1993-2009
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
June 11, 2009 meeting
Present: Sean Brown, Greg Gillis, Jim Sutter, Sharon Solomon, Jeff Reid, Jeff Hecht, Jennifer Curlee, David Mann, Andy King, William Zauner, Carmella Cassetta, Dave Phillips
We welcomed Greg Gillis, SAP, to the meeting to assist with the presentation.
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.
Topic: Cloud computing update.
This is a popular topic and is the lead article in the June 1, 2009 CIO Magazine – Cloud Control. Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, started with an informative video, http:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdBd14rjcs0. Cloud computing is a dynamically scalable computing resource, where virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet. It incorporates infrastructure (IaaS), platform (PaaS) and software (SaaS) as a service. IDC forecasts the Cloud computing market to grow to $42B by 2012, from $16B in 2008, and will consume 25% of the total IT budget. It’s becoming popular as a pay-as-you-go option because of increased bandwidth, faster and cheaper hardware, virtualization and web services protocols. Users can avoid capital expenditures, and consumers are billed for what they use as a utility (like electricity), or subscription (like a paper). There are little or no upfront or termination costs, and services are provided with service level agreements. Despite differences of opinion on what Nicholas Carr has to say, there are names worth watching in this space. Founded in 1994, Amazon is one of the innovators in Web-based computing, offering pay-as-you-go access to virtual servers and data storage space (see Sean’s handout for more detail). Prominent customers include NY Times and Eli Lilly. Another major force is Salesforce.com, founded in 1999, with its set of CRM tools and a platform for building web applications. Google is a big player offering Google Apps, and a simple Web site creation tool, Postini. While the company’s main focus is search, no one knows the Internet quite like Google. And never underestimate Microsoft. The Pros of the Cloud include fast start-up, scalability, business agility, faster product development, and no capital expenditures. The Cons include bandwidth can become expensive, application performance could suffer, data integrity, you could be too big to scale, and human capital may be lacking. To mitigate this, you can demand SAS 70 compliance. Gartner lists several issues which potential users of Cloud computing should be aware of, including the location of the data storage units, data segregation and availability, disaster recovery, long-term viability of the vendor and how to recover your data if the vendor becomes unable to respond. Sean's presentation is at http://www.slideshare.net/occio .
Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, said that he has limited experience with Cloud computing, although he is on the Board of a small vendor that offers a development environment on Amazon. Lots of Silicon Valley start-ups use the Cloud approach. He agrees that there are issues including integrating with other IT services used, and management problems, especially for small company CIOs when trying to solve service problems. One of his clients is looking at this especially since they have found a predictive maintenance SaaS provider to enhance their J D Edwards systems.
Sharon Solomon enjoyed the presentation. It makes you think about what do you need in your environment, and how best to supply those services – part Cloud and part in-house. She worked in a heavily regulated environment where they had to be very careful with protecting against unauthorized access to data, but they did use Salesforce.com
Jeff Reid also does not have much experience with SaaS, and he has lots of questions, similar to those you have when considering outsourcing. How open are these vendors to audit? Last month, he introduced the topic of Virtualization but talked about it in terms of in-house use of virtual resources. Cloud computing adds another wrinkle to that discussion, and it depends where you are in your business cycle.
Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that it depends on where you are in your business cycle and on where you are with each of your applications. They are looking hard at outsourcing Exchange to a Cloud vendor. He likes the availability (24X7X52), DR, etc. Integration is an issue. You still need expertise to run the Cloud computing and to manage the network.
Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, said that they outsource their storefront, which is transaction based. They are starting to use SaaS where they don’t have in-house expertise, like using Avatax (?) for Tax. They are finding problems with the interface between it and SAP, and are having performance problems. They have had to segregate the services.
David Mann, Word & Brown, complimented Sean on his presentation. They are seriously evaluating the ROI of Cloud computing, and last year looked at Salesforce.com. The balance is between time-to-market vs. integration. They have decided to go with Microsoft CRM, as it gave them more options than Salesforce.com.
Andy King, Exemplis Corporation, added his compliments on the presentation, and reflected on how company culture affects these decisions. It is not their style to use Cloud computing, but they will crawl, walk then run with it. They might go with Salesforce.com, but don’t like subscription services – they prefer capital expenses to operating expenses.
Carmella Cassetta, Corinthian Colleges, also thought it was a good presentation. They use SaaS for Emergency Call-in, and are seriously looking at Cloud computing for things they are trying to test. It depends on the data, the application, whether it is informative, not transactional in nature.
Thanks again to Sean and Greg for the very good introduction and informative handout.
See you on July 9, 2009 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 5-14-09
1993-2009
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
May 14, 2009 meeting
Present: Jeff Reid, Steve Kronebusch, Andy King, Jim Sutter, Jennifer Curlee, Jeff Hecht, Sharon Solomon, Dave Phillips
We welcomed Steve Kronebusch, Sidepath – Simplifying Networks, to the meeting as a subject matter expert to provide technical backup where needed.
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.
Topic: Virtualization – server, storage, desktop, application, network.
Jeff Reid said that preparing this introduction proved to be very enlightening. He had some experience with virtualization at Conexant using VMWare, and more at Thornton Holdings where they ran into problems with compatibility between the virtualization software and their Great Plains, Citrix and Microsoft software. The official response from the vendors was “we can’t support you”, but unofficially they would put them in touch with many of their users who were running VM. Before virtualization, a given application ran on a specific hardware and OS software platform. Virtualization decouples the components, allowing sharing of resources, increased utilization (decreases future costs), lessens management overhead (still necessary, and capacity planning is important), reduces power consumption, and reduces response time for creating new virtual servers (to 30 min. or so). The areas of virtualization include servers, storage, desktop, applications and networks. The VM software turns hardware into software instances, which the Hypervisor maps to the physical server, router, switch or storage. The Connection Broker software allows a user to connect to his/her own virtual desktop of data and services, like the thin client concept. There are several virtualization packages – VMWare (market leader), Microsoft Hyper V (relatively new), Citrix Xen (building on their thin client experience), Virtual Iron (Oracle just bought them). This presentation is focused on VMWare and Compellent. VMWare breaks the dependency between OS and the hardware, allowing a large number of virtual machines to share a single pool of server resources, increasing utilization thus decreasing costs. Compellent breaks the dependency between servers and storage, by virtualizing all disks into one pool of storage, accessible by any server, reducing cost and wasted of storage capacity. This combination dynamically balances computing and storage resources based on business needs and predefined rules. It allows you to setup, test and implement DR with no downtime and less cost and complexity. It enables cost effective high availability for applications (and data protection and recovery) on virtual machines by combining snapshots of files and automatic restart of virtual machines in case of server failure. You can run multiple desk top OS (Mac, XP or Vista OS) on the same machine. Cisco has allowed workers to choose from a handful of laptops – about 25% choose Macs. Jeff’s handout covers this in more detail along with general thoughts and advice. A virtual management tool is required (VMWare’s is VCenter). Get your staff certified. Do an assessment. Review your current data backup and recovery processes. Power consumption will reduce but will increase in spots because of footprint density and you might need hot air removal. It is worth looking at and there are compelling reasons for implementing virtualization. His slides can ce found at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio.
Andy King, Exemplis Corporation, said that they use VMWare in a test environment. It gives application developers a playpen (pig pen!). They are relatively small in number (10 people), and so there is not a compelling reason to go virtualization. He complimented Jeff on his presentation, and now has more energy to plan for more.
Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, also thanked Jeff for the thoroughness of his presentation, for which Jeff thanked Steve for his assistance. Jim does see a problem with taking this to the BoD – great IT story, but why didn’t we do this before. At one of his clients, they went to Vista with all new hardware, more laptops than desktops, never went to XP, and didn’t find a cost reason to go thin client. Looking back to his many years in the business, he remembers vividly the very large mainframe, and all its complexity. Now we are back to more of the same!
Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, said that they are relatively small (25 servers) and welcome virtualization to cut expenses. They went to a Xen server, deferred management tools, and will go gradually to virtualization. Her concerns revolve around performance and the network.
Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that they have gone virtual for all their developers (50 in both locations). It provides high availability and many alternative environments. He is able to make the case for cost avoidance. They provide a virtual desktop environment for their offshore developers, as they don’t want proprietary software to go offshore. They use best of breed solutions, and they can start with a low risk, low cost entry point. It provides for more productivity, and for staged test environments. It is great for websites, especially low volume sites.
Sharon Solomon complimented Jeff for a great presentation. At Watson Pharmaceuticals, they had a 3-year plan to go virtual, and presented it to the CFO. Remember that this is a very regulated environment, and so backup, DR and rollout were very important.
Steve Kronebusch, Sidepath, thanked the group for inviting him to participate and he enjoyed the meeting. It is not often that he gets to hear the discussion from the CIO’s point of view.
Thanks again to Jeff and Steve for the very good introduction and informative handout.
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
May 14, 2009 meeting
Present: Jeff Reid, Steve Kronebusch, Andy King, Jim Sutter, Jennifer Curlee, Jeff Hecht, Sharon Solomon, Dave Phillips
We welcomed Steve Kronebusch, Sidepath – Simplifying Networks, to the meeting as a subject matter expert to provide technical backup where needed.
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.
Topic: Virtualization – server, storage, desktop, application, network.
Jeff Reid said that preparing this introduction proved to be very enlightening. He had some experience with virtualization at Conexant using VMWare, and more at Thornton Holdings where they ran into problems with compatibility between the virtualization software and their Great Plains, Citrix and Microsoft software. The official response from the vendors was “we can’t support you”, but unofficially they would put them in touch with many of their users who were running VM. Before virtualization, a given application ran on a specific hardware and OS software platform. Virtualization decouples the components, allowing sharing of resources, increased utilization (decreases future costs), lessens management overhead (still necessary, and capacity planning is important), reduces power consumption, and reduces response time for creating new virtual servers (to 30 min. or so). The areas of virtualization include servers, storage, desktop, applications and networks. The VM software turns hardware into software instances, which the Hypervisor maps to the physical server, router, switch or storage. The Connection Broker software allows a user to connect to his/her own virtual desktop of data and services, like the thin client concept. There are several virtualization packages – VMWare (market leader), Microsoft Hyper V (relatively new), Citrix Xen (building on their thin client experience), Virtual Iron (Oracle just bought them). This presentation is focused on VMWare and Compellent. VMWare breaks the dependency between OS and the hardware, allowing a large number of virtual machines to share a single pool of server resources, increasing utilization thus decreasing costs. Compellent breaks the dependency between servers and storage, by virtualizing all disks into one pool of storage, accessible by any server, reducing cost and wasted of storage capacity. This combination dynamically balances computing and storage resources based on business needs and predefined rules. It allows you to setup, test and implement DR with no downtime and less cost and complexity. It enables cost effective high availability for applications (and data protection and recovery) on virtual machines by combining snapshots of files and automatic restart of virtual machines in case of server failure. You can run multiple desk top OS (Mac, XP or Vista OS) on the same machine. Cisco has allowed workers to choose from a handful of laptops – about 25% choose Macs. Jeff’s handout covers this in more detail along with general thoughts and advice. A virtual management tool is required (VMWare’s is VCenter). Get your staff certified. Do an assessment. Review your current data backup and recovery processes. Power consumption will reduce but will increase in spots because of footprint density and you might need hot air removal. It is worth looking at and there are compelling reasons for implementing virtualization. His slides can ce found at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio.
Andy King, Exemplis Corporation, said that they use VMWare in a test environment. It gives application developers a playpen (pig pen!). They are relatively small in number (10 people), and so there is not a compelling reason to go virtualization. He complimented Jeff on his presentation, and now has more energy to plan for more.
Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, also thanked Jeff for the thoroughness of his presentation, for which Jeff thanked Steve for his assistance. Jim does see a problem with taking this to the BoD – great IT story, but why didn’t we do this before. At one of his clients, they went to Vista with all new hardware, more laptops than desktops, never went to XP, and didn’t find a cost reason to go thin client. Looking back to his many years in the business, he remembers vividly the very large mainframe, and all its complexity. Now we are back to more of the same!
Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, said that they are relatively small (25 servers) and welcome virtualization to cut expenses. They went to a Xen server, deferred management tools, and will go gradually to virtualization. Her concerns revolve around performance and the network.
Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that they have gone virtual for all their developers (50 in both locations). It provides high availability and many alternative environments. He is able to make the case for cost avoidance. They provide a virtual desktop environment for their offshore developers, as they don’t want proprietary software to go offshore. They use best of breed solutions, and they can start with a low risk, low cost entry point. It provides for more productivity, and for staged test environments. It is great for websites, especially low volume sites.
Sharon Solomon complimented Jeff for a great presentation. At Watson Pharmaceuticals, they had a 3-year plan to go virtual, and presented it to the CFO. Remember that this is a very regulated environment, and so backup, DR and rollout were very important.
Steve Kronebusch, Sidepath, thanked the group for inviting him to participate and he enjoyed the meeting. It is not often that he gets to hear the discussion from the CIO’s point of view.
Thanks again to Jeff and Steve for the very good introduction and informative handout.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 4-09-09
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
April 9, 2009 meeting
Present: Paul Gray, Jeff Hecht, Carmella Cassetta, Jennifer Curlee, Jesus Unzueta, Sean Brown, Chris Andreozzi, Mitch Morris, David Mann, Dave Phillips
The revised schedule of topics and speakers (through September, 2009) is listed in Attachment A. Check to see if and when you are presenting the introduction.
Due to an injury, Paul Gray made his presentation over the speakerphone from home, with Sean Brown operating his slide projector.
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.
Topic: Telecommuting – techniques, practices, and policies
In introducing the voice of Paul Gray to the group, I mentioned that Paul had presented this topic to the OC CIO Round Table in December 1995, and it has been a topic that has been revisited a few times since then, both here and in the Bay Area CIO Round Table. Paul mentioned that he co-authored his first book on the subject in late 1974, with Jack Nilles, and he still uses Nilles’ definitions:
Telecommuting - moving the work to the workers, not the workers to the work, more than 1 day per week. Early attempts included relocating the work place to satellite offices close to home. (Teleworking - any form of substitution of IT for work related travel)
Over the last 35 years it has been a mixed bag. It can improve worker productivity (American Express, British Telecom, IBM, concierge at Hyatt-Regency, Santa Clara). Workers are more amenable to overtime. It saves companies money ($5,000 per employee), reduces absenteeism, and reduces traffic congestion. Helps the environment, and is an incentive to attract and retain workers. It does require careful planning from management and cooperation from all employees, because teleworkers need a desk/office when they do come in to the office (hoteling) at least 1 to 2 days a week. Telecommuting is not for everybody – some people need the discipline of coming in to the office every day. You still have to manage the remote workers and establish productivity metrics, and there are set-up costs involved (equipment, supplies), and safety concerns (Dell sends out a 2 man team to set-up properly to begin with). There are teleworker challenges – how to not become invisible, to maintain a high enough profile, to not work 24 hours a day, to still learn about promotions and interesting project opportunities. A Steelcase survey of 700 workers found that of the 46% allowed to commute, only 32% do. The technology has improved and it is getting much easier. Paul ended by listing the 10 rules for a company considering telecommuting option:
- make sure that the $ savings calculation is sound (Paul included a Savings calculator in his handout – see attached)
- get HR involved
- insist on a separate home office and provide help line support
- provide a dedicated land line
- cover the teleworker home office costs
- pilot telecommuting with strong workers, not marginal employees
- involve workers in meetings, even if they have to come in to the office
- remote employees are NOT available at all hours
- conduct casual conversations with all employees, remote or local
- consider them for plum assignments, make them 1st class citizens
We asked each of the members present if they supported telecommuting.
Paul's slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio
Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that they do not formally support telecommuting, but still have a few that do in IT. They do not have many of the more formalized support procedures. There is a lot of resistance from management because of the productivity issue, data security, and personal liability issues. He worries about how employees get to learn management skills if you don’t see them in action. They do use offshore resources for development projects.
Chris Andreozzi, Knowledge Centrix, said that he is worried about the safety liability issues. They recently implemented the Cisco Home Office product for a company, and it’s expensive ($25,000 per home office, plus backend infrastructure). He used to telecommute to Houston, spending 2 weeks per month on the road. Now he owns a company, and sets the rules. Sales people can telecommute; engineers work in the office. Key is the character of the individual, and the availability of good metrics. He is worried about the loss of synergy, but there are big savings from hoteling.
Carmella Cassetta, Corinthian Colleges, said that they do it informally. Some of the executives are very passionate about not working at home. They are starting to do it more formally, especially as they need the space. They treat it as a perk, and only pay part of the costs (not the Internet). They do support distance learning.
Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, said that there is a bias against telecommuting in a manufacturing environment. They do need to build the infrastructure to support it, as they have 6 facilities within 2 miles. She has her office in the same building as the other executives, and they do support some aspects of hoteling. Within IT, they do allow trusted employees to telecommute.
Jesus Unzueta, Convera, said that their executives can work wherever they want, and in IT, setting up the infrastructure to support it is expensive. Everyone gets a laptop but they pay for their own Internet connection. It’s important to get HR involved because not every job can be done from home. Business analysts need to be close to their customers and available when needed, depending on which part of the company they are supporting. It’s often up to the individual executive to set the rules.
Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, said that if you work from home, and have young children, its important to get a baby sitter. Business consulting involves 5-10% face time, and 90-95% solution generation. Strategic discussions need to be face to face, but many of the day-today decisions can be done over the phone. However, in these days of economic uncertainty, it’s important to maintain a good relationship with your boss, and that quite often means face-to-face time.
Mitch Morris, IAPMO, said that he has seen full companies managed remotely – it is totally dependent on the organization’s culture. It also depends on what the individual worker is trying to do. In IT, you do need hands on for some aspects of break fix support. When he is providing consulting support, he tends to work at the client’s office.
David Mann, Word & Brown, agreed with Jeff in saying that management does not support telecommuting, but they do work with offshore resources for development projects, which is starting to change minds. It is because development projects have specific deadlines and deliverables, which can be measured. So most of the work can be done remotely, but the P.M./business consultant has to interact with the client.
Thanks again to Paul Gray for presenting the introduction from home and for the handouts.
See you on May 14, 2009 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
April 9, 2009 meeting
Present: Paul Gray, Jeff Hecht, Carmella Cassetta, Jennifer Curlee, Jesus Unzueta, Sean Brown, Chris Andreozzi, Mitch Morris, David Mann, Dave Phillips
The revised schedule of topics and speakers (through September, 2009) is listed in Attachment A. Check to see if and when you are presenting the introduction.
Due to an injury, Paul Gray made his presentation over the speakerphone from home, with Sean Brown operating his slide projector.
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.
Topic: Telecommuting – techniques, practices, and policies
In introducing the voice of Paul Gray to the group, I mentioned that Paul had presented this topic to the OC CIO Round Table in December 1995, and it has been a topic that has been revisited a few times since then, both here and in the Bay Area CIO Round Table. Paul mentioned that he co-authored his first book on the subject in late 1974, with Jack Nilles, and he still uses Nilles’ definitions:
Telecommuting - moving the work to the workers, not the workers to the work, more than 1 day per week. Early attempts included relocating the work place to satellite offices close to home. (Teleworking - any form of substitution of IT for work related travel)
Over the last 35 years it has been a mixed bag. It can improve worker productivity (American Express, British Telecom, IBM, concierge at Hyatt-Regency, Santa Clara). Workers are more amenable to overtime. It saves companies money ($5,000 per employee), reduces absenteeism, and reduces traffic congestion. Helps the environment, and is an incentive to attract and retain workers. It does require careful planning from management and cooperation from all employees, because teleworkers need a desk/office when they do come in to the office (hoteling) at least 1 to 2 days a week. Telecommuting is not for everybody – some people need the discipline of coming in to the office every day. You still have to manage the remote workers and establish productivity metrics, and there are set-up costs involved (equipment, supplies), and safety concerns (Dell sends out a 2 man team to set-up properly to begin with). There are teleworker challenges – how to not become invisible, to maintain a high enough profile, to not work 24 hours a day, to still learn about promotions and interesting project opportunities. A Steelcase survey of 700 workers found that of the 46% allowed to commute, only 32% do. The technology has improved and it is getting much easier. Paul ended by listing the 10 rules for a company considering telecommuting option:
- make sure that the $ savings calculation is sound (Paul included a Savings calculator in his handout – see attached)
- get HR involved
- insist on a separate home office and provide help line support
- provide a dedicated land line
- cover the teleworker home office costs
- pilot telecommuting with strong workers, not marginal employees
- involve workers in meetings, even if they have to come in to the office
- remote employees are NOT available at all hours
- conduct casual conversations with all employees, remote or local
- consider them for plum assignments, make them 1st class citizens
We asked each of the members present if they supported telecommuting.
Paul's slides are at: http://www.slideshare.net/occio
Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that they do not formally support telecommuting, but still have a few that do in IT. They do not have many of the more formalized support procedures. There is a lot of resistance from management because of the productivity issue, data security, and personal liability issues. He worries about how employees get to learn management skills if you don’t see them in action. They do use offshore resources for development projects.
Chris Andreozzi, Knowledge Centrix, said that he is worried about the safety liability issues. They recently implemented the Cisco Home Office product for a company, and it’s expensive ($25,000 per home office, plus backend infrastructure). He used to telecommute to Houston, spending 2 weeks per month on the road. Now he owns a company, and sets the rules. Sales people can telecommute; engineers work in the office. Key is the character of the individual, and the availability of good metrics. He is worried about the loss of synergy, but there are big savings from hoteling.
Carmella Cassetta, Corinthian Colleges, said that they do it informally. Some of the executives are very passionate about not working at home. They are starting to do it more formally, especially as they need the space. They treat it as a perk, and only pay part of the costs (not the Internet). They do support distance learning.
Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, said that there is a bias against telecommuting in a manufacturing environment. They do need to build the infrastructure to support it, as they have 6 facilities within 2 miles. She has her office in the same building as the other executives, and they do support some aspects of hoteling. Within IT, they do allow trusted employees to telecommute.
Jesus Unzueta, Convera, said that their executives can work wherever they want, and in IT, setting up the infrastructure to support it is expensive. Everyone gets a laptop but they pay for their own Internet connection. It’s important to get HR involved because not every job can be done from home. Business analysts need to be close to their customers and available when needed, depending on which part of the company they are supporting. It’s often up to the individual executive to set the rules.
Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, said that if you work from home, and have young children, its important to get a baby sitter. Business consulting involves 5-10% face time, and 90-95% solution generation. Strategic discussions need to be face to face, but many of the day-today decisions can be done over the phone. However, in these days of economic uncertainty, it’s important to maintain a good relationship with your boss, and that quite often means face-to-face time.
Mitch Morris, IAPMO, said that he has seen full companies managed remotely – it is totally dependent on the organization’s culture. It also depends on what the individual worker is trying to do. In IT, you do need hands on for some aspects of break fix support. When he is providing consulting support, he tends to work at the client’s office.
David Mann, Word & Brown, agreed with Jeff in saying that management does not support telecommuting, but they do work with offshore resources for development projects, which is starting to change minds. It is because development projects have specific deadlines and deliverables, which can be measured. So most of the work can be done remotely, but the P.M./business consultant has to interact with the client.
Thanks again to Paul Gray for presenting the introduction from home and for the handouts.
See you on May 14, 2009 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
Friday, March 27, 2009
OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 3-12-09
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
February 12, 2009 meeting
Present: Shannon Muniz, Sean Brown, Andy King, Jeff Reid, Randy Miller, Jennifer Curlee, William Zauner, Jim Sutter, John Pringle, Samir Doshi, Jeff Hecht, Mitch Morris, Dave Phillips
The revised schedule of topics and speakers (through September, 2009) is listed in Attachment A. Check to see if and when you are presenting the introduction.
We welcomed our guest speaker, Shannon Muniz, Artemis Sales/SSD, who traveled from Florida to be with us today, and Samir Doshi, Telecomers.
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.
Topic: Reducing Software Licensing and Contracting Costs
Shannon Muniz, Artemis Sales/SSD, started by identifying the challenges in IT contract negotiations, including not having enough qualified people on staff to handle the load, and dealing with automatic renewal of contracts. Typical software license issues include no enterprise agreements and many duplicate agreements, no volume purchase agreements and the effect of M & A, consolidations and divestitures. In-house procurement staffs can’t keep up. Access to trained negotiators with strong legal backgrounds, who understand licensing issues, and what’s important to vendors, is a big plus. As an example, Shannon went on to describe the approach that her company uses to attack the problem, which includes the following:
- Free consolidation on software inventory and contracts
- Free analysis and creation of a strategic plan
- Renegotiate selected contracts for a % of the cost savings
She distributed a sheet that listed the trigger events, which include new hardware selection, upgrades, expansions, audits, M&A, and expiration of existing terms and renewals. She also described a number of success stories, which resulted in big savings, some in the SC area. She also handed out a letter (attached) they typically send to CIOs who are interested in their approach and services. He charts are at:
http://www.slideshare.net/occio
We asked the members present to identify their biggest problem when dealing with contract and licensing issues.
Andy King, Exemplis Corporation, said that this topic was very timely. Second to people problems, software licensing is one of the biggest problems he has to deal with. He has just cancelled an ERP maintenance contract with Visual. In this declining economy, he is pessimistic, as his company tends not to measure the benefits of the installed base of software, only the costs.
Jeff Reid, ex-Thornton Holdings, said that at Conexant, they had an issue with Oracle. He inherited a contract that he clearly was not going to use and wanted to renegotiate. Oracle sent in a supplier auditor who tried to say that they owed $2M. They ended up having to pay $20,000.
Randy Miller said that since we are in Oracle bashing mode, when he was with Toshiba ABS, they paid maintenance for many modules that they didn’t use. He was impressed with the savings that Shannon quoted – 75% savings is a good deal at any time. By the way, the current Oracle Ts & Cs are on their web site.
Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, has found that negotiating with vendors takes a lot of her time and often involves also negotiating with 3rd party companies. Microsoft Information Worker needs Sharepoint. They are dealing with a Microsoft VAR, which complicated the negotiation. In the end, they had to get Microsoft on the phone as well as the VAR.
William Zauner, JAMS, said that they had the same problems with Microsoft that Surefire has, perhaps because they are both middling sized companies – in the range between $200M - $500M. If you are really small, then it doesn’t matter as much. They do have an advantage because they have in-house counsel, who reviews all contracts.
Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, said that a CIO has enough on his/her plate not to have to get bogged down with contract negotiations. Why the software industry doesn’t have standards in this area is beyond him. At Rockwell, they were blessed with an in-house IT counsel. At the winery, they are on their 3rd counsel in as many years.
John Pringle said that his comments are from the vendor’s perspective, in his case Oracle. Everything is negotiable, especially towards the end of a quarter, or year. The last quarter was the worst in 15 years. The most difficult contracts had to do with hosting, SLAs, and audit which when done seriously, can be a big income opportunity.
Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that they now have an in-house counsel, which took some getting. Now, he doesn’t have to worry about the negotiation. Of course, they wait until quarter/year end before they start to negotiate. They mainly buy tools, not packages as they write most of their own applications.
Mitch Morris, IAPMO, that he didn’t really understand contracts until he started to work with lawyers. It’s an area that gets overlooked because of the complexity. He thinks that a CIO has to step up to the plate because of the money involved with IT contracts, and decisions like buy vs. build, and contract management.
Samir Doshi, Telecomers, said that this is where his company specializes in – telecom contract management. He does for telecom contracts what Shannon does for the rest of IT contracts, and with a similar approach – first a free audit, then an explicit optimization and expense management program. He only gets paid out of the savings realized in the management and administration of the telecom costs. He handed out a 1-page description of the services his company provides.
Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, added that there seems to him a lot of value to be gained from having an in-house counsel, with a strong legal background and familiarity with IT contracts to be the one doing the negotiation, not just a lawyer who reviews contracts.
A good meeting - thanks to Shannon Muniz for introducing the topic and for leading the discussion on a very timely issue in today’s economy.
See you on April 9, 2009 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
February 12, 2009 meeting
Present: Shannon Muniz, Sean Brown, Andy King, Jeff Reid, Randy Miller, Jennifer Curlee, William Zauner, Jim Sutter, John Pringle, Samir Doshi, Jeff Hecht, Mitch Morris, Dave Phillips
The revised schedule of topics and speakers (through September, 2009) is listed in Attachment A. Check to see if and when you are presenting the introduction.
We welcomed our guest speaker, Shannon Muniz, Artemis Sales/SSD, who traveled from Florida to be with us today, and Samir Doshi, Telecomers.
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.
Topic: Reducing Software Licensing and Contracting Costs
Shannon Muniz, Artemis Sales/SSD, started by identifying the challenges in IT contract negotiations, including not having enough qualified people on staff to handle the load, and dealing with automatic renewal of contracts. Typical software license issues include no enterprise agreements and many duplicate agreements, no volume purchase agreements and the effect of M & A, consolidations and divestitures. In-house procurement staffs can’t keep up. Access to trained negotiators with strong legal backgrounds, who understand licensing issues, and what’s important to vendors, is a big plus. As an example, Shannon went on to describe the approach that her company uses to attack the problem, which includes the following:
- Free consolidation on software inventory and contracts
- Free analysis and creation of a strategic plan
- Renegotiate selected contracts for a % of the cost savings
She distributed a sheet that listed the trigger events, which include new hardware selection, upgrades, expansions, audits, M&A, and expiration of existing terms and renewals. She also described a number of success stories, which resulted in big savings, some in the SC area. She also handed out a letter (attached) they typically send to CIOs who are interested in their approach and services. He charts are at:
http://www.slideshare.net/occio
We asked the members present to identify their biggest problem when dealing with contract and licensing issues.
Andy King, Exemplis Corporation, said that this topic was very timely. Second to people problems, software licensing is one of the biggest problems he has to deal with. He has just cancelled an ERP maintenance contract with Visual. In this declining economy, he is pessimistic, as his company tends not to measure the benefits of the installed base of software, only the costs.
Jeff Reid, ex-Thornton Holdings, said that at Conexant, they had an issue with Oracle. He inherited a contract that he clearly was not going to use and wanted to renegotiate. Oracle sent in a supplier auditor who tried to say that they owed $2M. They ended up having to pay $20,000.
Randy Miller said that since we are in Oracle bashing mode, when he was with Toshiba ABS, they paid maintenance for many modules that they didn’t use. He was impressed with the savings that Shannon quoted – 75% savings is a good deal at any time. By the way, the current Oracle Ts & Cs are on their web site.
Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, has found that negotiating with vendors takes a lot of her time and often involves also negotiating with 3rd party companies. Microsoft Information Worker needs Sharepoint. They are dealing with a Microsoft VAR, which complicated the negotiation. In the end, they had to get Microsoft on the phone as well as the VAR.
William Zauner, JAMS, said that they had the same problems with Microsoft that Surefire has, perhaps because they are both middling sized companies – in the range between $200M - $500M. If you are really small, then it doesn’t matter as much. They do have an advantage because they have in-house counsel, who reviews all contracts.
Jim Sutter, Peer Consulting Group, said that a CIO has enough on his/her plate not to have to get bogged down with contract negotiations. Why the software industry doesn’t have standards in this area is beyond him. At Rockwell, they were blessed with an in-house IT counsel. At the winery, they are on their 3rd counsel in as many years.
John Pringle said that his comments are from the vendor’s perspective, in his case Oracle. Everything is negotiable, especially towards the end of a quarter, or year. The last quarter was the worst in 15 years. The most difficult contracts had to do with hosting, SLAs, and audit which when done seriously, can be a big income opportunity.
Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that they now have an in-house counsel, which took some getting. Now, he doesn’t have to worry about the negotiation. Of course, they wait until quarter/year end before they start to negotiate. They mainly buy tools, not packages as they write most of their own applications.
Mitch Morris, IAPMO, that he didn’t really understand contracts until he started to work with lawyers. It’s an area that gets overlooked because of the complexity. He thinks that a CIO has to step up to the plate because of the money involved with IT contracts, and decisions like buy vs. build, and contract management.
Samir Doshi, Telecomers, said that this is where his company specializes in – telecom contract management. He does for telecom contracts what Shannon does for the rest of IT contracts, and with a similar approach – first a free audit, then an explicit optimization and expense management program. He only gets paid out of the savings realized in the management and administration of the telecom costs. He handed out a 1-page description of the services his company provides.
Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, added that there seems to him a lot of value to be gained from having an in-house counsel, with a strong legal background and familiarity with IT contracts to be the one doing the negotiation, not just a lawyer who reviews contracts.
A good meeting - thanks to Shannon Muniz for introducing the topic and for leading the discussion on a very timely issue in today’s economy.
See you on April 9, 2009 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 2-12-09
1993-2009
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
February 12, 2009 meeting
Present: John Pringle, Jeff Reid, Sharon Solomon, Sean Brown, Dave Phillips
We started the meeting with a review of the discussion topics that gained the most votes for the coming year, and a draft schedule of speakers for selected topics. Please review the attachment that lists the topics in the order of voting preference and availability of speakers. Check to see if your name is listed as a speaker – if not please contact me ASAP to volunteer. I am looking for volunteers to prepare the introduction to:
Data Retention and Classification, e-discovery - Aug 13, 2009
ERP Implementations – lessons learned - Sept. 9, 2009
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.
Topic: IT Human Capital – Generation Y
John Pringle handed out copies of his presentation (attached) and he used it as a guide to a very interactive discussion. I suggest you open his presentation and refer to it as you read these notes of a very fluid discussion. John's slides are at http://www.slideshare.net/occio . He stated out with a definition of Gen Y – 76 million of them, born 1977-90, 1 in 4 live with a single mother, 3 in 4 with working mothers, online 87%. Check his definition of Gen X, Young Boomers and Old Boomers! Most adults use email and search, but the older you are the less likely you are to use the Internet for anything else beyond e-commerce – less than 20% of adults use SNS (social networking services), and few use online entertainment. It’s not clear how many Gen Y use traditional email, preferring to use IM and cell phones. John had several pages of Gen Y defining characteristics (and the implications for employees), although this could change in the current economic climate. We discussed a few of these, such as their feeling entitled (looking for challenging work), thrive on change (can handle changes), love instant gratification, needy (want constant feedback), high expectations (for themselves, their bosses and companies), question everything (creative independent thinkers), don’t expect to work for the same company for long, work hard for long hours, live and breath technology. We talked about what motivates Gen Y’ers – things like technology innovation, supervisors who listen, flexible schedules. They will stay if they have challenging work, a chance to show off, to live a well balance life and a casual dress work environment. John listed the top web sites that they will visit, including KaZaA (music download) and Facebook. Non-certified skills that increased in value in the 4th quarter of 2008 include NetWeaver Portals (SAP EP), PHP (server-side HTML embedded scripting language for web developers), Apple OSX/Tiger/Leopard and ITIL. He also listed 10 technology developments for the future. Then he gave us a test – if you want a list of the “right” answers, send me an email. John also included a list of his sources for your review.
See you on March 12, 2009 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.It’s opposite the Carl Strauss Brewery on South Coast Dr. If you are driving N on the 405, take the SOUTH COAST DR EXIT, and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. If you are driving S on the 405, take the FAIRVIEW EXIT, make a LEFT over the freeway and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. Turn LEFT on Greenbrook, and immediately right into the parking lot of 940. Proceed to the 2nd floor to Suite 260.
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
February 12, 2009 meeting
Present: John Pringle, Jeff Reid, Sharon Solomon, Sean Brown, Dave Phillips
We started the meeting with a review of the discussion topics that gained the most votes for the coming year, and a draft schedule of speakers for selected topics. Please review the attachment that lists the topics in the order of voting preference and availability of speakers. Check to see if your name is listed as a speaker – if not please contact me ASAP to volunteer. I am looking for volunteers to prepare the introduction to:
Data Retention and Classification, e-discovery - Aug 13, 2009
ERP Implementations – lessons learned - Sept. 9, 2009
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.
Topic: IT Human Capital – Generation Y
John Pringle handed out copies of his presentation (attached) and he used it as a guide to a very interactive discussion. I suggest you open his presentation and refer to it as you read these notes of a very fluid discussion. John's slides are at http://www.slideshare.net/occio . He stated out with a definition of Gen Y – 76 million of them, born 1977-90, 1 in 4 live with a single mother, 3 in 4 with working mothers, online 87%. Check his definition of Gen X, Young Boomers and Old Boomers! Most adults use email and search, but the older you are the less likely you are to use the Internet for anything else beyond e-commerce – less than 20% of adults use SNS (social networking services), and few use online entertainment. It’s not clear how many Gen Y use traditional email, preferring to use IM and cell phones. John had several pages of Gen Y defining characteristics (and the implications for employees), although this could change in the current economic climate. We discussed a few of these, such as their feeling entitled (looking for challenging work), thrive on change (can handle changes), love instant gratification, needy (want constant feedback), high expectations (for themselves, their bosses and companies), question everything (creative independent thinkers), don’t expect to work for the same company for long, work hard for long hours, live and breath technology. We talked about what motivates Gen Y’ers – things like technology innovation, supervisors who listen, flexible schedules. They will stay if they have challenging work, a chance to show off, to live a well balance life and a casual dress work environment. John listed the top web sites that they will visit, including KaZaA (music download) and Facebook. Non-certified skills that increased in value in the 4th quarter of 2008 include NetWeaver Portals (SAP EP), PHP (server-side HTML embedded scripting language for web developers), Apple OSX/Tiger/Leopard and ITIL. He also listed 10 technology developments for the future. Then he gave us a test – if you want a list of the “right” answers, send me an email. John also included a list of his sources for your review.
See you on March 12, 2009 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.It’s opposite the Carl Strauss Brewery on South Coast Dr. If you are driving N on the 405, take the SOUTH COAST DR EXIT, and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. If you are driving S on the 405, take the FAIRVIEW EXIT, make a LEFT over the freeway and turn RIGHT on South Coast Dr. Turn LEFT on Greenbrook, and immediately right into the parking lot of 940. Proceed to the 2nd floor to Suite 260.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 1-8-09
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
January 8, 2009 meeting
Present: Sharon Solomon, Mitch Morris, Sean Brown, Jennifer Curlee, Jim Sutter, Dave Phillips
The New Year started slowly as several members were unable to make it at the last moment, including our scheduled speaker, Randy Farner, Vitreous Solutions. In place of the normal presentation, we had asked members to come to the meeting with one technology prediction, and to briefly describe how it might affect our future.
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.
Topic: Technology Predictions
I started the discussion by selecting Memristor as my technology prediction. Since the dawn of electronics, we’ve had only three types of circuit components —resistors, inductors, and capacitors. But in 1971, UC Berkeley’s Leon Chua theorized the possibility of a fourth type of component, one that would be able to measure the flow of electric current: the memristor. Now, just 37 years later, Hewlett-Packard has built one.
What is it? As its name implies, the memristor can “remember” how much current has passed through it. And by alternating the amount of current that passes through it, a memristor can also become a one-element circuit component with unique properties. Most notably, it can save its electronic state even when the current is turned off, making it a great candidate to replace today’s flash memory. Memristors will theoretically be cheaper and far faster than flash memory, and allow far greater memory densities. They could also replace RAM chips, as we know them, so that, after you turn off your computer, it will remember exactly what it was doing when you turn it back on, and return to work instantly. This lowering of cost and consolidating of components may lead to affordable, solid-state computers that fit in your pocket and run many times faster than today’s PCs. Someday the memristor could spawn a whole new type of computer, thanks to its ability to remember a range of electrical states rather than the simplistic "on" and "off" states that today's digital processors recognize. By working with a dynamic range of data states in an analog mode, memristor-based computers could be capable of far more complex tasks than just shuttling ones and zeroes around.
When is it coming? Researchers say that no real barrier prevents implementing the memristor in circuitry immediately. But it's up to the business side to push products through to commercial reality. Memristors made to replace flash memory (at a lower cost and lower power consumption) will likely appear first; HP's goal is to offer them by 2012. Beyond that, memristors will likely replace both DRAM and hard disks in the 2014-to-2016 time frame. As for memristor-based analog computers, that step may take 20-plus years.
This was one of the 15 predictions listed in CIO Insider, Oct 31, and PC World, Oct 29. Others include Quad Core (multiple core CPUs), the Nehalem chip (Graphics Board GPU), USB 3.0, wireless power transmission, Windows 7, Google desktop OS, and cell phone GPS.
Sharon Solomon came armed with several predictions: Gartner’s Top 10 for 2009, as listed in CIO Magazine Michael Bullock blog, including virtualization, cloud computing, web oriented architectures, enterprise mashups, networking systems, BI and Green computing. Neal Weinberg, Network World, had 9 hot technologies for 2009, including 802.11n, which means that wireless LANs are now viable. Unisys rolled out 5 predictions for 2009 including 3 on IT automation, service delivery and infrastructure management. Apple also had 6 including iPod 3.6, iPhone SDK, Macbook Air and their new OS 10.6 Leopard.
Jim Sutter shared with us some of the following Tech Republic’s predictions:
IN: IT pros with business skills - OUT: Technical certifications
IN: Web-based applications - OUT: Build-it-yourself custom software
IN: Automating processes to save money - OUT: Long-term projects
IN: Macs in the enterprise - OUT: Upgrading XP machines to Vista
IN: Virtualization - OUT: Infinite racks of small servers
IN: Core i7 - OUT: The Pentium brand
IN: Thin clients - OUT: A laptop for every knowledge worker
IN: WiMAX - OUT: Metro Wi-Fi
IN: Ubuntu - OUT: Red Hat
IN: Business Intelligence (BI) - OUT: SNMP data overload
IN: Telecommuting - OUT: The 8-5 work day
IN: HP laptops and desktops - OUT: Dell laptops and desktops
IN: Multifunction server appliances - OUT: Best-of-breed network devices
IN: Smartphones - OUT: Desktop-replacement notebooks
IN: Video conferencing - OUT: Air travel for a single meeting
IN: More internships - OUT: Filling open positions
IN: Conserving energy - OUT: Building IT for future growth
IN: WAN acceleration - OUT: Dark fiber
IN: 3G broadband - OUT: Frame relay
IN: Netbooks - OUT: Desktop PCs
IN: Microsoft Office on the Web - OUT: Azure, Live Mesh, and Windows Live
IN: CIOs with minimal tech background - OUT: CIO as lead engineer
IN: IT/business integration - OUT: Centralized IT departments
Mitch, Jennifer and Sean were active in the discussion without presenting specific technology predictions. This was a fun session.
See you on January 8, 2009 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
January 8, 2009 meeting
Present: Sharon Solomon, Mitch Morris, Sean Brown, Jennifer Curlee, Jim Sutter, Dave Phillips
The New Year started slowly as several members were unable to make it at the last moment, including our scheduled speaker, Randy Farner, Vitreous Solutions. In place of the normal presentation, we had asked members to come to the meeting with one technology prediction, and to briefly describe how it might affect our future.
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.
Topic: Technology Predictions
I started the discussion by selecting Memristor as my technology prediction. Since the dawn of electronics, we’ve had only three types of circuit components —resistors, inductors, and capacitors. But in 1971, UC Berkeley’s Leon Chua theorized the possibility of a fourth type of component, one that would be able to measure the flow of electric current: the memristor. Now, just 37 years later, Hewlett-Packard has built one.
What is it? As its name implies, the memristor can “remember” how much current has passed through it. And by alternating the amount of current that passes through it, a memristor can also become a one-element circuit component with unique properties. Most notably, it can save its electronic state even when the current is turned off, making it a great candidate to replace today’s flash memory. Memristors will theoretically be cheaper and far faster than flash memory, and allow far greater memory densities. They could also replace RAM chips, as we know them, so that, after you turn off your computer, it will remember exactly what it was doing when you turn it back on, and return to work instantly. This lowering of cost and consolidating of components may lead to affordable, solid-state computers that fit in your pocket and run many times faster than today’s PCs. Someday the memristor could spawn a whole new type of computer, thanks to its ability to remember a range of electrical states rather than the simplistic "on" and "off" states that today's digital processors recognize. By working with a dynamic range of data states in an analog mode, memristor-based computers could be capable of far more complex tasks than just shuttling ones and zeroes around.
When is it coming? Researchers say that no real barrier prevents implementing the memristor in circuitry immediately. But it's up to the business side to push products through to commercial reality. Memristors made to replace flash memory (at a lower cost and lower power consumption) will likely appear first; HP's goal is to offer them by 2012. Beyond that, memristors will likely replace both DRAM and hard disks in the 2014-to-2016 time frame. As for memristor-based analog computers, that step may take 20-plus years.
This was one of the 15 predictions listed in CIO Insider, Oct 31, and PC World, Oct 29. Others include Quad Core (multiple core CPUs), the Nehalem chip (Graphics Board GPU), USB 3.0, wireless power transmission, Windows 7, Google desktop OS, and cell phone GPS.
Sharon Solomon came armed with several predictions: Gartner’s Top 10 for 2009, as listed in CIO Magazine Michael Bullock blog, including virtualization, cloud computing, web oriented architectures, enterprise mashups, networking systems, BI and Green computing. Neal Weinberg, Network World, had 9 hot technologies for 2009, including 802.11n, which means that wireless LANs are now viable. Unisys rolled out 5 predictions for 2009 including 3 on IT automation, service delivery and infrastructure management. Apple also had 6 including iPod 3.6, iPhone SDK, Macbook Air and their new OS 10.6 Leopard.
Jim Sutter shared with us some of the following Tech Republic’s predictions:
IN: IT pros with business skills - OUT: Technical certifications
IN: Web-based applications - OUT: Build-it-yourself custom software
IN: Automating processes to save money - OUT: Long-term projects
IN: Macs in the enterprise - OUT: Upgrading XP machines to Vista
IN: Virtualization - OUT: Infinite racks of small servers
IN: Core i7 - OUT: The Pentium brand
IN: Thin clients - OUT: A laptop for every knowledge worker
IN: WiMAX - OUT: Metro Wi-Fi
IN: Ubuntu - OUT: Red Hat
IN: Business Intelligence (BI) - OUT: SNMP data overload
IN: Telecommuting - OUT: The 8-5 work day
IN: HP laptops and desktops - OUT: Dell laptops and desktops
IN: Multifunction server appliances - OUT: Best-of-breed network devices
IN: Smartphones - OUT: Desktop-replacement notebooks
IN: Video conferencing - OUT: Air travel for a single meeting
IN: More internships - OUT: Filling open positions
IN: Conserving energy - OUT: Building IT for future growth
IN: WAN acceleration - OUT: Dark fiber
IN: 3G broadband - OUT: Frame relay
IN: Netbooks - OUT: Desktop PCs
IN: Microsoft Office on the Web - OUT: Azure, Live Mesh, and Windows Live
IN: CIOs with minimal tech background - OUT: CIO as lead engineer
IN: IT/business integration - OUT: Centralized IT departments
Mitch, Jennifer and Sean were active in the discussion without presenting specific technology predictions. This was a fun session.
See you on January 8, 2009 – 7:00 a.m. in the RJTCompuquest conference room at:
940 South Coast Dr., Suite 260, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
Friday, December 19, 2008
OC CIO Roundtable Minutes 12-11-08
Southern California/Orange County CIO Breakfast Round Table
December 11, 2008 meeting
Present: Joel Manfredo, John Mooney, Subbu Murthy, Randy Farner, Andy King, Jeff Hecht, Jennifer Curlee, Jason Dedrick, Sean Brown, Paul Gray, Dave Phillips
We welcomed Jason Dedrick, UCI, to his first meeting.
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.
Topic: Green IT
Joel Manfredo, County of Orange, started by showing technology trends as identified by Morgan Stanley, McKinsey, Gartner and Forrester, highlighting amongst others Cloud Computing, Consumers as Innovators, Mashups, Web Platform (SaaS) and Green IT. Another slide showed the hype cycle for technology trends with Green IT at the peak of inflated expectations (see Gartner slides in Joel’s presentation). He then showed the Wikipedia definition of Green computing – the study and practice of using computing resources efficiently, especially in power management and materials recycling. A Deloitte slide showed the influence of regulation over time, combined with economic and social pressures. An EPA Green Power Partnership slide showed the ranking of 53 Fortune 500 companies green power usage, led by Intel Corp at 1,300,000 kilowatt-hours per year. He touched upon renewable energy, green buildings and energy conservation. He defined the LEED building rating system – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, where you can be rated platinum, gold, silver and certified. He also defined the Energy Star program – a joint EPA and DoE program, which addresses both business and home efficiency guidelines, and showed an interesting projection of energy usage. He showed a complex Green IT taxonomy chart, and a chart showing technology enablers to Green IT. He listed Gartner’s10 key elements of a Green IT strategy, including switch it off when not in use, and move from “always on” to “always available“ in the data center. The Energy Stack slide was interesting. Joel ended with the Cisco connected workplace slide, showing the cost savings from the shared workplace design. A great presentation by a subject matter expert - I recommend that you take another look at his presentation slides. They are at : http://www.slideshare.net/occio .
We asked members to tell us what they are doing about Green IT.
John Mooney, Pepperdine University, said that he has been focusing more on IT sustainability rather than on Green IT. He belongs to a consortium called the European Center for Sustainability Leadership, and they had a meeting last week at the UN to define principles of responsibility. Green IT is one of IT management’s areas of responsibility as it influences technology, social and environmental strategies. He sees IT management becoming business practice leaders. He recommends that we switch paradigms from “reduce usage” to “do not use” in the first place.
Subbu Murthy, USourceIT, said that he is involved with open innovation and invited Joel to meet with the group. In general, he found that CIOs tend towards empire building - bigger budgets, staffs and data centers, and were anti outsourcing and SaaS. CIOs are not graded on energy consumption, although he did note that the Dupont CIO is chief sustainability officer for the company.
Randy Farner, Vitreous Solutions, said that according to the Wikipedia definition he has always been green – most service for least cost. Business demands service. When business demands green, the CIO will change. It is a simple value proposition.
Andy King, Exemplis Corporation, agreed that from a corporate perspective, he has to align with the business, and he hasn’t heard anything about green from the business. Common sense tells you that green is good and you have to become conscious about what it takes to become more green, but it hasn’t trickled down yet. He complimented Joel on his presentation.
Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that it is all about ROI. He doesn’t have a mandate to be green – he has a mandate to provide service, and he brought in blade servers to be efficient, not green. He has been looking at software to shut down systems and PCs but building management is not interested in doing their bit.
Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, said that they are a small company, and as such are always interested in saving $. She buys towers not stacks. They have a conflict between outsourcing and IP vulnerability. They keep the lights on because of security, and business continuity demands that they always have excess power for backup. Even so, they try to be green but are having problems with HVAC reliability.
Jason Dedrick, UCI, thanked Joel for a very interesting presentation. He is working in a new research area of carbon productivity, as it affects IT, the business as a whole, and the economy. They are studying any level of carbon usage, and on how IT affects energy usage, and not just at the cost side.
Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, was sorry that he was in and out during most of the presentation due to a conference call to a solar energy company. He found the pieces that he heard to be very interesting, and took note that the light in the conference room was too bright.
Paul Gray, Claremont (Emeritus), was working on the office hotelling concept in the early 90’s, and attended a conference on the subject in Orlando although he recognized that they used a lot of carbon just to fly there and back! With reference to Joel’s Cisco example and IBM reports, they showed that it didn’t and shouldn’t matter which office space one used when working in the central office and not at the home office. He and John Mooney agreed that to change behavior one needs incentives.
Thank you, Joel, for
December 11, 2008 meeting
Present: Joel Manfredo, John Mooney, Subbu Murthy, Randy Farner, Andy King, Jeff Hecht, Jennifer Curlee, Jason Dedrick, Sean Brown, Paul Gray, Dave Phillips
We welcomed Jason Dedrick, UCI, to his first meeting.
The minutes of this and prior breakfasts are available online at the Peer Consulting Group’s website, www.peergroup.net, with links to the presentation material, when available.
Topic: Green IT
Joel Manfredo, County of Orange, started by showing technology trends as identified by Morgan Stanley, McKinsey, Gartner and Forrester, highlighting amongst others Cloud Computing, Consumers as Innovators, Mashups, Web Platform (SaaS) and Green IT. Another slide showed the hype cycle for technology trends with Green IT at the peak of inflated expectations (see Gartner slides in Joel’s presentation). He then showed the Wikipedia definition of Green computing – the study and practice of using computing resources efficiently, especially in power management and materials recycling. A Deloitte slide showed the influence of regulation over time, combined with economic and social pressures. An EPA Green Power Partnership slide showed the ranking of 53 Fortune 500 companies green power usage, led by Intel Corp at 1,300,000 kilowatt-hours per year. He touched upon renewable energy, green buildings and energy conservation. He defined the LEED building rating system – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, where you can be rated platinum, gold, silver and certified. He also defined the Energy Star program – a joint EPA and DoE program, which addresses both business and home efficiency guidelines, and showed an interesting projection of energy usage. He showed a complex Green IT taxonomy chart, and a chart showing technology enablers to Green IT. He listed Gartner’s10 key elements of a Green IT strategy, including switch it off when not in use, and move from “always on” to “always available“ in the data center. The Energy Stack slide was interesting. Joel ended with the Cisco connected workplace slide, showing the cost savings from the shared workplace design. A great presentation by a subject matter expert - I recommend that you take another look at his presentation slides. They are at : http://www.slideshare.net/occio .
We asked members to tell us what they are doing about Green IT.
John Mooney, Pepperdine University, said that he has been focusing more on IT sustainability rather than on Green IT. He belongs to a consortium called the European Center for Sustainability Leadership, and they had a meeting last week at the UN to define principles of responsibility. Green IT is one of IT management’s areas of responsibility as it influences technology, social and environmental strategies. He sees IT management becoming business practice leaders. He recommends that we switch paradigms from “reduce usage” to “do not use” in the first place.
Subbu Murthy, USourceIT, said that he is involved with open innovation and invited Joel to meet with the group. In general, he found that CIOs tend towards empire building - bigger budgets, staffs and data centers, and were anti outsourcing and SaaS. CIOs are not graded on energy consumption, although he did note that the Dupont CIO is chief sustainability officer for the company.
Randy Farner, Vitreous Solutions, said that according to the Wikipedia definition he has always been green – most service for least cost. Business demands service. When business demands green, the CIO will change. It is a simple value proposition.
Andy King, Exemplis Corporation, agreed that from a corporate perspective, he has to align with the business, and he hasn’t heard anything about green from the business. Common sense tells you that green is good and you have to become conscious about what it takes to become more green, but it hasn’t trickled down yet. He complimented Joel on his presentation.
Jeff Hecht, Word & Brown, said that it is all about ROI. He doesn’t have a mandate to be green – he has a mandate to provide service, and he brought in blade servers to be efficient, not green. He has been looking at software to shut down systems and PCs but building management is not interested in doing their bit.
Jennifer Curlee, Surefire, said that they are a small company, and as such are always interested in saving $. She buys towers not stacks. They have a conflict between outsourcing and IP vulnerability. They keep the lights on because of security, and business continuity demands that they always have excess power for backup. Even so, they try to be green but are having problems with HVAC reliability.
Jason Dedrick, UCI, thanked Joel for a very interesting presentation. He is working in a new research area of carbon productivity, as it affects IT, the business as a whole, and the economy. They are studying any level of carbon usage, and on how IT affects energy usage, and not just at the cost side.
Sean Brown, RJTCompuquest, was sorry that he was in and out during most of the presentation due to a conference call to a solar energy company. He found the pieces that he heard to be very interesting, and took note that the light in the conference room was too bright.
Paul Gray, Claremont (Emeritus), was working on the office hotelling concept in the early 90’s, and attended a conference on the subject in Orlando although he recognized that they used a lot of carbon just to fly there and back! With reference to Joel’s Cisco example and IBM reports, they showed that it didn’t and shouldn’t matter which office space one used when working in the central office and not at the home office. He and John Mooney agreed that to change behavior one needs incentives.
Thank you, Joel, for
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
