Explain your IT work to your children and parents in simple terms

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Explain your IT work to your children and parents in simple terms. In this blog post I explain the main concepts of the IT Services industry using simple terminologie. I find this useful when explaining my work to children, parents and grandparents. It is sometimes also useful to explain the IT market when I am discussing it with my clients. Especially when they are in a totally different type of work environment. Please also read the disclaimer at the bottom of this text.

What are IT Services?

IT-services are services that help businesses with their technology needs. This can include things like managing computers and networks, installing software, and providing technical support.

IT-services are important because they help businesses use technology effectively. For example, if a business has a lot of computers, they might need help managing them and making sure they are all running smoothly. An IT-services company can provide this help, which can save the business time and money.

IT-services can also be helpful for businesses that don’t have their own IT team. Instead of hiring and managing their own IT staff, they can use an IT-services company to provide the help they need on an as-needed basis.

Overall, IT services are services that help businesses with their technology needs, which can save them time and money and help them use technology effectively.

What does an IT Services company do?

An IT-services company is a business that provides IT services, like managing computers and networks, to other companies. This is different from a regular company, which might use IT-services, but doesn’t provide them to other businesses.

An IT-services company can help other businesses with a wide range of IT needs. For example, they might manage a company’s computers and networks, help them install new software, or provide technical support if something goes wrong with their technology.

IT-services companies are often helpful because they have specialized expertise and resources that other businesses might not have. This can be particularly helpful for small or medium-sized businesses that don’t have the budget or the need for a full-time IT-team.

Overall, an IT-services company is a business that provides IT services to other companies, which can be helpful because they have specialized expertise and resources.

What is IT Outsourcing?

IT-outsourcing is when a company uses another company to provide IT-services, like managing their computers and networks, instead of doing it themselves. This is different from having an in-house IT-team, which is when a company has its own employees who handle its IT needs.

Outsourcing IT can be helpful for companies because it allows them to access specialized expertise and resources without having to hire and manage their own IT staff. This can be more cost-effective and flexible than having an in-house team.

For example, if a company doesn’t have a lot of IT needs, it might not make sense for them to hire a full-time IT-team. Instead, they can use an outsourcing company to provide IT-services on an as-needed basis. This way, they can get the help they need without having to pay for full-time staff.

Overall, IT-outsourcing is when a company uses another company to provide IT-services, which can be helpful because it allows the company to access specialized expertise and resources without having to manage its own IT team.

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is a way for people and businesses to use technology services, like storing data and running programs, over the internet. This is different from using a computer or phone that has all the programs and data stored on it, because with cloud computing, the data and programs are stored on servers that are managed by other companies.

This means that people and businesses can access their data and programs from anywhere, as long as they have an internet connection. This is convenient because they don’t have to carry around a physical device, like a laptop or hard drive, to access their information.

Cloud computing is also often more secure than storing data on a personal device, because the servers that store the data are managed by professionals who make sure that the data is safe and backed up in case of any problems.

Overall, cloud computing is a way to use technology services over the internet, which is convenient and often more secure than storing data on a personal device.

What is Data Analytics?

Data analytics is the process of using data, or information, to understand patterns and trends. This can help people and businesses make better decisions by providing them with insights that they might not have seen otherwise.

For example, a company might use data analytics to understand how their customers are using their products. This could help them figure out which products are most popular, and where they can improve their products or services.

Data analytics can also be used to predict things, like how many people will visit a store in the future, or how much money a company will make in a year. This can help people and businesses plan for the future and make better decisions.

Overall, data analytics is the process of using data to understand patterns and trends, which can help people and businesses make better decisions and plan for the future.

What is ERP Software and what does it do?

ERP software, which stands for “enterprise resource planning” software, is a type of program that helps businesses manage their operations. This can include things like keeping track of inventory, managing finances, and planning production.

ERP software can be helpful for businesses because it allows them to keep all of their important information in one place, instead of having it spread across different programs or systems. This makes it easier for employees to access the information they need and helps the business run more smoothly.

For example, if a business uses ERP software to manage their inventory, they can see how much of a certain product they have in stock at any time. This can help them make better decisions about when to order more of that product, and avoid running out of stock.

Overall, ERP software is a program that helps businesses manage their operations, which can make it easier for employees to access important information and help the business run more smoothly.

Full Disclosure – I did not create this text

All text above explaining different aspects of IT Services were created by an AI service called ChatGPT (login here). The whole process of creating this blogpost took me 10 minutes using ChatGPT. In its own words, ChatGPT is:

I am Assistant, a large language model trained by OpenAI. I am a computer program that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to generate human-like text based on the input I receive. My purpose is to assist people with a wide range of tasks, including answering questions, providing information, and generating human-like text.

I operate by analyzing the input I receive and using my training data and AI algorithms to generate a response. My training data comes from a wide variety of sources, including books, articles, and websites, and I use this data to learn the patterns and structures of human language. This allows me to generate text that is similar to what a human might write or say.

Overall, I am a large language model trained by OpenAI, and my purpose is to assist people with a wide range of tasks using artificial intelligence. I operate by analyzing the input I receive and using my training data and AI algorithms to generate a response.

Curiosity drives cloud computing

I like asking questions and I like getting good answers even better. It is because of that, I now have a love / hate relationship with search engines. Most of the time they give me a 50% answer, a kind of direction, a suggestion, a kind of coaching to the real answer. It is like the joke about the consultant; “the right answer must be in there somewhere, because he or she gives me so many responses”.

PH03797IIn spite of all kind of promises, search engines have not really increased their intelligence. Complex questions with multiple variables are still nearly impossible to get answered and the suggestions to improve my question are mostly about my spelling or because the search engine would have liked a different subject to be questioned on.

So nothing really good is coming from search engines then? Well most arguably search engines have brought us cloud computing and a very powerful access to lots and lots and lots of data, otherwise known as ‘the world wide web’.

No wonder I envision that powerful access and cloud computing are the two most important values we want to keep while increasing the capacity and intelligence to do real analytics on large data sets.

In a whitepaper of the Atos Scientific Community, these 2 elements are explored in great depth:

  • Data Analytics needs cloud computing to create an “Analytics as a Service” – model because that model addresses in the best way how people and organizations want to use analytics.
  • This Data Analytics as a Service – model (DAaaS) should not behave as an application, but it should be available as a platform for application development.

The first statement on the cloud computing needs suggests we can expect analytics to become easily deployed, widely accessible and not depending on deep investments by single organizations; ‘as a service’ implies relatively low cost and certainly a flexible usage model.

The second statement about the platform capability of data analytics however, has far reaching consequences for the way we implement and build the analytic capabilities for large data collections.

Architecturally, and due to the intrinsic complexities of analytical processes, the implementation of DAaaS represents an important set of challenges, as it is more similar to a flexible Platform as a Service (PaaS) solution than a more “fixed” Software as a Service (SaaS) application

It is relatively easy to implement a single application that will give you an answer to a complex question; many of the applications for mobile devices are built on this model (take for example the many applications for public transport departure, arrival times and connections).

This “1-application-1-question” approach is in my opinion not a sustainable business model for business environments; we need some kind of workbench and toolkit that is based on a stable and well defined service.

The white paper describes a proof of concept that has explored such an environment for re-usability, cloud aspects and flexibility. It also points to the technology used and how the technology can work together to create ‘Data Analytics as a Service’.


This blog post was previously published at http://blog.atos.net/blog/2013/03/25/watch-this-space-curiosity-drives-cloud-computing/


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Would you like a cup of IT

The change in the IT landscape brought about through the introduction of Cloud Computing is now driving a next generation of IT enablement. You might call it Cloud 2.0, but the term 'Liquid IT' much better covers what is being developed.

In a recently published white paper by the Atos Scientific Community, Liquid IT is positioned not only as a technology or architecture; it is also very much focused on the results of this change on the business you are doing day to day with your customer(s).

"A journey towards Liquid IT is actually rather subtle, and it is much more than a technology journey"

The paper explains in detail how the introduction of more flexible IT provisioning, now done in real time allows for financial transparency and agility. A zero latency provisioning and decommissioning model, complete with genuine utility pricing based on actual resources consumed, enables us to drive the optimal blend of minimizing cost and maximizing agility. Right-sizing capabilities and capacity all of the time to the needs of the users will impact your customer relationship – but, very important, designing such a systems starts with understanding the business needs.

"Liquid IT starts from the business needs: speed, savings, flexibility, and ease of use"

Existing examples of extreme flexibility in IT (think gMail, Hotmail or other consumer oriented cloud offerings) have had to balance between standardization and scale. The more standard the offering, the more results in scaling can be achieved. This has always been a difficult scenario for more business oriented applications. The paper postulates that with proper care for business needs and the right architecture, similar flexibility is achievable for business processes.

Such a journey to 'Liquid IT' indeed includes tough choices in technology and organization, but also forces the providers of such an environment to have an in-depth look at the financial drivers in the IT provisioning and the IT consumption landscape.

"The objectives of financial transparency dictate that all IT services are associated with agreed processes for allocation, charging and invoicing"

There are two other aspects that need to change in parallel with this move to more agility in IT; the role of the CIO will evolve and the SLA that he is either buying or selling will change accordingly.

Change management will transform into Information Management as the use of IT as a business enabler is no longer the concern of the CIO. IT benchmarking will become a more and more important tool to measure the level of achieved agility for the business owners. The focus on the contribution to the business performance will be measured and needs to be managed in line with business forecasts.

The white paper authors conclude that "Business agility is the main result of Liquid IT" – sounds like a plan!

This blog post was previously published at http://blog.atos.net/blog/2013/03/08/watch-this-space-would-you-like-a-cup-of-it/


 

Ascent Journey 2016 – the future trends in IT and business explained



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Atos just announced the publication of Ascent Journey 2016 – Enterprise Without Boundaries

"Ascent Journey 2016 is a unique and comprehensive document where Atos’ Scientific Community presents its predictions and vision for the technology that will shape business through to 2016.

It builds on Journey 2014 – Simplicity with Control and is enriched by the new challenges which have now
emerged in reshaping both society and business alike.

Our research suggests that the convergence of key issues affecting Demographics, Globalization and Economic Sustainability, underpinned by Trust, will see a new way of working emerge in which traditional barriers no longer exist, but where security and privacy are more important than ever."

Exiting stuff and I am honoured to say I was part of the editorial board who produced this document.

More information and download here.

Press release here.

 

 

The PaaS cloud computing lock-in and how to avoid it

Cloud Computing changed from choosing an easy solution, into making a difficult decision.

The reason is the proliferation of cloud offerings at all layers; today we do not only find ‘everything-as-a-service’ cloud solutions, but also ‘everything-is-tailored-for-your-specific-situation-as-a-service’ tagged as cloud solutions.

Is this good? I do not think so.

My main objection is that you will end up with a cloud solution that is no different than any solution you have previously designed and installed yourself, at a cheaper rate and lower quality SLA.

True cloud solutions should not only focus on cost reduction, increased agility and flexible capabilities. You should also be buying something that supports portability between the private and public computing domain, and across different vendor platforms.

In early cloud solutions, mainly the ones focussing on Infrastructure-as-a-service, this portability has been heavily debated (remember the ‘Open Cloud Manifesto’?) and in the end we concluded that server virtualization solved a lot of the portability issues (I am simplifying of course).

We also had Software-as-a-service and some publications showed that the portability could be addressed by looking at standardized business process definitions and data normalisation (again, I am simplifying).
Now the Atos Scientific Community has published a whitepaper that looks at the most complex form of cloud computing; Platform-as-a-service.

PaaS offerings today are diverse, but they share a vendor lock-in characteristic. As in any market for an emerging technology, there is a truly diverse array of capabilities being offered by PaaS providers, from supported programming tools (languages, frameworks, runtime environments, and databases) to various types of underlying infrastructure, even within the capabilities available for each PaaS


So a common characteristic that can be extracted of all this diversity is the fact of PaaS users currently are being bound to the specific platform they use, making the portability of their software (and data) created on top of these platforms difficult.

As a result we see a slow adoption of PaaS in the enterprise; only those groups that have a very well defined end-user group are looking at PaaS – and mostly for the wrong reason: ‘just’ cost saving through standardization.

In the Atos Scientific Community whitepaper they are identified as:

Two primary user groups which benefit from using Cloud at the Platform as a Service level: Enterprises with their own internal software development activities and ISVs interested in selling SaaS services on top of a hosted PaaS.”


The current situation where PaaS is mostly resulting in a vendor lock-in scenarios is holding back the full potential for applications on a PaaS.

By introducing a general purpose PaaS, we would allow a comprehensive, open, flexible, and interoperable solution that simplifies the process of developing, deploying, integrating, and managing applications both in public and private clouds.

Such an architecture is proposed and explained in detail in the whitepaper; it describes the desired capabilities and building blocks that need to be established and it also offers an analysis of market trends and existing solutions, in order to establish a future vision and direction for PaaS, as well as outlining the business potential of such a solution.

We can all continue to feel positive about the power and the business potential of cloud computing.

Changing your cost base from capex to opex, increasing your speed in your go-to-market strategies and the flexibility in capacity and location are very important for your business.

We should not however confuse vendor specific solutions with cloud solutions only because they promise flexibility in cost and easy deployment; being able to shift and shop around is always better – also in cloud computing.


This blog post is a repost of http://blog.atos.net/sc/2012/10/15/watch-this-space-the-paas-cloud-computing-lock-in-and-how-to-avoid-it/