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Rearchitecting IT: Simplify. Simplify
6/26/2006
What’s more, as an extension of virtualization, many universities are exploring service-oriented architecture (SOA), which leverage XML and other standards to simplify how applications are designed. In layman’s terms, serviceoriented software is a loosely coupled application that dynamically and “on demand” integrates people, processes, and information within and across business and application boundaries, according to Gartner.
IT Infrastructure Streamliners: The Net Net
LOOKING FOR SIMPLICITY in action? Heed these shining examples.
University of Alaska: Leverages a centralized software licensing system to share applications between students and ultimately lower ongoing licensing costs.
Baylor University: Uses LANDesk software to take inventory of hardware and software, thereby generating more accurate IT budget forecasts.
University of Missouri-Rolla: Deployed EMC’s VMware software to greatly consolidate servers and improve server utilization rates.
New York College of Osteopathic Medicine: Standardized on centralized Dell servers to host video-based professor lectures and other digital content.
Just about every major software company— from BEA Systems and Microsoft, to Oracle—now evangelizes the value of SOA, but schools should proceed with a healthy dose of skepticism. “SOA is for real, but you’re not going to shut down your university to rewrite all of your applications overnight,” says Edward Golod, president of Revenue Accelerators, a technology consulting firm in New York. “As a first step, each time you consider licensing an application, ask the vendor about its SOA strategy, and be sure to compare answers among multiple vendors.”
Step Six: Embrace Holistic Security
How can security be at the bottom— rather than the top—of our IT simplification list? Simply put, security should be a central consideration in every IT project, rather than something that’s bolted onto an application after the fact.
The typical enterprise now spends about 6 percent of its IT budget on security- related gear, such as antivirus software and firewalls, according to Gartner. But that figure is misleading and likely conservative, since many applications and hardware platforms are designed with security functions from the get-go.
“You can’t think about security in a vacuum,” says Sanjay Anand, best-selling author of The Sarbanes-Oxley Guide for Finance and Information Technology Professionals (Wiley, 2006). “It has to be part of every IT conversation.”
Instead of buying best-of-breed security solutions from multiple vendors, many university CIOs expect the security market to rapidly consolidate around a handful of vendors, including Cisco Systems, Symantec, RSA Security, and Microsoft.
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