Data-center consolidation and modernization of IT systems helps enterprises reduce cost, cut labor, slash energy use, and become more agile. But to gain the benefits of these large and strategic infrastructure undertakings, the impact on the network beyond the firewall has to be considered. User expectations for performance and IT requirements for reliability need to be maintained, and even improved. Fewer data centers means longer distances between servers and users. Network services and Internet performance management therefore need to be brought considered to produce the desired effect of topnotch applications and data delivery to enterprises, consumers, partners, and employees at far lower cost. Here to help us better understand how to get the best of all worlds -- that is, high performance and lower total cost from data center consolidation -- we're joined by James Staten, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research; Andy Rubinson, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Akamai Technologies, and Tom Winston, Vice President of Global Technical Operations at Phase Forward, a provider of integrated data management solutions for clinical trials and drug safety. The panel is moderated by BriefingsDirect's Dana Gardner, principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: Akamai Technologies.
Direct download: BriefingsDirect-Data_Center_Consolidation_Trends_With_Akamai.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 3:54pm EDT

This podcast forms the second in the series of three to examine Application Transformation: Getting to the Bottom Line. A panel of experts discusses the rationale and likely returns of assessing the true role and character of legacy applications, and then assess the true paybacks from modernization. To gain the most return on modernization projects, many enterprises are separating "core from context" when it comes to legacy enterprise applications and their modernization processes. As enterprises seek to cut their total IT costs, they need to identify what legacy assets are working for them and carrying their own weight, and which ones are merely hitching a high-cost -- but largely unnecessary -- ride. A widening cost-in-productivity division exists between older, hand-coded software assets and replacement technologies on newer, more efficient standards-based systems. Somewhere in the mix, there are core legacy assets distinct from so-called contextal assets. There are peripheral legacy processes and tools that are costly vestiges of bygone architectures. There is legacy wheat and legacy chaff. With us to delve deeper into separating the two among legacy enterprise applications is Steve Woods, distinguished software engineer at HP, and Paul Evans, worldwide marketing lead on Applications Transformation at HP. The discussion is moderated by BriefingsDirect's Dana Gardner, principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: Hewlett-Packard. Register here to attend the Asia Pacific event on Nov. 3. Register here to attend the EMEA event on Nov. 4. Register here to attend the Americas event on Nov. 5.
Direct download: BriefingsDirect-Modernizing_Data_Center_Cores.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 2:08pm EDT

Welcome to the latest BriefingsDirect Analyst Insights Edition, Volume 45. This periodic discussion and dissection of IT infrastructure related news and events with industry analysts and guests, comes to you with the help of charter sponsor, Active Endpoints, maker of the ActiveVOS and visual orchestration system, and through the support of TIBCO Software. Our topic this week on BriefingsDirect Analyst Insights Edition centers on Dave Linthicum's new book, Cloud Computing and SOA Convergence in Your Enterprise: A Step-by-Step Guide. We're here with Linthicum to dig into the conflation of SOA and cloud computing. The discussion is moderated by BriefingsDirect's Dana Gardner, principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions. View a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsors: Active Endpoints and TIBCO Software.
Direct download: BriefingsDirect-Analyst_Insights_Vol_45.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 2:25pm EDT

This podcast is the first in the series of three to examine Application Transformation: Getting to the Bottom Line. We'll discuss the rationale and likely returns of assessing the true role and character of legacy applications, and then assess the true paybacks from modernization. The ongoing impact of the reset economy is putting more emphasis on lean IT -- of identifying and eliminating waste across the data-center landscape. The top candidates, on several levels, are the silo-architected legacy applications and the aging IT systems that support them. We'll also uncover a number of proven strategies on how to innovatively architect legacy applications for transformation and for improved technical, economic, and productivity outcomes. The podcasts coincidentally run in support of HP virtual conferences on the same subjects. Join Paul Evans, worldwide marketing lead on Applications Transformation at HP, and Luc Vogeleer, CTO for Application Modernization Practice in HP Enterprise Services, as we examine the how and why of transforming legacy enterprise applications. The discussion is moderated by BriefingsDirect's Dana Gardner, principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: Hewlett-Packard. Register here to attend the Asia Pacific event on Nov. 3. Register here to attend the EMEA event on Nov. 4. Register here to attend the Americas event on Nov. 5.
Direct download: BriefingsDirect-Application_Transformation_Case_Study.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:21pm EDT

This sponsored podcast discussion focuses on enterprise IT architects making a leap from virtualization to cloud computing. How should IT leaders scale virtualized environments so that they can be managed for elasticity payoffs? What should be taking place in virtualized environments now to get them ready for cloud efficiencies and capabilities later? And how do service-oriented architecture (SOA), governance, and adaptive infrastructure approaches relate to this progression or road map from tactical virtualization to powerful and strategic cloud computing outcomes? Here to help hammer out a typical road map for how to move from virtualization-enabled server, storage, and network utilization benefits to the larger class of cloud computing agility and efficiency, we are joined by two thought leaders from HP: Rebecca Lawson, director of Worldwide Cloud Marketing, and Bob Meyer, the worldwide virtualization lead in HP’s Technology Solutions Group. The discussion is moderated by BriefingsDirect's Dana Gardner, principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions. View a full transcript or download . a copy. Sponsor: Hewlett-Packard. Get a free copy of Cloud for Dummies courtesy of Hewlett-Packard at www.hp.com/go/cloudpodcastoffer.
Direct download: BriefingsDirect-Virtualization_in_Cloud.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 11:20am EDT

Today's sponsored podcast is an executive interview with software-as-a-service (SaaS) upstart Workday, a human capital management (HCM), financial management, payroll, worker spend management, and workday benefits network provider. We are here with Workday’s co-founder and co-CEO, Aneel Bhusri, who is responsible for the company’s overall strategy and day-to-day operations. Together we'll look at how Workday is raising the bar on employee life-cycle productivity by lowering IT support costs through the SaaS model. More than that, Workday is also demonstrating what many consider a roadmap to the future advantages in cloud computing. The interview is conducted by BriefingsDirect's Dana Gardner, principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions. Read a full transcript, or download a copy. Sponsor: Workday.
Direct download: BriefingsDirect-Workday_CEO_Aneel_Bhusri.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:08pm EDT

The popularity of the concepts around cloud computing have caught many IT departments off-guard. While business and financial leaders have become enamored of the expected economic and agility payoffs from cloud models, IT planners often lack structured plans or even a rudimentary roadmap of how to attain cloud benefits from their current IT environment. New market data gathered from recent HP workshops on early cloud adoption and data center transformation shows a wide and deep gulf between the desire to leverage cloud method and the ability to dependably deliver or consume cloud-based services. So, how do those tasked with a cloud strategy proceed? How do they exercise caution and risk reduction, while also showing swift progress toward an "Everything as a Service" world? How do they pick and choose among a burgeoning variety of sourcing options for IT and business services and accurately identify the ones that make the most sense, and which adhere to existing performance, governance and security guidelines? It's an awful lot to digest. As one recent HP cloud workshop attendee said, “We're interested in knowing how to build, structure, and document a cloud services portfolio with actual service definitions and specifications.” Here to help better understand how to properly develop a roadmap to cloud computing adoption in the enterprise, we're joined by three experts from HP: Ewald Comhaire, global practice manager of Data Center Transformation at HP Technology Services; Ken Hamilton, worldwide director for Cloud Computing Portfolio in the HP Technology Services Division, and Ian Jagger, worldwide marketing manager for Data Center Services at HP. View a full transcript of the discussion, or download a copy. Sponsor: Hewlett-Packard.
Direct download: BriefingsDirect-Cloud_Roadmap.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 2:51pm EDT

Most enterprise networks are the result of a patchwork effect of bringing in equipment as needed over the years to fight the fire of the day, with little emphasis on strategy and the anticipation of future requirements. That's why it's necessary to reevaluate network architectures in light of newer and evolving demands, and overall moves to next-generation data centers. Nowadays, we see that network requirements have, and are, shifting, as IT departments adopt improvements such as virtualization, software as a service (SaaS), cloud computing, and service-oriented architecture (SOA). The network loads and demands continue to shift under the weight of Web-facing applications and services, security and regulatory compliance, governance, ever-greater data sets, and global-area service distribution and related performance management. It doesn't make sense to embark upon a data-center transformation journey without a strong emphasis on network transformation as well. Indeed, the two ought to be brought together, converging to an increasing degree over time. This sponsored podcast discussion brings together three thought leaders at HP on network transformation to help explain the evolving role of network transformation and to rationalize the strategic approach to planning and specifying present and future enterprise networks. They are Lin Nease, director of Emerging Technologies, HP ProCurve; John Bennett, worldwide director, Data Center Transformation Solutions, and Mike Thessen, practice principal, Network Infrastructure Solutions Practice in the HP Network Solutions Group. The podcast is moderated by BriefingsDirect's Dana Gardner, principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions. View a full transcript, or download a transcript. Sponsor: HP.
Direct download: BriefingsDirect-The_Power_of_Network_Transformation.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 5:05pm EDT

The latest BriefingsDirect podcast discussion targets significantly reducing energy consumption across data centers. Producing meaningful, long-term energy savings in IT operations depends on a strategic planning and execution process. The goal is to seek out long-term gains from prudent, short-term investments, whenever possible. It makes little sense to invest piecemeal in areas that offer poor returns, when a careful cost-benefit analysis for each specific enterprise can identify the true wellsprings of IT energy conservation. In this discussion, we examine four major areas that result in the most energy policy bang for the buck -- virtualization, application modernization, data-center infrastructure best practices, and properly planning and building out new data-center facilities. By focusing on these major areas, but with a strict appreciation of the current and preceding IT patterns and specific requirements for each data center, real energy savings -- and productivity gains -- are in the offing. To help learn more about significantly reducing energy consumption across data centers, we are joined by two experts from HP: John Bennett, worldwide director, Data Center Transformation Solutions , and Ian Jagger, worldwide marketing manager for Data Center Services. The discussion is moderated by BriefingsDirect's Dana Gardner, principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions. View a full transcript or download a transcript. Sponsor: HP.
Direct download: BriefingsDirect-Energy_Conservation_for_IT.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 8:35pm EDT

This sponsored podcast discussion centers on making the most of web data services for business intelligence (BI). As enterprises seek to gain better insights into their markets, processes, and business development opportunities, they face a daunting challenge -- how to identify, gather, cleanse, and manage all of the relevant data and content being generated across the Web. In Part 1 of our series we discussed how external data has grown in both volume and importance across internal Internet, social networks, portals, and applications in recent years. As the recession forces the need to identify and evaluate new revenue sources, businesses need to capture such web data services for their BI to work better and fuller. Enterprises need to know what's going on and what's being said about their markets across those markets. They need to share those web data service inferences quickly and easily across their internal users. The more relevant and useful content that enters into BI tools, the more powerful the BI outcomes -- especially as we look outside the enterprise for fast shifting trends and business opportunities. In this podcast, Part 2 of the series with Kapow Technologies, we identify how BI and web data services come together, and explore such additional subjects as text analytics and cloud computing. So, how to get started and how to affordably bring web data services to BI and business consumers as intelligence and insights? Here to help us explain the benefits of web data services and BI, is Jim Kobielus, senior analyst at Forrester Research, and Stefan Andreasen, co-founder and chief technology officer at Kapow Technologies. The discussion is moderated by BriefingsDirect's Dana Gardner, principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions. View a full transcript, or download the transcript. Sponsor: Kapow Technologies.
Direct download: BriefingsDirect-Kapow_on_Web_Data_Services.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 3:57pm EDT

Welcome to a podcast discussion on how to make the most of cloud computing for innovative solving of industry-level problems. As enterprises seek to exploit cloud computing, business leaders are focused on new productivity benefits. Yet, the IT folks need to focus on the technology in order to propel those business solutions forward. As enterprises confront cloud computing, they want to know what's going to enable new and potentially revolutionary business outcomes. How will business process innovation -- necessitated by the reset economy -- gain from using cloud-based services, models, and solutions? Early examples of applying cloud to industry challenges, such as the recent GS1 Canada Food Recall Initiative, show that doing things in new ways can have huge payoffs. We'll learn here about the HP Cloud Product Recall Platform that provides the underlying infrastructure for the GS1 Canada food recall solution, and we will dig deeper into what cloud computing means for companies in the manufacturing and distribution industries and the "new era" of Moore's Law. Here to help explain the benefits of cloud computing and vertical business transformation, we're joined by Mick Keyes, senior architect in the HP Chief Technology Office; Rebecca Lawson, director of Worldwide Cloud Marketing at HP, and Chris Coughlan, director of HP's Track and Trace Cloud Competency Center. The dicussion is koderated by Dana Gardner, principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions. View a full transcript or download the transcript. Sponsor: Hewlett-Packard.
Direct download: BriefingsDirect-Recall_Process_for_Cloud.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 3:44pm EDT