Category: Research

Free Software Configuration Management (SCM) – Is It Worth It?

Posted on by UpsideAdmin

Software Configuration Management (SCM) is a critical core infrastructure tool for all software development organizations. While often taken for granted or below senior management’s radar, SCM is an extremely important component of an organization’s software infrastructure. Historically, a significant number of organizations have used open-source SCM, such as RCS, CVS and more recently Subversion, to form the backbone of their development environments. However, such solutions can have hidden costs associated with them. This paper was written to help organizations understand when such free tools make business sense and when commercial SCM solutions may be more appropriate.

In this report we provide context for answering those questions and analyze a composite scenario of an organization that has used both types of solutions, based on interviews with enterprise developers and industry research.

Click here to download the complete Upside Research report on OpenSource SCM

Share

Carbon Disclosure Report Driving Sustainability?

Posted on by UpsideAdmin

There’s no doubt that sustainability issues are more important for some companies than others. But perhaps the recent annual report from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) might change that.

The CDP’s report reveals a surprising trend in corporate sustainability. For the first time since it began reporting on sustainability practices in the S&P 500 in 2003, the latest survey results reveal that a majority of the S&P 500 participating companies integrate sustainability efforts into core business strategy. This is without any major mandates driving participation. Considering that, according to the CDP, over 3,000 organizations in some 60 countries worldwide measure and disclose to the CDP their greenhouse gas emissions, climate change strategies, and water management, it is apparent that sustainability is taking a top place on the corporate hot-button list. Read more about the CDP’s report and it’s impact on corporate sustainability initiatives in our IT Briefcase column.

Share

Cisco Adds to Enterprise Social Networking with Versly Acquisition

Posted on by UpsideAdmin

Enterprise social networking continues to be an increasingly important factor for many companies. While companies continue to search for the best way to incorporate the new collaboration functionality into an already crowded enterprise software environment, software vendors are adding new combinations of technology to their offerings. Recently, computing giant Cisco announced an acquisition that moves it ahead several steps in the race to develop the killer unified communication platform. Read the full story on Cisco’s Enterprise social network acquisition in our IT Briefcase column.

Share

Sustainability–the Next Frontier

Posted on by UpsideAdmin

For years we’ve heard that it pays to be “green” (or environmentally-friendly). But putting a number on just how much it pays can be difficult, since developing metrics for sustainability and green business or IT processes is difficult and can touch on many different factors within an organization. But new solutions and approaches are making environmental accounting and sustainability initiatives much more practical. But you need to understand what you’re buying into, and what approach you’re taking. Upside Research believes there are some important distinctions to make within the sustainability category, and some specific decision points that can impact an enterprise sustainability project. For a rundown on our specific points and sustainability recommendations, consult our recent IT Briefcase column on how to make the jump into sustainability.

Share

Application Performance Management

Posted on by UpsideAdmin

When it comes to IT and applications, sometimes you really need to know what’s happening. That’s where application performance management tools come in. Application performance management tools help organizations identify how their applications are performing, and where there might be problems, bottlenecks, or concerns.

Application performance management is more important now than it ever has been, with applications that reside both in house and in the cloud, and applications that have components that are split across applications, systems, and environments. Organizations need to pay attention now more than ever to how well their applications perform under a wide range of potential operational issues.

The Applications Performance Management (APM) market received attention recently when traditional application management vendor Compuware recently announced its acquisition of dynaTrace, a leading innovator in the evolving APM space. The all-cash acquisition, valued at $256 million, closed July 1, 2011. The acquisition reflects the changing landscape of applications performance management. Check out our recent IT Briefcase column on application management for more insights into the impact of this acquisition and the application performance management market.

Share

Sustainability – The Business Buzzword and Corporate Future

Posted on by UpsideAdmin

When you’re in it for the long haul, it means that sustainability is going to be important for your business. In fact, corporate IT can even hold the key to transforming a business into one that reflects the new goals for reduced consumption of resources like energy and water. But, unlike Enterprise Resource Planning or Business Process Management, where technology was used to automate existing processes, sustainability is a brand new discipline for most organizations. Read more about why sustainability matters to IT, in our IT Briefcase column.

Share

BPM for the Cloud? Appian Thinks So

Posted on by UpsideAdmin

Things are really happening in the BPM space lately. And some of the real interesting changes are occurring in the cloud and social spaces. In fact, one vendor, Appian is focused heavily in these two areas (along with mobile), and even recently issued a press release trumpeting their leadership in cloud BPM. While this market has more to play out, Upside Research definitely thinks that Appian is taking BPM in the right direction with thoughtful approaches to enterprise BPM requirements. Read our full analysis of Appian and Cloud BPM in our recent IT Briefcase column.

Share

Consolidation in the Enterprise Social Media Space

Posted on by UpsideAdmin

Specialized enterprise social network technologies are also starting to be widely used on an enterprise scale, for enterprise needs. The challenge for companies is to find the tools that are best suited for particular functions and help propagate them in a manageable, sustainable way throughout a department or across an enterprise.

Beneath the surface of the hype surrounding social networking tools is the more interesting shift in how companies do business, and how the IT environment is shifting from on-premises deployments to cloud. At the same time, we’re seeing an increased interest in enterprise social media capabilities. For example, VMWare is adding a social networking darling to its web productivity lineup. Socialcast, the brainchild of Timothy Young, founder and CEO, is one of the leading social networking tools for enterprise businesses, with customers that range from Avaya, Nokia, and Philips Electronics.

For complete analysis of the impact of this acquisition, consult Upside Research’s IT Briefcase column on consolidation in the enterprise social media space.

Share

Hybrid Restore for Cloud Backup and Recovery

Posted on by UpsideAdmin

Cloud backup and recovery services have made a strong entrance into the consumer and small to mid-sized business market. Yet potential purchasers of cloud backup and recovery solutions should make sure to consider the amount of time it takes to restore data. While backups can be done incrementally, in the event of the total loss of data, organizations want to restore completely. And a complete restore of gigabytes of data, over an Internet connection, can take days.

That’s why a newer option in this market is a hybrid online/local service that allows organizations to maintain up-to-date local copies of critical business data that are available to speed the recovery process in the event of a data loss. Using a hybrid model can significantly reduce recovery and restore times for small and mid-sized businesses. Reach the full story about hybrid cloud backup and recovery services in the Upside Research column at IT Briefcase.

Share

Business Intelligence vs. Operational Intelligence

Posted on by UpsideAdmin

Insight is everything in business. Having the right tools to optimize business processes is the wish of every business analyst. While business intelligence as a discipline has existed for many years in enterprise computing, operational intelligence has emerged in recent years as the hot-button area for driving business optimization. The goal of operational intelligence (or business process intelligence) is to provide business analysts with real-time data related to business processes and activities as they are executed. This real-time information can then be used to optimize business processes by enabling them to make changes midstream to avert an interruption or avoid a bottleneck. Read our full post on operational intelligence at IT Briefcase.

Share