Robert Eve

Achieving compelling value from information technology is critical because IT is typically an enterprise or government agency's largest capital expense. Increasing business complexities and technology choices create greater demands for justification when making IT investments. Cambridge, MA-based analyst firm Forrester Research recently reported that, "Business and government's purchases of computer and communication equipment, software, IT consulting, and integration services and IT outsourcing will decline by 3% on a global basis in 2009 when measured in U.S. dollars, then rise by 9% in 2010." With smaller budgets, IT must validate purchases by correlating tangible business and IT returns that align with corporate strategic objectives. This validation should come early in the acquisition process as well as after the implementation to demonstrate actual value and j... (more)

Hybrid Solutions for Data Virtualization and Enterprise Data Warehouses

Weblogic at Cloud Expo The intersection of data virtualization and enterprise data warehouses represents corporate best practices for delivering the rich data assets available in the enterprise data warehouse with the myriad sources of data now available outside the data warehouse. In Part Two of this two-part series, I will target improving data warehouse efficiency by showing four best practices where data virtualization, used alongside data warehouses, saves time and money. Part One examined ways that data virtualization improves data warehouse effectiveness. 4. Data Wareho... (more)

Data Virtualization + Search = Data Discovery

Charles Dickens’ classic novel, A Tale of Two Cities, begins, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.” When it comes to information to help business professionals make wise decisions, answer critical questions, and resolve significant problems, today truly is the best and worst of times. There is more data than ever to understand and improve corporate performance, and it’s growing by 30% a year, according to recent industry analyst estimates. In the midst of this data explosion, IT deli... (more)

Ten Mistakes to Avoid When Virtualizing Data

Data virtualization's ability to overcome hardware and software complexity provides enterprises with an excellent opportunity to improve IT agility and save significantly. As more enterprises seek these benefits, data virtualization is swiftly moving from new idea to the mainstream. This article looks at the 10 most common mistakes made by early adopters as object lessons for helping new implementations accelerate the potential achievement of data virtualization's benefits. Determining where and when to use data virtualization is the source of five common mistakes that may occur... (more)

A Maturity Model for Measuring Data Virtualization Platforms

Data virtualization has become a hot topic as enterprises and government agencies add this maturing technology to their data integration toolkits in pursuit of greater IT agility and lower costs. Rising key performance indicators (KPIs) for both demand and supply clearly tell this story.  With demand exploding fivefold[1], and ETL, ESB and BI vendors extending their existing data integration offerings and bringing new data virtualization wares to market, enterprises and government agencies are seeking a way to measure and compare the data virtualization platform offerings availa... (more)