Outsourcing
Giga, 7/28/03: Variable-Use Service Models: The Impact of Pay-Per-Use Contract Terms
Colin Rankine and William Martorelli
Flexible, variable-use service models for IT infrastructure on an as-needed basis are intuitively appealing. Why pay for idle, unused IT resources when they are not needed? It seems equitable and fiscally responsible from a business perspective, but the current state of the market is that in the majority of cases, the business model is still a zero-sum game at best. The intuitive appeal of on-demand resource delivery, particularly attractive to senior management, can easily fall victim to operational realities and profit motives. Worse yet, the resource measurement and billing mechanisms required by variable-use service models can drive service providers towards inefficiency.
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Darwin, 7/03: Get Creative: How to avoid the pitfalls of the traditional outsourcing model
BY JON STRANDE
COMPANIES CHOOSE to outsource for numerous reasons. However, the traditional model of outsourcing has flaws. The goal of this article is to introduce a strategy that companies can use to increase the effectiveness of their outsourcing relationships. Although this article will focus on application development, the principles can be applied to almost any outsourcing effort.
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Government IT Outsourcing
Gartner, 7/24/03: Relationships Are Key to Local Government IT Outsourcing
Essex County Council in the United Kingdom outsourced its IT operations to Syntegra in 2002. Our case study of the 10-year deal shows that good relations in the core teams must spread more widely to meet long-term goals.
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IT Services
Gartner, 7/24/03: 2Q03 Update: IT Services Forecast Scenarios, 2002-2005
Abstract: With no clear signs of demand recovery, Gartner Dataquest has slightly reduced the IT services forecast through 2005.
By Kathryn Hale, Robert DeSouza, Ron Silliman, Eric Goodness, Michele Cantara, Bruce Caldwell and Rebecca Scholl
Strategic Forecast Statements
The worldwide IT services market is forecast to reach $621 billion in 2005. The best-case opportunity for 2005 is $640 billion; the worst case is $538 billion. Two critical factors impact the IT services market: the degree of business confidence among buyers and the degree to which vendors leverage available technology to develop compelling solutions that address buyer needs.
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IT Management
Giga, 7/24/03: Response Time Monitoring Is the Best Solution to Manage Application Performances
Jean-Pierre Garbani
What is the best approach to manage application performances?
Applications today are of the n-tier variety and their performance and availability parameters are dependent on many technology domains (networks, servers, databases). Aggregating data from these domains to have a specific application view is difficult at best and impossible most of the time, since it requires a precise aggregation of many dependencies. Using response time at the user level has emerged as one of the best solutions for application performance management, since end-to-end response time is a holistic parameter, which effectively aggregates the performance of all infrastructure components.
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Security
Computerworld, 7/29/03: Exploit code posted for Windows hole
At least three different versions of exploit code were posted on the Internet
By Tom Krazit
Several independent coding groups have posted code on the Internet that can allow hackers to exploit a previously disclosed vulnerability in Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system.
The Windows flaw, which was rated "critical" by Microsoft when it was disclosed earlier this month, allows a hacker to gain control of a Windows system through a security hole in the Distributed Component Object Model interface (see story). Microsoft released a patch for Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 in security bulletin MS03-026.
At least three different versions of exploit code have been posted on the Internet over the past few days, said Gunter Ollmann, manager of X-Force security assessment services for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Internet Security Systems Inc. (ISS), which is based in Atlanta. Some of the code is "quite elegant" and can be run by just about anyone with a compiler and some programming savvy, he said.
Versions of the code have been posted for both Linux and Windows, he said.
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Optimism
CIO, 7/15/03: IT Reloaded
Economist W. Brian Arthur says technology will jump-start the economy by connecting systems, processes and functions within and among companies. But it's up to the CIO to channel these connections into new functionality that will transform their industries.
THIS COUNTRY'S ONE and only economic driver for the next several decades rests solely in the hands of CIOs. That's the conclusion of economist W. Brian Arthur, Citibank professor at the Santa Fe Institute, who developed the modern theory of increasing returns. But Arthur isn't talking about CIOs shelling out more cash for additional servers, pumping new revenue into Silicon Valley. It's far more profound than that, he recently explained to CIO Deputy Editor Richard Pastore, and a little disconcerting if you happen to be a CIO or someone who takes the Terminator movies way too seriously.
Arthur postulates that as industries "encounter" digital technologies, they are being fundamentally and organically transformed. Technology inexorably invades an industry's neurological process, connecting systems, processes and functions within and among companies. The technologies will carry on intelligent, ongoing conversations between themselves. The effect will be previously undreamed-of processes and functionality that will alter what companies do, fundamentally transforming their industries. Witness already the transformation of the pharmaceutical industry with the advent of genomics and combinatorial chemistry—breakthroughs that would have been impossible without IT. Arthur, who is speaking at the CIO 100 Symposium next month in Colorado Springs, Colo., says the only corporate leader who can harness and channel this digital transformation is you.
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