IT Lessons To Learn From Toyota’s Missteps

This article from Smarter Technology crystallizes three major lessons that IT leaders can learn from Toyota’s mistakes:

Standardization demands caution.

A good innovation, to be sure, but one that needs to be reexamined periodically to ensure that it does not need tweaking and refining.

Rush software and systems testing at your own peril.

Just because slipshod testing usually produces good enough results does not mean it is an effective system.

Don’t hide problems.

In the words of the article’s author, Joe Maglitta:

“It’s against human-survival nature and culture, corporate or national. But as any kid or governor can tell you, the whuppin’ is even worse if you get caught lying later on. Honesty is not just for CEOs and sellers of poisoned painkillers. Fessing up early isn’t fun, but it hurts less in the long run.”

Amen – true for both the IT world and for life outside of it.

Video: Manage Your Data Center From Your iPhone

OK very cool - The virtual I/O vendor Xsigo recently introduced an iPhone application which enables you to remotely alter an existing implementation, billed as a data center in the palm of your hand (video and more info here).

The glaring omission of any mention of security is a bit worrying. Should potential breaches be a concern?

Obama’s Plan to Update IT in the Government Sector

That there is a lag between technological advances and government adoption is old news. What is different now is that Obama is willing to listen and to make changes, inspiring hope that there will be significant strides in IT for government (full article here). According to the article:

“Modernizing the federal IT infrastructure and learning from the best practices used in the private sector has been a common refrain of prior administrations, but this time federal officials say it will be different -- the problem is getting the direct attention of the president. And, they add, government IT projects are becoming more visible to the public via efforts like the federal IT dashboard that tracks projects.”

The short list of those included in a meeting at the White House to help Obama with ideas for how to update federal IT systems include:

Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft
Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive officer of Adobe Systems Inc.
Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist
Chris R. Hughes, co-founder of Facebook
Ronald Sargent, CEO of Staples Inc.

Having Vivek Kundra as the first federal CIO also sends a strong message that this administration is serious about closing the technology gap between the public and private sectors. Obama’s image of the children of federal employees having better technology in their backpacks than their parents have at work is a striking one, underlining the urgent need implementation of updated technology for federal offices.

Will Obama follow through? Will the next few years bring substantive changes in the world of federal IT?

The Data Center in 2010

It’s still early enough in the year to get those last minute predictions in. What to Expect in 2010, by Mission Critical’s Kevin Heslin, covers the gamut in terms of what is coming up this year in the data center space. While most of his predictions are safe bets, there are a few riskier propositions that will be fun to follow. Have to respect someone who is not scared to put it out there, especially knowing the potential risk of public ridicule at the end of the year in the event of serious error. Funky choice going with nine predictions instead of the oh-so- expected ten…

What made the list?

1. More government involvement in the data center space (think this prediction is already coming true – see Uncle Sam Distributing Energy Goodies)

2. End users will try new ways to beat high energy bills, to ensure compliance, and to simplify their data centers. See how this trend is playing out in Taking Control of Your Data Center: New Approaches to Reduce Energy and Improve Efficiency.

3. The role of water will gain new prominence in the data center world.

4. Because IT and facilities personnel just cannot get along, enterprise problems like poor designs, security breaches and network issues will rear their ugly heads.

5. Outages and more outages. Smart Grid anyone?

6. Data center specific LEED certification

7. The proliferation of infrastructure products

8. Increased popularity of performance-based testing for data center systems

9. PUE will be a thing of the past, replaced by a more comprehensive metric

On a more general note, Reuters addressed the issue of how current expectations match up to the rate of technological advancements (full article here). Interestingly, despite all the technological advances recent years have seen, those pesky 18 to 30 year old boys/men want more toys more quickly.

Some people find technology is moving too quickly – this video from SNL’s Seth Myers takes a wry look at the downside of technological advances.

Goodbye to 2009, From an IT Perspective

Just when you thought 2009 was so over…a last lingering look at memorable IT moments that can inform decisions and directions in 2010:

These top five IT leadership blogs of 2009 span the range from entertaining (20 cynical project management tips) to advice (10 great ideas from five great bosses) – no wonder they made the list.

The Top 15 Tech Events of the Decade will make you smile with recognition at trends past and present. Despite the proliferation of social media, “unfriend” is 2009’s word of the year. Remember the terror that accompanied the deadly phrase “Y2K?” Read them all and see if you agree that these are the top 15.

Even the New York Times got into the act, with an article about how to make science and technology “cooler” so that promising students will be drawn to the field. C’mon, won’t you miss those bottleneck glasses and shirts buttoned all the way to the collar? How will we recognize the computer geeks if they walk among us in disguise?

Everybody enjoys watching someone else admit they were wrong. Enjoy a recap of 2009's most notable IT apologies, which includes a critique of the quality of the apologies. For example: using Twitter to apologize for an application which offered guys advice how to pick up women? Really? Pepsi’s half hearted mea culpa only earned a rating of one, while Google’s apology for its Gmail outage garnered a respectable 8.5.

The Year That Was: Data Centers in 2009

Check out The top 10 data center stories of 2009.

Lots on environmental monitoring – ASHRAE’s raise of recommended inlet air temperature for servers made the list, as did the growing popularity of hot-aisle/cold aisle containment. Some business deals like Oracle’s acquisition of Sun, and some related economic news such as reduced budgets for data centers. Chock full of links so you can find out more about whatever catches your fancy.

Recipe For Data Center Success Over the Holidays

Brick and mortar storeowners may be hearing their voices echo, but online traffic remains steady as people shop and spend, with sales up 14% from last year’s Cyber Monday (full story from CIO.com here).

According to the article:

“The trend highlights the importance of keeping the data centers powering e-commerce sites and online traffic running smoothly, says Dan Blum, principal analyst for the Burton Group.
‘Availability is crucial,’ he says. ‘Without availability, you are going to lose traffic; you are going to lose business.’ "

Good point, as every crash translates directly into lost business opportunities. The article goes on to mention a number of ways businesses can prepare for the holiday onslaught. Surprisingly, remote access did not make an appearance – given that it is a fast way to access servers at the BIOS level from any place at any time, you would think it would be offered as one way of keeping data centers up and running 24/7.

More Gloom and Doom From Gartner on Upcoming Data Center Challenges

OK OK we get it – there are tough times ahead for IT leaders. Statistics like the projected 650 percent growth in enterprise data over the next five years do cause one to pause (full article here).

The ten key issues that David Cappuccio, Gartner analyst, identified as necessary for IT managers to examine are:


Virtualization
The data deluge
Energy and green IT
Complex resource tracking
Consumerization of IT and social software
Unified communications
Mobile and wireless
System density
Mashups and portals
Cloud computing

Why does social networking get such a bad rap? The article states:

“Social networks are coming into the enterprise whether CIOs want them to or not, Cappuccio said. Twitter use grew an amazing 1,382 percent in 2008 and the majority of new users were between the ages of 39 and 51, he said.

‘It is a growing phenomenon which we can't shut down,’ he said. Employees and customers are using wikis, blogs, Facebook and Twitter and ‘it's affecting you now whether you know it or not.’ Businesses need to examine Web-based social software platforms because they are transforming interactions with both customers and employees, he said.”

Seems more negative than the situation warrants – how can you explain the concern about social networking, a potentially positive development?

IT quizzes for midmarket CIOs

Thought you had put school behind you forever? Not so fast.

If you embrace the challenge of testing your IT knowledge, these quizzes are for you.

Have no fear – results will not be published online, making you the laughingstock of the industry. Use these quizzes as an indication of your areas of expertise and of where you could use some help.

11 Rules for IT Delivery Success

Kudos to the author, Thomas Hoffman, for not rounding up or down, but sticking to the number eleven.

His short, concise list of 11 Rules for IT Delivery Success are somewhat general. However, if applied consistently and thoroughly, these rules can be good guidelines for what needs to happen when new systems are introduced or old systems are upgraded.

The somewhat general nature of the rules can also be explained by the following bit of background:

“Because developers, operations staffers and engineers all work in different groups, ‘you need to have a way to establish parameters that everybody can work off of and understand what their expectations are,’ says Martin Gomberg [Senior Vice President and CIO, A&E Television Networks]. ‘We use this as a lens to measure every critical component.’ "

How close is this list to the one hanging on your wall?

Quick Tips and Checklists for Common IT Tasks

TechRepublic was kind enough to consolidate their quick tips and checklists for common admin tasks.

Some topics include:

10-point cleaning checklist for keeping equipment health
Office relocation check list
Windows laptop specifications check list
The TechRepublic Spyware Removal Checklist potential for security breaches
10 cool things you can do with a USB flash drive

Are these checklists useful for you?

What other kind of checklist would you like to see?

Five Strategies for Building Your 2010 Data Center

In light of data center design being listed as one of Gartner’s Top 10 Technologies to Consider for 2010, it seemed appropriate to mention this article on Data Center Journal about Five Strategies for Building Your 2010 Data Center.

No news flashes here, but a nice succinct recap of five strategies that you probably use already:

1. Assess your assets
2. Try to leverage what you already have
3. Prioritize projects that will improve efficiencies and help save you money in the long run
4. Consider outsourcing certain mission-critical applications to realize additional cost savings
5. Don’t trade long-term risk for short-term savings

What would add or subtract from this list?

Slideshow: Gartner’s Top 10 Technologies to Consider for 2010

Hard to resist the allure of the Top 10 lists that are cropping up daily as the end of the year approaches. This slideshow, which lists Gartner’s Top 10 Technologies to Consider for 2010, features all the favorites you would expect (i.e. cloud computing and mobile applications), with some dark horses thrown in for good measure.

For example, the approach to data center design is interesting. Instead of figuring out data center needs for the next 20 years and building, they advocate a modular approach, only looking five years ahead and doing additional building as necessary.

Not sure why data center design on the list – it isn’t really a technology but it is affected by technology.

There are also some reruns from years past (social computing) and some technologies with a specific twist (virtualization for ability).