Archie Hendryx

When you think Cloud, whether Private or Public, one of the key advantages that comes to mind is speed of deployment. All businesses crave the ability to simply go to a service portal, define their infrastructure requirements and immediately have a platform ready for their new application. Coupled with that you instantly have service level agreements that generally center on uptime and availability. So for example, instead of being a law firm that spends most of its budget on an in house IT department and datacenter, the Cloud provides an unavoidable opportunity for businesses to instead procure infrastructure as a service and consequently focus on delivering their key applications. But while the understanding of Cloud Computing and its benefits have matured within the industry, so too has the understanding that maybe what's currently being offered still isn't good ... (more)

The Pivotal Initiative – Aiming for the PaaS Crown

If you were to ask EMC or VMware whom they consider their major threat and competition you'd be easily forgiven for being mistaken to think it was NetApp, HP or offerings such as Hyper-V. With many terming us to now be in the third era of corporate computing, with mainframe and the client/server being the first two, the current cloud era has undoubtedly been spearheaded by the likes of Google, Amazon and Facebook. It is here where EMC and VMware face their biggest challenge of remaining relevant and cutting edge in a market that demands automation, simplicity and speed of deploym... (more)

IT Infrastructure Debate in the Sunday Telegraph Newspaper

I was recently asked to take part in a debate for the Sunday Telegraph newspaper on the subject of "How will IT infrastructure evolve?". In case you missed it, it's now available online at: http://biztechreport.co.uk/2013/03/the-debate-how-will-it-infrastructure-evolve/ ...and for your convenience below. N.B. I have no idea who that picture is of, he doesn't even have my white hair or glasses (-; The debate: How will IT infrastructure evolve?19 March 2013 I expect to see continued exponential growth in the use and emulation of internet data centres; the likes of Amazon, Rackspace, Mems... (more)

CIO Success in Three Steps

Of the many CIOs that I have had the pleasure to either work for or discuss with, one of the main concerns that constantly resonate is that of job longevity. When on average the job longevity for a CIO is between only 4-5 years and with trends showing that this is likely to shorten, it's no surprise that the role of a CIO requires instant success in minimal time and typically with minimal budget. Nearly every CEO's mandate to a CIO is for IT to be better, faster and cheaper. With this challenge the three steps to success for any CIO are plain and obvious. They are: Eliminate ri... (more)

SAP HANA’s Real Time Challenge to the Oracle Empire

When the character Maverick from the movie Top Gun exclaimed, "I feel the need, the need for speed", you'd be forgiven for mistaking it for a sound bite from a CIO discussing their transactional databases. Whether it's a financial organization predicting share prices, a bank knowing whether it can approve a loan or a marketing organisation reaching consumers with a compelling promotional offer, the need to access, store, process and analyze data as quickly as possible is an imperative for any business looking to gain a competitive edge. Hence when in 2011, SAP announced their new... (more)