benefit from a more robust and flexible SOA.

Enterprises that are also looking to expand the selection of mobile devices can benefit from better SOA, especially as IT managers are faced with the task of using their mobile device management (MDM) solutions to support different kinds of smartphones and operating systems within one network.

In short, continued IT cost-cutting will only go so far. At some point, the nation and its businesses must upgrade their infrastructures and place their bets on the promise of new technologies. The time to invest is now. If we don�t, I fear we may be looking at another lost decade for enterprise IT�and a lost decade for the nation as a whole.