Emerging Trends in Software Infrastructure

Strategic Planning Assumptions: The RTI will be inevitable, rolling out in phases through 2010 (0.8 probability). Through 2006, corporate politics will prevent widespread adoption of production server infrastructure sharing (0.8 probability). Enterprises that do not leverage virtualization technologies will spend 25 percent more annually for hardware, software, labor and space for Intel servers, and 15 percent more on the same for reduced instruction set computer (RISC) servers, by 2008 (0.7 probability).

Action Recommendations for 2004

The principles of RTI -- standardization, virtualization, automation and maturing toward IT service management -- can and should be deployed for benefit today, in preparation for RTI. RTI will have a huge impact on the IT operations/infrastructure cost structure, quality of service and adaptability -- or the speed with which to respond to changing business requirements. Enterprises that do not evolve to RTI during the next 10 years will be uncompetitive (in price and service), will lose credibility with their customers and, thus, will risk survival. One impediment to RTI is resistance to resource sharing across business units. Even more problematic are corporate politics, which keep business units from sharing excess capacity with each other. Enterprises should prove resource sharing within business units or departments where less corporate politics are at play, prior to widespread deployment.

Prediction -- Service-oriented approaches will push application providers to crack open their monoliths and allow Web-services-based access to internal business processes. Service-oriented business applications will power competitive advantage by allowing new combinations of application functionality at new levels of granularity.

In 2004, broad enterprise deployment of service-oriented business applications (SOBAs) will begin. SOBAs will demonstrate the real-world benefits of service-oriented architectures (SOAs) and related services-oriented development of applications by vendors and end users developing their own composite applications. Business application vendors, including SAPSAP, Siebel Systems, PeopleSoft, OracleOracle and Microsoft, will support SOBAs through the transformation of established applications in SOA-oriented formats, including incorporation of Web services standards, such as Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL), and the introduction of new applications that make use of new dynamic business modeling techniques. SOBAs will include, but not be limited to, customer relationship management, supply chain management, enterprise resource planning and workplace applications, including emerging smart enterprise suites. SOBAs will power competitive advantage by breaking down walls separating dissimilar applications and information stores. The first benefits of composite SOBAs will be noticeable within six months of implementation by Type A enterprises (aggressive adopters of technology), yielding rapid return on investment within the first 12 months of investment. SOBAs will also allow enterprises to outsource and "partner source" business processes to other organizations using collaborative application formats formed through business process fusion. Alles zu Oracle auf CIO.de Alles zu SAP auf CIO.de

Strategic Planning Assumption: Enterprises that deploy SOBAs through 2008 will realize average process productivity gains of more than 20 percent, and cost savings of more than 15 percent, by fusing dissimilar applications and breaking down structured and nonstructured information silos (0.6 probability).