IT governance is on the hot seat

^ click above ^

07.20.04

IT governance is on the hot seat
Before Allstate Insurance Co. formed a capital spending committee with IT governance responsibilities about 18 months ago, the process of prioritizing IT projects typically was decided by "whoever spoke the loudest or whoever had the biggest checkbook," said Chief Technology Officer Cathy Brune.

Now Brune and some top Allstate executives, including the chairman and CEO and the chief financial officer, collectively decide how to prioritize IT initiatives based on business needs. "They help me decide where to spend our money," Brune said, noting that the new approach to IT governance gives the business executives a better understanding of the IT spending process.
Read The Whole Article

Open Source, Open Questions
Open-source databases took a giant step toward the mainstream last month when Hewlett-Packard began supporting MySQL and certifying it to run on HP servers--the first major system vendor to do so.

HP's move adds to the growing evidence that open-source databases--primarily MySQL--are becoming a viable alternative to commercial databases from IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle. "It's no longer the lunatic fringe," says Gartner analyst Kevin Strange, who has seen a surge of interest in MySQL in the last six to eight months.
Read The Whole Article

IT and Business - Sharing the Spoils of ROI
Ensuring that resources are wisely used is at the heart of maximizing return on any business investment. In the case of IT, there is an ill-conceived notion that it warrants a unique approach to investment rationalization. The reality is that to consider IT investments in an objective manner, one must first recognize that technology is not the end but an all-important means of achieving productivity. Consequently, IT-related investment decisions must be considered in the context of the business purpose, and not by categorizing technology as a "thing" unto itself. The decision must recognize the importance of the following three principles:

The foundation of a successful return on investment (ROI) outcome is widespread agreement on the quantification process.
Read The Whole Article

Filtering IDS Packets
Anyone who has worked with an intrusion detection system knows that it can produce an enormous amount of data. For many network security analysts this vast ocean of packets flagged for further inspection quickly becomes an unruly beast to tame. How then to tame the beast?

The simplest and most efficient way to extract needed data from the ever-growing database logging these packets is to use a combination of Berkeley packet filters (bpf) and bitmask filters. Once you're familiar with their syntax and usage, filtering out specific data is easy. Instead of manually checking 200MB of packet data one packet at a time, you can tailor that down to the interesting 500KB. This represents enormous savings in time and trouble.
Read The Whole Article

Internet Commerce Reseller Program
-- $350 per live referred "Total Package" and many other high commission options to choose from. >> sign up now

Web Content Management: Still No Silver Bullet
When the World Wide Web hit the scene some eight years ago, many business leaders thought it interesting but didn't really know what to make of it, or what to do with it. By 2000, that had all changed and companies were lining up to get in on the Web site game.

The result was many companies purchased Web content management (WCM) systems without realizing what it was they were actually buying or for what purpose. And the result of that? Expensive, underutilized, "silver-bullet" solutions that really don't do what they were sold to do. At least that was the finding of a March 2003 report by JupiterResearch (which is owned by JupiterMedia, the parent company of this Web site).
Read The Whole Article

The art of successful offshore outsourcing
Even IT executives who have successfully outsourced parts of their companies' services abroad can tell you the road to profitable relations with offshore partners can be painfully bumpy. Just ask Group 1 Software Inc. Vice President of Postal Affairs Tim King, who was forced to pull the plug on two of the four offshore application development pilot projects he initiated in the past 12 months.

"Either, in the design phase, they just didn't get it, or the code they delivered was just not up to our standards," King says.
Read The Whole Article

Read this newsletter at: http://www.ctoupdate.com/2004/0720.html

Free Newsletters

Part of the iEntry Network
over 4 million subscribers

CTOupdate

DatabaseProNews

LinuxDeveloperNews

Send me relevant info on products and services.

WebmasterFree Downloads

From the Forum:

Weird DNS problem

For the last couple of days, on an irregular basis, the computers in my house on my network will not access one (just one) of my websites, including ftp and the control panel by the name itself (acornwebworks.com). However using the IP path (66.78.26.23) works just fine. ...

Read the Article

-- CTOUpdate is an iEntry, Inc. publication --
iEntry, Inc. 880 Corporate Drive, Lexington, KY 40503
2004 iEntry, Inc. All Rights Reserved Privacy Policy Legal

archives | advertising info | news headlines | free newsletters | comments/feedback | submit article