Notes from the Consultant's Jungle

Through some of the work that I do for my Clients, I’ve helped to identify and reduce Shadow IT as a part of better aligning IT delivery with strategic business goals.  It has been sort of a mantra, that Shadow IT is a bad thing and must be eliminated.  Over the past couple of years [...]

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I really don’t know why several of my most recent posts are about smartphones.  This forum is about data center and IS security.  However, I am a mobile consultant, and smartphones are a key weapon in the consultant’s utility belt. With that disclaimer, I was reading an article today in Gigaom about smartphone market share.  [...]

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A lot of buzz on the wire today about Apple deciding to move from the Intel chip sets in its Macbook and desktop computers, and replace with an ARM chipset.  Most news sources, like this one, are quoting the story from SemiAccurate, which is breaking the news. Apple already uses ARM chips in the iPad, [...]

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In restaurants, airports, and public transportation I often hear debates over iPhone versus Droid.  These are discussions between owners of these devices, and often times with potential owners trying to decide which phone to invest in next.  By the way, I use the term “invest” very specifically, because these devices require more than writing a [...]

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Data Center Dynamics is always a great reading on the pulse of the industry, and the December, 2010 conference in Richardson Texas set the sounding board for contemporary developments in modularity and efficiency in data centers.  The following are thoughts and reflections on the discussions held during the conference. Data Center Design:  From Traditional to [...]

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This morning I was reading a short piece by Gary Beach, Publisher Emeritus of CIO Magazine in which he asks if he’s “certifiably nuts” for encouraging broad-based, state-administered technology certification programs.  The short answer from me- no, not really.   I would though, like to support the spirit of Gary’s call with my own encouragement.

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A very dear friend of mine, Vaughan Merlyn, recently suggested that I re-read Eric Raymond‘s book, “The Cathedral and the Bazaar.”  It’s been a while since I’ve picked this up and frankly I’d forgotten much of it. The very first time I read “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” I was working for a company in [...]

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Many of the engagements that we work involve producing the initial conceptual layout for construction of a data center.  As a certified design consultant, we draw upon best practices reflected in the BICSI-002 standard, TIA-942, et. al.  Even when the raw space with which we’re working is a nice big rectangle, this job can be [...]

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As a part of the enterprise IT assessment process, and as a component for articulating the rationale for elevation of IT service capabilities to achieve alignment of IT with the strategic goals of the business, a description of the current level of IT maturity is a beneficial measure. ISACA is a global provider of information, [...]

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Our regular readers will understand that we do not routinely report on vendor-specific industry events, but because of the increasing presence of virtualization as a foundational component in enterprise IT architecture, this week’s VMWorld in San Francisco is hard to ignore. In a press release, VMware revealed a roadmap that is focused on IT services [...]

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