The NOSE

SOA Dreams vs Reality

Is anyone reaping the benefits of SOA? At a well attended Catalyst Conference session called "SOA: Dreams vs Reality", a show of hands showed no hands. Anne Thomas Manes, VP & Research Director, went on to provide some tips:

SOA is about design, not technology (as a corollary you don't need ESB or a vendor's latest product to do SOA) You cannot buy SOA, you must design it Cultural and political factors are significant impediments to SOA implementations SOA is a long-term journey. If your organization is not willing to make a significant investment (enterprise-level planning; infrastructure & governance; organizational and cultural shift), don't waste your time.

Utmost Kindness

"I've never had anything but the utmost kindness from other runners. I think it's because they're so exhausted that they can't help but be nice. But it's genuine."

                                ---Melvin Van Peebles, Runners World, July 2007

Looking forward to going running tomorrow morning with Ron Dickson. Ron was at Sun and recently moved over to Vauu, a company in the role management and identity compliance space. He is a serious tri-athlete. Both of us brought our running shoes so it's time for a go bright and early tomorrow.

Sharepoint 2007: Microsoft's New Juggernaut

At this week's Catalyst 2007 Conference Burton Group Research Director Peter O'Kelly predicted that Microsoft's Sharepoint 2007 is poised for very rapid expansion and is likely to take the lead in the "super platform" space: "Make no mistake about it --- it is a juggernaut". O'Kelly concluded that "SharePoint 2007 is a watershed product with very strong synergy across Microsoft's product/services offerings" and will significantly "reorder the collaboration/content management competitive landscape." While "far from perfect" the new version of Sharepoint, according to O'Kelly, is "also far beyond 'good enough'".

Oracle Makes Big BI Move for Small Enterprises

As reported in Datamation ("Oracle's Smarts for Small Businesses") Oracle has announced a new BI suite aimed at small businesses.

Oracle's BI Standard Edition One might be just the right tool to bootstrap a BI project for your organization. (The proviso here is that you never want to start any IT project with a tool!)

SE One " includes Oracle's Database 10g Standard Edition One, as well as the Oracle Business Intelligence Server for churning metadata and Oracle Warehouse Builder 10g, which ensures data quality and auditing and relational and dimensional modeling.

Mindful that SMBs typically have small or no IT departments to help them install and configure software, the system employs business user interfaces that do not require coding or other technical skills, said David Planeaux, director of BI product marketing for the company."

You will probably still need an Oracle DBA. No? Or are Oracle databases now self-supporting and self-tuning? I will follow-up with Oracle to see whether this product is available for higher education.

Burton Catalyst Conference 2007

I am in San Francisco this week attending the Burton Catalyst Conference 2007. I will try to blog some of the sessions.

Venue: SF is always a winner. My review of the Hilton is mixed. I don't like having to shell out $12.95/day for a network connection AND a bloody $15/day for use of the fitness center. Fortunately, Burton has done a nice job of setting up wireless throughout the conference area.

Conference Related Information

• Conference Blog Site
• Conference Photo Site