The sheer number of servers and quantity of storage required to operate a modern business has made manual management of this infrastructure impossible and means virtualization is an essential part of every IT department's future. That's the view of Phil Sargeant and Jeffrey Hewitt, who delivered a session on the future of servers and storage.

Both cited power and heat management as critical to the future of these classes of hardware, but believe vendors are getting on top of these issues. But one thing they believe it will prove impossible to get on top of without assistance is complexity.

"Large organizations will find they simply cannot manage their server and storage infrastructure," Sargeant said. "You will need to look at it in a different way."

The prism of virtualization is the tool he prefers to look through, as it offers the management capability needed to tackle massive complexity.

So important is that ability that Hewitt said the evolution of virtualization features in Windows and Linux will determine the ability of each to win market share from the other, thereby determining the dominant server operating system of the future.

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The laws of physics have as much impact on efforts to achieve optimal database performance as all of the tools and techniques offered by database vendors, according to Gartner's Mark Beyer.
"We have spinning disk and it has to deliver data fast enough to get through the IO channel so it can reach memory and then the CPU," he says, explaining that each of these four components has physical restrictions on their performance. "If you do not recognize this, you will create a restriction point that has nothing to do with the database."

The result, he says, is that organizations can spend up big on new hardware in attempts to improve database performance, but effectively waste their cash for lack of an effort to optimize infrastructure to cope with physical obstacles.

"I know of a company where they bought more and more CPUs and memory and then they created summary tables and aggregate tables. Nothing they tried improved the speed of their database."
"Then someone asked: 'How many channels go from the SAN to the database?'"

With the bottleneck identified, the problem was solved, an outcome Beyer says is essential to achieve given the ever-growing volumes of data inside most businesses.

"A one terabyte data warehouse used to be considered huge," he said. "Now is not. Business need to realize they will have to deal with large volumes of data at speed, and unless they understand these physical constraints they will not be able to do so."

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Looking for a little something to spice up your desk? Well there's plenty on offer on the floor of the ITxpo. Our quick stroll around the booths yielded a very cute and bendy stress toy from none other than Gartner.

The toy that will probably attract most attention elsewhere is the aerodynamic throwing football on a phone vendor's stand, although a content management vendor seemed to be offering an interesting line in wrestling dolls.

Traditionalists may enjoy the stubby holder on offer elsewhere, while we even spotted a mouse pad or two on offer. Mugs are not hard to find and there are lollies galore, provided you understand that consuming too many might just make you look like one of those middle-aged middle managers with too much middle that we heard about earlier on …

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Filing out of yesterday's keynote, we overheard someone say "That's put about 100 things on my to-do list."

She probably wasn't alone in her sentiments, after a group of Gartner luminaries delivered a rousing clarion call for change in IT departments.

Two imperatives are driving this need for change. One is the consumerisation of IT, as consumers increasingly demand that services reach them as and when they feel like they want to consume them. This demand will mean IT departments have to change the way they deliver services.

The other is CEOs' determination that IT departments will become engines of growth and change for business. No longer will business leaders be content for IT departments to merely keep the lights on. Instead, they will demand that IT departments can deliver growth from the business. IT departments will be called upon to devise and drive growth projects, instead of merely being the implementation arm the rest of the business uses to gets things done.

These pressures mean that IT departments must change. A mentality focused on savings will be insufficient - planning to turn those savings into new value is the new paradigm.

Another new value to embrace is the importance of digital natives. Today's kids have grown up Googling everything. When they arrive in corporate life, understanding how their habits and lifestyles can and should shape future products is essential.

Hiring them is also important: today's middle aged IT executives simply do not have the Net in their blood and cannot understand what is needed to deliver the new wave of products that will bring growth.

Nor will their management styles be effective in an age of mass collaboration.

The analysts therefore concluded that IT departments have to embrace change, and embrace it now, while times are good and investment is possible. Failure to do so, they warned, could mean irrelevance.

And if that adds a whole new set of tasks to your to-do lists, is that necessarily a bad thing?

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Have you reserved a place at an Analyst/User Roundtable Session yet? If not, act fast as places are booking up quickly! We have four (4) sessions today with limited places still available:

11:15 - WiFi, 3G and WiMAX: Emerging Technologies for Mobile and Remote Workers – Robin Simpson

13:15 - Critical Program Management – John Liburti & Ian Gordon

15:45 - Managing Business Risks – French Caldwell

17:00 - Software Licensing- Will it Ever Get Easier to Manage – Alexa Bona

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As Conference Chair it is my pleasure to welcome you to Gartner’s Symposium ITxpo 2006!

This year’s theme is “The New IT Investments Powering Productivity and Growth”. As companies have gone through their cost cutting years, the focus is now on using IT to drive business growth and productivity. What are the top IT priorities for business seeking to drive top-line growth? How can IT operations power the demands of business for web traffic, global access and mobile workers? What are the best approaches for making people productive and high performing? Which emerging technologies will help our organization now? These are all questions we will address during the next three and a half days.

This year, Symposium/ITxpo has been restructured to help delegates get the most from their participation. Along with 9 distinct tracks – including industry specific presentations – we have introduced Symposium Communities to deliver content and networking opportunities specific to your role. If you haven’t already enrolled in a community, you can do so at the registration desk to enhance your learning experience and peer-to-peer interactions.

Also don’t forget to book your place at one of our Analyst/User Roundtable sessions, or a Gartner analyst One-on-One. Places are limited and have been booking up fast in the lead up to the event – to secure your place, please go to the One-on-One booking desk.

Industry decision makers throughout Asia-Pacific use Gartner research with one goal in mind – to keep on top of critical trends in IT that impact their business, while maintaining a competitive edge. Symposium/ITxpo brings the best Gartner has to offer in tandem with the best the industry has to offer through the IT/Xpo showcase under one roof.

Once again, our social networking events afford you the opportunity to engage with senior Gartner management, analysts, vendors and your industry colleagues in a relaxed, yet informative environment. And don't miss our first official networking function - tonight's Welcome Reception.

Hope to see you there!

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CIOs are searching for the "sweet spot" that will maximize IT's contribution to business performance. A holistic approach will achieve better outcomes than single-focus initiatives. The approach must address the why (understanding value), the what (strategy) and the how (governance) of key decisions. IT strategy integrated with business strategies provides the road map. Sound governance secures the right business inputs. Understanding the value proposition results in better decisions.

Gartner's Executive Program 2006 CIO Survey provides a list of CIOs' top 10 management priorities. These priorities reflect CIOs' understanding of business expectations. They focus on business growth projects, improving business alignment and measuring IT's business contribution. These priorities align with business expectations of growth, process improvement and building competitive advantage.

Delivering against those priorities requires attracting, upgrading and retaining business skills in IS. Why? Because IS needs these business skills to deliver the differentiated solutions that drive enterprise growth and competitiveness. An increased need for business skills illustrates how the world is changing IS.

These priorities are interconnected. It will be difficult to deliver projects without linking strategies through sound governance, having an understanding of how IT contributes to business value, aligning performance metrics and improving the quality of service delivery. Finding the sweet spot demands progress on many fronts.

Where are the pain points in your IT strategies and governance?

• No buy-in to the IT strategy?


• Inconsistent project prioritisation?


• Lack of business participation?


• Inadequate business cases?

Submit a comment. And join us on Wednesday November 15 at 11:15am as we go in search of the “sweet spot.”

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Security 1.0 was back in the mainframe days, when security was easy: the user could only do what we allowed them to do. First the PC, then the local area network and then the Internet left Security 1.0 behind. Security was cheap (on the order of 2 percent of the IT budget) and easy.

Security 2.0 is where we are today – security groups are constantly trying to catch up to new technologies (like wireless and smart phones and telework) that bring new vulnerabilities. Security is expensive (5-8 percent of the IT budget) and hard, but businesses are much more productive and creative being able to use IT for business advantage as compared to the restrictive mainframe days.

Security 3.0 is where we need to be – security that moves forward at the same pace as the business units while reducing the amount of the IT budget that is consumed for security.

It’s always interesting to hear how our clients are approaching moving forward in security. Some are trying to head back to Security 1.0 – get to a locked-down environment to reduce security vulnerabilities and cost. This may work for some enterprises but the drop in security costs will likely come with a bigger drop in business competitiveness. Others are so immersed in the day-to-day struggle of Security 2.0 that they are mostly looking to outsource the whole mess. The types of enterprises Gartner calls Type A (technologically aggressive) are actually focusing on the principles of Security 3.0: critical security processes, security engines vs. point products, and pushing quality requirements onto software vendors and business partners. Those enterprises will have the best business results over the short and long term.

Come to my Information Security Scenario presentation, “Moving to Security 3.0” Wednesday 15 November at 8:30 to hear more about Security 3.0, and consider your own approach.

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IT portfolio management presents clear benefits, but requires focused and committed implementation. While there are many steps to implementing portfolio management, to be successful in any organization — four core tasks must be done well.

First, the portfolio management process must be integrated into other IT and strategic planning processes, such as strategic mission or business planning, budget formulation and execution, and enterprise architecture management. Without this integration, overall process efficiencies will not occur; in fact, you could be introducing added complexity and confusion to IT investment decision making.

Second, portfolio categories and definitions need to be constructed. There are common practices, but there is no particular right or wrong way other than erring on the side of too much granularity. For example, infrastructure, applications (utility and business), new projects, and innovation/discovery could be chosen. As a general rule, similar investment types are often linked together in portfolios.

Third, there must be evaluative, discussion, and decisional processes to balance IT spending to be in line with business or mission priorities (which can change over time). Everything may appeared justified, but priorities, problems, or opportunities push for different funding levels.

Finally, effective governance structures and mechanisms — with explicit decisional roles and responsibilities and rights — must be established so that project, programs, and portfolios are managed in a synchronized and synergistic manner.

The relationship between Enterprise Architecture and IT portfolio management is particularly dependent on good governance practices in order to achieve potential synergies and ensure success. Enterprise Architecture and IT portfolio management should not be separate activities, yet few organizations have taken steps to integrate the governance processes with any significant degree of maturity. Enterprise architects seem to constantly struggle with getting nontechnology executives and business process owners to "live the plan" envisioned in the future-state architecture. Yet, with key process steps integrated, Enterprise Architecture and portfolio management can become strong allies and mitigate IT governance weaknesses. But the interface must be real and bring mutual benefits to both architects and portfolio managers. For example, portfolio selection and review meetings should include IT architects for the architecture compatibility component and to ensure that the future Enterprise Architecture state is being applied in projects. While the Enterprise Architecture team may have engaged business/program executives in designing the business architecture and reference models, it is the portfolio management process in which more constant, regular management activity occurs on IT projects. The "touch points" between Enterprise Architecture and portfolio management must be real and add value.

We will tackle these and related issues at the following Symposium sessions:

• Session 44E - Project Portfolio Management in Action


• Session 51E - Realising Enterprise Architecture: Implementing Governance Through an EA Assurance Process

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The organizational chart is becoming increasingly irrelevant as a definition of job identity and accountability. Traditional hierarchical structures with clear lines of authority, unity of command and discrete accountabilities simply don't adequately respond to today's unstable, unpredictable and "real-time" business environment. To whom you report is less relevant than whom you work with; which increasingly includes colleagues, partners and customers in the context of virtual workgroups and communities of practice. Your individual competencies, relationships and accountabilities mean more today than your job title or job description. Reporting relationships yield to workflow processes and interdependencies. You typically report to multiple bosses, team leaders or process owners, and you struggle with potential conflicts, ambiguity, blurred boundaries and multiple and competing objectives. Welcome to the new IT organization.

What do you think are the major trends that challenge traditional IT organisational structures and relationships?
What are the best practices for planning and implementing a fundamental change in the IT organisational structure? Send us your thoughts and further questions you might have.

There are a host of myths about organizational structure. Perhaps the greatest myth is the desire for organizational stability. Building a structure that is intentionally rigid and inflexible for the sake of stability, will thwart agility and lock in vital skills within functional silos. Another group of myths surrounds the issue of matrix structures. Avoiding a matrix for the sake of delineating lines of authority, minimizing ambiguity and avoiding organizational complexity may serve the need for clarity but stifle the benefits of cross-disciplined teams; multi-organizational workflows; and other structures that can adjust quickly to changing priorities, threats and opportunities.

Attend Colleen Young’s presentation on The New IT Organization: Principles for Organization, Work and Structure (link to http://agendabuilder.gartner.com/ps14/WebPages/SessionDetail.aspx?EventSessionId=865) on Tuesday November 14 at 1:15 p.m. to plan your future IT organization.

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Symposium/ITxpo delegates gain their most valuable interactions through discussions with their peers on similar issues. To facilitate this, all end-user attendees at Symposium/ITxpo are invited to register for an Analyst/User Roundtable Session. These 1-hour discussions are focused on a specific conference topic, moderated by a Gartner analyst, and are limited to ten (10) end-user attendees per session. The Roundtable sessions are a great forum for hearing what your industry peers are experiencing on topics and issues similar to yours.

Places are reserved on a first come, first serve basis. Don’t miss out, register before 7 November through Agenda Builder by using your gartner.com login and password or go to the One-on-One booking desk when you arrive onsite.

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Interestingly Computerworld recently reported on the importance of enterprise architecture to Queensland Government. The article states “Earlier this month the Premier tabled a service delivery and performance review to parliament which states the government needs to be more prudent with ICT investment and procurement.” The 163 page document recommended that the Government Enterprise Architecture (GEA) be used as the framework for making decisions that align with a service delivery vision.

The focus was stated as greater agency collaboration to work together on ICT projects but then went on to mention another issue – the slashing of IT spend between $41 million and $74 million annually through infrastructure, network and data centre consolidation.
Enterprise architecture is often used as a tool to manage shared services across a federated environment such as QLD government and as a tool to manage major consolidation and rationalization. Enterprise architecture has many disguises – collaboration in a federated environment and consolidation are just two – one of most important ones is the junction point for many diverse disciplines. On Tuesday at 11:15, I will discuss how to manage this coordination in At the Crossroads: IT Strategy, Enterprise Architecture, Business Process Management and Portfolio Planning. See you there!

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Of Special Interest To: BUSINESS PROCESSS IMPROVEMENT COMMUNITY
In his Overcoming the Five Major hurdles of BPM Adoption" presentation on Wednesday, November 15 at 14:15, Gartner Research Director Michael Melenovsky will quote some advice from Toyota that clients considering business process improvement (BPI) would do well to remember:

"We get brilliant results from average people managing brilliant processes. We observe that our competitors often get average (or worse) results from brilliant people managing broken processes."

So how do you create those brilliant processes? Melenovsky will offer five key barriers that organizations often encounter with BPM, and how to overcome them:

• The need for strategic alignment: Prioritize processes by linking them to the competitive landscape.


• Changing your corporate culture and providing leadership: Identify high-level executives and give them ownership of key processes.


• Changing people: Empower the employees who execute processes to take ownership of improving those processes.


• Establishing governance: Establish a governance system that can quickly resolve cross-functional difficulties.


• Creating new methods: Adopt a multilevel, iterative approach for continued process improvement.
  While you don't have to jump these hurdles to do your first or second BPM project, you must leap these to become process driven.

In addition Melenovsky will suggest that IT needs to adopt business process management suite (BPMS) tools to get quick process results in order to improve the chances that BPM can tackle these five long term challenges.

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“If you do not know where you are and you do not know where you are going, then any road can take you there,” said a famous cat in literature. The Gartner Security Managers Activity Cycle can give you a destination, but knowing where you are is also necessary. Assessing your current maturity level gives you that piece of the puzzle. When we talk with clients about security program maturity they want to know how to judge their own position. We've done assessments, so it seemed logical that we should be able to tell people how to do it. I’ll be presenting a session on the Information Security Maturity Model that gives us a pretty good start on that Tuesday, November 14 at 8:30 in Session 21A. See you there!

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Today's enterprise architecture isn't about lists of technology standards. It's about crafting the optimal constellation of business process, information and technology services to support the business strategy. It's about designing and managing interlocking portfolios of application, business and infrastructure services to maximize your technology investments while supporting the level of flexibility and agility that your organization requires. It's about developing an integrative, strategic planning discipline that will support effective enterprise change. Enterprise architects require a new set of skills and new types of knowledge. During Symposium/ITxpo, join me as we explore the challenges facing today's enterprise architects and the tools and techniques that you need to meet them.

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In just about every interaction I have with clients across the AP region, the issue of convergence and consolidation within the enterprise application and software infrastructure (or middleware) markets comes up. In fact, this is often the key topic of discussion. Concern usually centers around several questions:

1. How is this convergence evolving and which vendors are best positioned to gain from this inevitable market dynamic? Conversely, which vendors are most likely to lose?
2. What impact does this convergence have on key technology and product decisions I need to make?
3. Will convergence and consolidation greatly increase the likelihood of vendor lock-in and how can I mitigate the risk this could have on IT operations, in particular product and technology flexibility and any current or future support and pricing negotiations.

The best way to address these questions/concerns is to start with the basics outlined in the posting below. However, it’s also imperative to understand the dynamics within specific areas that comprise the overall application ecosystem. The middleware market provides a good example. Application Platform Suites provide the foundation for enterprise applications. The distinction between middleware and enterprise applications continues to blur, however. The clearest examples of this overlap are SAP with NetWeaver and Oracle with Oracle Fusion Middleware (OFM).

The reality is that the middleware market has matured beyond basic "plumbing" to become a core enabler of business process agility. As a result, senior IT and business executives must understand the major trends driving this market. Technology and market convergence around APSs will accelerate during the next three to five years, as IT organizations seek to rationalize their disparate middleware technology and their existing software stacks to better leverage current technology investments and available skills. At the same time, service-oriented architecture (SOA) disciplines and Web services standards are providing the foundation necessary for organizations to effectively leverage APSs to begin delivering composite applications that support more flexible business applications and functionality (this is, in turn, leading to some confusion over the very definition of Enterpise Applications).

Delegates should be aware of two sessions that specifically address this topic in far more detail:

Software Evolutions: Carrying Services Into a Future of Business Improvement – Daryl Plummer – ID: 27D
Application Ecosystems: Should Users Rely on Them for Innovation? – Denise Ganly – ID: 46D

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A sea change in processor design is leading to the use of more cores and threads in microprocessors as the primary vehicle for increasing performance in each generation. The Intel Core 2 Duo, IBM Power5 quad core, and Azul Systems Vega 24-core are examples of this sea change. These changes do more than simply deliver on the performance improvement expectations of “Moore’s Law”; they bring consequences – consequences that are poorly understood or very subtle today. Users of these new systems may experience some disruptions that will require deliberate action to adjust to these new realities.

Some of these consequences are already clear to the market, such as the impact on software licensing budgets of this explosion when vendors price their software licenses by the chip, socket, core, or thread. Others, among them the requirement to update or redesign software to turn latent capacity into real performance, and subtleties in how virtual machines will operate in a multi-threaded and multi-core world, are the hidden icebergs ahead. The session “The Future of Servers and Storage” will help attendees to navigate around these obstacles.

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Welcome to the Program and Portfolio Management Community. As "host" for this community, I look forward to meeting and getting to know many of you during Symposium week. This blog will serve to highlight some of the hot issues I hear from clients, and provide hints and feedback about maximising the value of your Symposium experience.

As the PMO becomes a widespread organisational approach, some IT organisations struggle with its role in IT governance. Your first question might be, "Which "P" do I focus on? PMOs stretch across projects, programs and portfolios. They can be permanent or temporary. They often take on business and IT joint initiatives. Enterprises can have zero, one, or several PMOs and be successful. There are some critical success factors that span all the styles, and others that are distinct, based on the scope of responsibility and general maturity of the organisation. In my Thursday, November 16 session at 1 p.m., Project Portfolio Management In Action , I will explore these issues -- based on an evolutionary model and recent research conducted Gartner's Executive Program team.

I was talking with a Gartner client about these issues just last week. They commented, "Rather than a evolutionary model of PPM, what I see in our organisation is a 'doughnut model'. We have quite a bit of focus at the program and portfolio level. But, the 'hole in the doughnut' is our lack of ability to actually deliver projects. No one wants to be the project manager. It's hard to be successful, and project managers get blamed when something goes wrong. As a government agency it's hard for us to pay competitive salaries to attract and retain good project managers. We employ some contractors as project managers, but often they don't really understand our business or have the influence that a project manager needs to have. I accept that program and portfolio management have to be built on a solid basis of project management competency -- but we can't afford to take years building up basic project management capabilities. We need project management AND program management AND portfolio management -- right now!"

It's a tough situation -- and one that you may face too, in your own organisation. This is the kind of problem that our PPM community has been created to address -- through blog entries, one-on-one discussions, community roundtables, etc. In complex situations, "two heads are better than one." I look forward to having you share your perspective, and how you may have dealt with this challenge.

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Please don’t say “a committee” or “a steering group.” And please don’t say “The Business” or “IT.” I want a name. I want somebody who has ownership, who is responsible. Responsible for what? Primarily – for the governance model. Because this is the device that is used to manage the application asset on behalf of all stakeholders. If there isn’t clear ownership of the governance model, there will not be a clear governance model. If there isn’t a clear governance model then each stakeholder will either develop their own view of the application management policies and strategies, or, more likely, abdicate responsibility for anything except whinging.

Now, each application needs a governance model. But application management policies and strategies cannot be developed and executed in isolation from each other. So there is a need to pull together a governance model for the portfolio of applications in a business. Applications Portfolio Management is a CIO issue. Making sure APM happens, understanding the conflicts and people demands and budget demands and coordinating between the applications portfolio and the underlying IT architecture and infrastructure services is essential for “joined up management” that CIOs need to ensure.

So – message to CIOs: institute a culture of application ownership and responsibility rooted in governance models. Integrate these initiatives into Applications Portfolio Management. And integrate that discipline into IT Architecture and IT Infrastructure to create a set of coherent management policies for IT and the business.

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As the percentage of the cost base spent with suppliers increases year on year, Procurement and Vendor Management are becoming more important in every business and public sector organization. But most managers outside the procurement discipline have a very rudimentary understanding of the changed nature of spend management. This means that these managers invest too little time in dealing with their internal representatives in spend management (the procurement team) and too little time developing strategic perspectives on their key suppliers. Procurement managers should encourage the guardians of Executive Management Training programs (normally corporate HR) to expand the training curriculum in order to offer more modules associated with Procurement and Vendor Management.

This will not be easy, primarily because the delivery organizations – typically business schools and the management departments of universities – are themselves under-invested in this area. The best that most business schools can offer is material around “Supply Chain Management” – fine if you are an automotive manufacturer, pretty useless if you are a bank or a government department. However, this is a “chicken and egg” situation. The business schools are not going to invest to develop the material unless they see demand. So procurement managers should work with their corporate HR to create this demand. For example, publish an RFI (Request for Information) and trawl business schools outside the “usual suspects” looking for good people with a planned curriculum. Incidentally, if any blog readers have positive experiences in this area we'd appreciate your comments.

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