Open Source in Corporate Organisations Today

Open Source as a paradigm has gradually made inroads in corporate organisations on both a local and global scale. Many organisations today are using Open Source as a viable alternative to proprietary solutions, but often choose to keep low visibility of its utilization and harbour remaining fears around support challenges.

Research and experience in adoption shows that Open Source is a realistic option for companies today, but that the decision is not without its challenges. It is within this context that SystemicLogic would like to invite you to our Open Source Open-Day Event. The event promises to present insightful views of the Open Source landscape, with valuable information around lessons learnt in adopting solutions on a broader enterprise scale. We also present a perspective on the current Open Source application stack and forward looking research in this space.

The event is also aimed at providing an interactive environment for sharing ideas and experiences.

Open Day Details:
Date: 7th of March 2008
Time: 8:30am for 09:00am
Venue: SAP Business Park, 1 Woodmead Drive, Woodmead, Jhb, SA (SAP as venue sponsor)
Cost: R1100 for non-participants (excluding VAT)

Open Day Topics:
- Keynote: Executive Overview of the Open Source challenge and landscape
- Open Source, myths and perceptions, challenges and experiences
- Local adoption of Open Source and lessons learnt
- Overview of Open Source application stack, migration paths and building a measurement instrument for Open Source solutions
- The Open Source Development Angle: Key discussion around internals of OSS development styles
- Open Source research agenda for 2008 in the South African market landscape

Most organisations today use some form of Open Source package or utility set. This is particularly true in the infrastructure software environment. Some negative perceptions do however still remain regarding the true value of not “paying” for the Open Source software and the guarantees related to service support. Is it viable to suggest that an Open Source strategy should be put on the table in your organisation?

Evidence across several large financial, manufacturing and government organisations show that Open Source is a realistic option and plausible alternative to some classic proprietary solutions in the modern IT context. This evidence also reveals strong emphasis on infrastructure software, with some growing capabilities in business areas.

Recent experience in the field of Open Source adoption reveals that Open Source is not a decision organisations should take lightly, especially due to the millions invested in already existing software assets. Several myths also exist around Open Source, some of which were created (in part) by only looking at the surface of the paradigm itself. Our findings suggest that bringing Open Source in with a big bang approach as a replacement strategy to existing software (as an example), is not likely to yield any immediate returns - in fact, it could cause more damage than good if organisations decide to just “go large”. Costs may go down initially, but can easily cause havoc in the ranks of users that need skilled support.

So, should an adoption strategy be put in place or even considered? Application in this field does show great promise. A common scenario to look at is office productivity adoption strategies - which in turn, is only one example amongst several eligible Open Source alternatives. The current capabilities associated with these suites are more advanced today than ever before and can make a great impact on areas where user profiles and current technical capabilities are better understood.

So where do you need to start? Applied research in this space provides some insight into the adoption process. Work efforts are being conducted to build a growing knowledgebase of the Open Source landscape, highlighting Open Source applications and charting the map of what really exists “out there”. Creating and maintaining the landscape is one of the foundations for communicating Open Source’s impact in the context of a particular environment. Key onsite lessons also emphasize the importance of assessing the organisational context and matching the Open Source landscape to find fit-for-purpose solutions.

SystemicLogic has been involved in various Open Source adoption cycles in collaboration with top organisations in the industry. Our applied research efforts are focused towards understanding policies for adoption, discovering outsourcing alternatives, communicating the growing landscape of solutions in the Open Source market and providing more in-depth knowledge around assessing the viability of Open Source in specific contexts.

Today, forward looking research is also conducted to understand the strengths of open innovation and value networking – looking beyond the “software” stigma of the Open Source paradigm and help create environments that support active value creation in a collaborative style.

To learn more about Open Source and other related research, visit our research portal at www.systemiclogic.net.

Testing as a discipline is often seen as a “budget-cut” area, specifically in industries where safety critical software development is not the core focus. The cost of testing splits in two ways. The first cost comes in when problems start creeping in after the production stage. The second major challenge lies with how optimally the testing process is designed. This raises questions such as “Does better quality need to cost more?”

Recent observations in industry (especially financial service providers) show that software testing truly is an area that requires critical consideration. Testing as a discipline is also not viewed with equal status globally. Some organisations view testing as a lower grade function compared to the prestige of design and development work efforts, leading to a cool disregard of the potential cost and quality implications. The most common stance held by business is that testing is only a function that needs to be conducted by users. Although this may seem contrary to your environment, the trap is all too easy to fall into.

The most prominent cost implication due to lack of testing comes from maintenance costs in the post-production phase of software solutions. Apart from the numerous errors that occur during the course of business potentially leading to a monetary loss in the client base, finding and fixing problems in software after it has been operationalised can be a long and tedious process. The eventual result of a poorly delivered testing cycle is a further degradation of its worth to the enterprise as a whole.

Several development lifecycle models exist today with waterfall mentality still playing a dominant role in the eventual roll-out of IT-based business solutions. The “V” and “W” models are accepted and tailored to suite the needs of most financial organisations, with the risk of eliminating phases that appear “redundant” or too lengthy to suite business’ appetite for rapid time-to-market goals.

This brings us to the all important scientific view of testing: automation design. Although most test teams rely on test suites to handle execution of the bulk of test cases, coding skills and an inclination to utilize object-oriented technologies play a strong supporting role in helping teams optimise their current tool capabilities. The automation of test data injection and regression testing are the foremost candidates for automation, yet without the required human skills, testing becomes an endless traversal through countless permutations of test data.

Technologies and methodologies are starting to emerge to help organisations automate greater sections of the development lifecycle (such as requirements engineering), enabling test teams to reap the benefits of promoting testing as an art and science in the enterprise of the future.

What will help enable this? Promoting standards across all phases of the development process needs to remain a core focus that both business and IT must not lose sight of. 2008 is here, with several small and large planned releases for the next 12 months. Where does testing fit into your organisation? Does it lack the attention it deserves?
As we go through the course of this year, we aim to keep track of movements in the testing space.

For more information on software development lifecycles and other applied research in this space, visit www.systemiclogic.net.

Business Intelligence (BI) is playing a more prominent role across all industries today. Its importance as a discipline is highlighted, especially when concepts such as client centricity comes into play. But just how well is BI’s role understood in modern industry? How are BI teams structured and how should your data be accessed? Cross-Industry research has been conducted to gain an enriched understanding of the critical areas in the BI space.

Want to know more? Click Here

Recent research in the BI space reveals that there are several core topics that need to be addressed in the modern BI age – not just from a textbook methodological point of view, but also the core realities faced by complex organisations today.

The most prominent areas identified across retail, first and second tier banks include topics that extend to BI team structure, data access, data analysis and knowledge usage.

From a structural point of view, the pervasive sentiment suggests that BI centers of excellence are an important stepping stone for building strong teams with valuable outputs. The statement is easy to make, and discussions with leading companies reveal that the seamless integration of BI competence units into the business decision stream isn’t without its own set of challenges. Limited buy-in into the value of these centers is often questioned, and as with most paradigm based culture shifts, business needs to feel the pain first, before value becomes truly evident.

Data access can serve as a broad categorisation for several areas in BI. The integrity of data and resulting information goes hand in hand with the standards associated with conducting analysis. One sub-element of our recent investigation into data analysis shows that data integration strategies remain one of the top rated areas of concern. Service-Oriented Architecture is but one of the architecture-based support strategies for new integration efforts, but does not solve the problem of standardization by default. Ensuring quality and consistency is ultimately bringing governance and culture to the foreground.

Finally, how the knowledge is used to support decision making is pivotal to the success of the intelligence process. Most organisations use BI as a means to determine retention ratios on their existing client base, determine product pricing or even claim to influence client behaviour. The decisions that are supported normally fall into the strategic and tactical areas of decision making, leaving the research space open for more dynamic knowledge usage in operational areas.

Change management can play an important role in making the value of BI visible to business, but often lies outside of the immediate perceived mandates of most BI teams. Findings suggest that very few organisations actually pursue change management processes to broaden the BI influence.

It is notable from initial investigations that the complexity of analysis and the methods involved in providing decision support in the organisation becomes a sideline issue. Most organisations today need to read between the lines and make conscious efforts to pass on the lessons of their success and often act beyond the call of conventional mandates to ensure that internal efforts span a greater scope of influence.

Ongoing research efforts are conducted to highlight key challenges and lessons learnt in the Business Intelligence space. Visit www.systemiclogic.net for related research in this space.

Financial Service providers seek ways to ensure IT systems support their core functions and that development activities are cost efficient and internally consistent, while retaining high degrees of flexibility. One way to achieve this is to make use of banking reference frameworks and architectures which provide a set of models that cover business’s functions, data, processes, applications, interface designs and technical implementation aspects.

Research in this space reveals that several financial service reference frameworks exist in the market today. These frameworks do however vary considerably in depth and breadth of coverage. Banks generally opt for commercial, open or in-house developed frameworks and continuously need to manage the benefits associated with the implementation efforts. A framework such as IBM’s Information FrameWork (IFW) represent one such example and is also considered the most popular and widely used commercial offering in banking today.

Although many benefits accrue from the use of these frameworks, industry experts specifically favour the ability of reference models to introduce a common vocabulary into the large and often complex organizational settings – a feat that is still regarded as one of the most challenging dimensions in architecture practice today. The development, integration and automation of systems through service-oriented and business process techniques are also becoming a primary driver for the institutionalisation of these frameworks.

More recent work in the reference architecture space reveals ways in which financial service providers can evaluate the plethora of available reference frameworks to find solutions that fit the needs at hand, but also provide medium to long term benefits. Evaluations are often academic in nature and only consider the overall completeness and methodological background. SystemicLogic therefore, recently embarked on a reference framework evaluation initiative that assesses five popular reference frameworks using nine key criteria to highlight the strengths and weaknesses associated with their implementation. The aim of the initiative is to provide a more practical evaluation in collaboration with industry experts, specifically those individuals primarily responsible for successfully implementing and managing reference framework implementations on a global scale.

To find out more about the research in this space click here or visit www.systemiclogic.net for more applied research news and related research articles.