11.10.11
They Check In and Never Check Out
[Cartoon]
Great standards take years develop. Great products take years to become the standard. And it takes years before standards or products are displaced by new concepts.
It is hard to believe, but applications written in COBOL are still very prevalent in large organizations. Some of these same organizations are still running IBM’s CICS for message processing. Even with limited available talent to maintain these environments, the cost of change is still preventing the evolution to newer object-oriented programming languages and web-based servers.
The biggest problem for large organizations that continue using older technologies is having the ability to respond to changes in the industry of their business. These organizations are open to losing their customers to a more up-to-date and agile organization.
What big organizations have been doing during the last few years is putting a layer on top of the old technologies. These layers usually include web-based servers to provide browser access or even access over iPads or smartphones. This approach has often been referred to as putting lipstick on a pig.
The lipstick looks good, but the service needed to manage the core business seems lacking. As an example, consider all of the wonderful things provided by your cell phone service provider. These things dazzle the mind. But, just have a problem with your billing and see how difficult it is to get a correction.
Organizations in these situations need the help of Enterprise Architects. Members of this profession are business-focused with a full understanding of technology. These experts can develop roadmaps that can put an organization into the agile state appropriate for their business. These roadmaps are developed to show how an organization can continue to deliver on their capabilities as changes in the business and technologies occur.
Solutions available today will be replaced by newer concepts. Many organizations move toward solutions without realizing that by the time they arrive at their target, it will be time to move again. Consider for example the movement today towards “no SQL” while many organizations are moving towards more SQL. This “no SQL” movement eliminates the staple standard of the relational database technology. The community reaction to this change is similar to the reaction when object-oriented languages were introduced to supplant COBOL.
Unfortunately, there are very few quick fixes to move away from older costly solutions. It takes years to develop and standardize solutions. It will take years to transition to newer approaches. What organizations need to support them in this transition is an Enterprise Architecture. They need the guidance of professional Enterprise Architects to map out what should check in and what should check out.
[Cartoon]
Great standards take years develop. Great products take years to become the standard. And it takes years before standards or products are displaced by new concepts.
It is hard to believe, but applications written in COBOL are still very prevalent in large organizations. Some of these same organizations are still running IBM’s CICS for message processing. Even with limited available talent to maintain these environments, the cost of change is still preventing the evolution to newer object-oriented programming languages and web-based servers.
The biggest problem for large organizations that continue using older technologies is having the ability to respond to changes in the industry of their business. These organizations are open to losing their customers to a more up-to-date and agile organization.
What big organizations have been doing during the last few years is putting a layer on top of the old technologies. These layers usually include web-based servers to provide browser access or even access over iPads or smartphones. This approach has often been referred to as putting lipstick on a pig.
The lipstick looks good, but the service needed to manage the core business seems lacking. As an example, consider all of the wonderful things provided by your cell phone service provider. These things dazzle the mind. But, just have a problem with your billing and see how difficult it is to get a correction.
Organizations in these situations need the help of Enterprise Architects. Members of this profession are business-focused with a full understanding of technology. These experts can develop roadmaps that can put an organization into the agile state appropriate for their business. These roadmaps are developed to show how an organization can continue to deliver on their capabilities as changes in the business and technologies occur.
Solutions available today will be replaced by newer concepts. Many organizations move toward solutions without realizing that by the time they arrive at their target, it will be time to move again. Consider for example the movement today towards “no SQL” while many organizations are moving towards more SQL. This “no SQL” movement eliminates the staple standard of the relational database technology. The community reaction to this change is similar to the reaction when object-oriented languages were introduced to supplant COBOL.
Unfortunately, there are very few quick fixes to move away from older costly solutions. It takes years to develop and standardize solutions. It will take years to transition to newer approaches. What organizations need to support them in this transition is an Enterprise Architecture. They need the guidance of professional Enterprise Architects to map out what should check in and what should check out.
The Enterprise Architects can see what is coming and are already preparing. They know that this will be their time. Corporations will be able to completely focus on their business, and automation will be viewed as an agile enabler. Automation will finally become the self-service contributor that the Corporate Office has always wanted it to be. –Enterprise Architects Masters of the Unseen City
Closing the Business / IT gap.
