SOA Newsletter
 
NEWSLETTERS
 

CIO.com updates, insights and advice on technology, management and your career.

 
 
 
LEADERSHIP
 
CIO Executive Programs
The Leader in Face-to-Face Education for Senior Executives

Offering regional and national programs, CIO (and CSO) events bring together some of the most respected names and thought leaders in information technology and security. Presented by CIOs and other senior level executives, these invitation-only programs offer timely topics and strong networking. Learn More »

 
CIO Executive Council
A Peer-Advisory Service and Professional Association for CIOs

Mid-Market CIO Panel: Tips and Techniques for Improving Vendor Relationships

July 15, 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM U.S./Eastern (GMT-4)

We'll highlight relationship priorities and best practices identified in a Council study, and we'll interact with a CIO panel on the approaches they've used to improve strategic vendor partnerships.

Secrets of Successful Vendor Contract Negotiations for the Mid-Market

Sept. 10, 2009, 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM U.S./Eastern (GMT-4)

On this free public Council teleconference, Matthew A. Karlyn, attorney at Foley & Lardner in Boston, will share tips on negotiating tactics and new, creative contract terms to help mid-market CIOs make better deals.

Executive Competencies Assessment Tool

Assess Your Business Leadership Skills with the Council's new benchmarking tool. Rate yourself in change leadership, strategy, customer focus and more.

More / Register »

Learn more about the CIO Executive Council »



 
 
RESOURCE CENTER
 
 
 
SUBSCRIBE TO CIO
 
Are you involved in setting the direction for your company's IT budget or strategy?

Apply today for a FREE subscription to CIO Magazine!

 
 
 

Enterprise Architecture: Starting Within IT

Enterprisewide architectural transformation should begin within IT.

 

December 01, 2006CIO

Starting your forays into more mature architectural stages within the IT department itself lets you test approaches to make sure they work and reduces the chances that a botched effort in a business unit could kill further evolution, says Jim McGrane, former CIO of MeadWestvaco. Such inside-IT efforts also give CIOs the proof of concept you need to gain business buy-in. Plus, starting within IT disarms the common complaint that "CIOs like to change everyone else’s processes but their own," he says.

Merck is also taking this tack, says Joe Solfaro, executive director of information management. "We’re going to work our way from the inside out," he says. At Merck, IT is using an integration platform to unify the messaging architecture at the company, which at first seemed to be a very IT-focused efficiency gain. But the effort is forcing IT to change its own internal operations and provides a natural interface with the business. "Layering information into a single bus gives us access to information that we know the business will want, such as process management, and it gives us more visibility into business processes," Solfaro says.

Approaches such as the Capability Maturity Model for Integration (CMMI) and IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) are good process methods to help IT transition to Stage 3, note both McGrane and Solfaro. (For ITIL best practices, see "ITIL Power.") "They help focus the organization on a process basis, and they force you to determine the value of services and to run like a business," McGrane says.

Other stories by Galen Gruman © 2008 CXO Media Inc.
 
 
Loading...
 
WHITE PAPERS

Modernizing Legacy Systems to a Service-Oriented Architecture

This free white paper reveals how to eliminate the risks of mainframe dependence by unlocking data and business logic trapped in legacy systems and making these services 'first-class' SOA citizens.
 

A Solid Foundation for Service-Oriented Architecture

Learn how to speed development, build better interfaces, and enable service sharing.
 

Data Grids and SOA

How modern in-memory data grid technologies can improve data availability, performance and scalability.
 

Improve Agility with Operational Responsiveness

Operational Responsiveness is the ability of business processes and systems to respond to changing conditions and e...
 

Data Grids and SOA

A data grid infrastructure, built with clustered caching, can help you avoid "weak link" vulnerabilities that can sabotage SOA strategies.
 

A Middleware Foundation for Application Grid

This white paper shows that Oracle WebLogic Suite packages many essential middleware capabilities to help organizations implement application grid concepts.
 

WEBCASTS

Managing Client Systems in the Enterprise

Keeping client systems costs under control is just one of the many initiatives IT must address when trying to manag...
 

IT Consolidation Made Easy

The Primary IT Initiative for Reducing Costs
 

Webcast with Dan Vesset: Investing in Business Analytics Technology

What exactly is business analytics and why should you care? Dan Vesset of IDC and Gaurav Verma of SAS answer this a...
 

Capitalize on Your SAP Content

After 18 years of partnership and over 3,000 successful customer deployments, Open Text has become SAP's premier pa...
 

Enterprise Cloud Computing: Ready for Primetime?

The progression toward enterprise cloud computing is happening today, as industry leaders deploy technologies that ...
 

Preparing Your Business Services for the Future

Would you trust your network monitoring tools enough to know when something is truly halting a business service? Wh...
 

Resource Alerts

Get instant email notifications by topic when white papers, webcasts, and case studies are added to our library.

 
FEATURED SPONSORS
 
 
 
SPONSORED LINKS
 

Application Infrastructure at Enterprise Organizations

64-page prescriptive guide to security, compliance, and IT operations.

Get Google Enterprise Search for your business information.

Accenture IT Consulting: Enabling high performance. More...

Top Five CIO Challenges

Insight makes it easy to spend your Microsoft subsidy check.

Five minute business analytics assessment. Immediate results.

Dangerous Collaboration Practices: 5 Ways IT Can Minimize Risk

Accenture: Outsourcing for uncertain times. Click to learn more.

Keep online transactions fast with CA Wily APM

Get agile IT security with CA Security Management

Trade in your old laser printer and get up to $1000 back!

Taking the Service Desk to the Next Level

Revolutionizing Enterprise Application Deployment

Why Data Loss is Increasing--and What You Can Do About It

Data Loss Prevention: A Better Way to Approach Security

Learn how to managing client systems in the enterprise.

Build a High-Performance Open Web Platform

Mid-Sized Company CIO Community: infoBOOM!

Enterprise PBX Comparison Guide

Getting Value from Outdated Networking Equipment

Top-line Performance that's Bottom-line Efficient

White Paper: 8 Key Ingredients to Building an Internal Cloud

Read about virtualization and consolidation effort best practices

Building the Virtualized Enterprise with VMware Infrastructure

Reduce risk, gain agility. See how Progress can help your business.

Improve ROI, lower TCO and reduce energy consumption.

Introducing the new HP ProLiant G6 server family

Accenture: Outsourcing for Competitive Advantage. More...

Better spam protection with Postini for just $1/user/mo

Introducing the new HP ProLiant G6 server family

infoBOOM! - The Mid-Sized Company CIO's Exclusive Community

Accenture IT Consulting: Logical meets technological. More . . .

The Fraudster Economy Model: Operating a Business in the Underground

Payback in 9 months with CA Spectrum solutions

The Case for Investing in Business Analytics Technology. Read white paper.

Live Webinar: Applying Business Analytics. Click here to learn more

Seven Ways ITIL Can Help You in an Economic Downturn

Developing A Dynamic, Real-Time IT Infrastructure

Maximizing the Business Value of the PC Infrastructure

Communications and Collaboration Needs at Business Organizations

Using Open Source to Deploy Web Applications

Cloud Computing: Read about VMware's compelling vision & set of products

Enterprise PBX Buyer's Guide

Secondary Market Primer: Your Network at Half Price

How Interactive Viewer Reduces the Effort to Meet Visualization Requirements

Stop Application Fraud at the Source with Device Reputation

Learn about the VMware vSphere (TM) & Intel (R) Xeon (R) Processor 5500 Series

Learn how a virtualized enterprise can help your company reduce costs

Why Isn't Server Virtualization Saving Us More?