the future of enterprise information technology

8/6/2019 The Future of Enterprise Information Technology

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The Future of Enterprise IT, Special Edition for GEOINTOctober 2009

Published by Crucial Point LLC

Copyright 2009http://crucialpointllc.com

Suite 500, 1818 Library Street, Reston VA 20190

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmit-

ted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,

scanning or otherwise except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976

United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the publisher.


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Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................ 4

THE MEGA TRENDS IN IT................................................................................................ 5 ConvergenceandTrendTowardsUniedUserEmpowerment...............................5

Globalization, Demographic Shifts, and Increasing Internationalization ofIT and Demographic Shifts...................................................................................... 6Increasing Open Development of Software and Hardware...................................... 6Cloud Computing..................................................................................................... 7Increasing Pace of Technology Development and Probability of Disruption............ 7

THE DISCIPLINES OF ENTERPRISE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND

MARKET LEADERS.......................................................................................................... 8Storage.................................................................................................................... 8Communications...................................................................................................... 9Search and Discovery.............................................................................................. 9Applications.............................................................................................................. 10Virtualization.............................................................................................................11Open Source............................................................................................................ 12

Security Technologies.............................................................................................. 12Collaboration Technology......................................................................................... 13Web2.0 and Social Media........................................................................................ 13GEOINT Tools.......................................................................................................... 14Visualization............................................................................................................. 15Cloud Computing..................................................................................................... 15Green IT................................................................................................................... 17Summary.................................................................................................................. 18

DRAWING LESSONS FROM THE FUTURE OF IT........................................................... 19Concluding Thoughts............................................................................................... 21


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The Future of Enterprise ITFrom Mega Trends to Off the Shelf Technologies

Introduction

This report on the future of enterprise technology was produced with the Geospatial enterprise and National Geospatial

Intelligence Agency (NGA) in mind. Geospatial Intelligence places many unique demands on information technology,

including requirements for increased processing power, increased storage, new means of indexing data and increased

functionalityincommunicationsnetworks.Fortunately,developmentsinthoseandmanyothereldsofITarecoming

fast and can help address key GEOINT community challenges. A new challenge is arising, however. How can we know

which of todays problems are nearly solved and which remain intractable? And how can we know what is immediately

available to address outstanding mission needs? One answer: focused thought and assessments on the future of enter-

prise IT.

Focused thought on the future of technology can provide real insights of use to planners and decision-makers of today.

ViewsofthefuturecanhelpusersexpressrequirementswithmoreclarityandcanhelpChiefTechnologyOfcers(CTOs)

andChiefInformationOfcers(CIOs)decidewhichtechnologiestoacceleratetomeetthoserequirements.Whetheryou

are a user or a technologist, studying the future of IT can help you decide which constructs to accelerate into todays reality.

This report uses two models of predicting the near term future:

1) Tracking mega-trends in the IT industry.

2)DeningthedisciplinesofEnterpriseInformationTechnologyandhighlightingmarketleaders.

Using these models, we are able to present forward-looking reccomendations to use in planning the IT systems of today.

The material here is largely from the online resources of CTOvision.com. The blog and reference pages there are reviewed

and commented on by a wide swath of technologists including CTOs from the IT community, systems integrators and large

enterprises. Please consider using the blog there to provide feedback and input for future iterations.

This booklet has applicability for any large organization, but was written with the technology needs of the Geospatial en-

terprise in mind.


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The Mega Trends in IT

A mega trend is a movement so big it cannot be avoided.

Ignoring it will only ensure the trend acts on you vice giv-

ing you a chance to proactively shape it. These are expres-

sions of major driving forces that move globally and impact

wide swaths of humanity.

Thevemegatrendsexploredhereare:

Convergenceandtrendtowardsuniedcommunica-

tions and user empowerment

Globalization and increasing internationalization of

IT and demographic shifts

Increasingopendevelopmentofsoftwareandhard-

ware

CloudComputing

Increasing pace of technology development and

probability of disruption

Convergence and Trend Towards Unied

User EmpowermentEnterprise CIOs and CTOs remain key players in the IT

ecosystem. But, the IT industry has been shifting to support

an increasingly important player -- the individual. The com-

mercialization and commoditization of IT, paired with the

ubiquity of computing devices, has caused a shift in IT de-

veloper focus towards the individual consumer. This trend

can both compete with and enable enterprises.

The competition comes from the pull on developers focus

and time. Increasingly the limited pool of computer engi-

neers is being pulled towards coding for Facebook, Linke-

dIn, Twitter, the iPhone and consumer focused cloud ser-

vices providers (like Google and Amazon). The enablement

comes from enterprises with incredibly competent/capable

workforces skilled in technology, plus access to increas-

ingly powerful devices and cloud capabilities that can be

leveraged by the enterprise for their mission. Consumer de-

mand continues to fuel advances in communications and

networking capability, which ends up supporting enterprise

buyers by reducing cost and enhancing capabilities. And

consumer demands on IT are also a key driver in emerging

Cloud Computing trends (a mega trend so critically impor-

tant we discuss it separately as its own wave).

Enterprises are also increasingly being enabled by the

social media/social networking dimensions of this shift to

users. Social media and its ability to bring mass collabora-

tiontoproblemshasshownbenetsinwaysthatisfueling

increasing consumer demand and that should ensure con-

tinued advancement of social media tools. Enterprises are

also bringing social media to bear on problems, both inside

andoutsideoftheirrewalls.

Globalization, Demographic Shifts, and

Increasing Internationalization of IT

The CTOvision.com Technology Titan List covers the 16

largestITrms(Microsoft,Apple,IBM,Google,Cisco,In-

tel, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Qualcom, SAP, EMC, Dell,

Yahoo, Adobe, Vmware, Symantec). These powerhousecompanies all have a market capitalization of over $16 Bil-

lion. A review of the list highlights an incredible fact:

These are all, with the exception of one case (SAP), Ameri-

can companies. This chart shows that U.S. companies con-

duct the majority of commercial IT engineering and develop-

ment for big enterprises. This is good news for the country.

An important fact to highlight, however, is that these compa-

nies all work globally and have development and research

labs around the world. Just because a U.S. company iseldingyourcapabilitiesdoesnotmeanthecapabilitywas

developed in the U.S. In fact, odds are it was not

Withallwesternnationsforecasttoseeasignicantgraying

of the workforce and pending mass retirement, additional

dynamicsareatplayinthismegatrend.Japanistherst

nationtofeelasignicantimpactformtherealityofaretiring


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workforce. This graying of the workforce is affecting every

U.S. ally, fueling the global competition for IT talent.

This trend underscores the critical importance of strategicplanning, both for companies and countries. Coordination,

communication and collaboration are critically important ac-

tivities. And knowledge capture capabilities, many of which

may be IT based, will be of growing importance around the

globe.

Increasing Open Development of Software

and Hardware

Open source software started with hobbyists. It has now

been embraced by all major IT companies, even the largest

proprietary shops (like Microsoft) have open source soft-

ware strategies and activities. And all major enterprises are

using open source software to some degree.

The reasons for this are many. One is the large number of

developers supporting this community. Another is the abil-

ity to review code and make it better. Another is the ability

to save money on licensing fees (in general, open source

software support requires license or support contracts, and

big enterprises still spend money on this, just less than on

proprietary software).

The smart use of open source by big enterprises is havingan impact on many other elements of the environment. For

example, enterprises have increasing needs for in-house

programming talent, in part because of the need to under-

stand open source. There is also a drive towards communi-

ty engagement with open source software, with more large

enterprises spending time and energy to engage with open

source software development collectives.

Cloud Computing

The term Cloud Computing is used two different ways in the

IT community. To most users, cloud computing is any capa-

bility delivered over the network. If it is not local computing

it is from the cloud. To these users, almost all enterprise IT

is cloud computing. Technologists and enterprise architects

use the term in a different way. To them, cloud computing

implies new ways of providing capability on demand by use

of virtualized resources. It involves pools of storage, net-

work, processing and other computational resources that

canbeefcientlyallocatedondemand.Italsoimpliesfar

Tech Titan List, Figure 1

Market Cap in $B

CTOVision.com Tech Titan List

0 50 100 150 200 250


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more agility in support of operational missions. Technolo-

gistsviewcloudcomputingasameanstomostefciently

deliver computer power via an application program inter-

face (API).

One thing all agree on is that this elastic provision of com-

putational resources is changing the computing landscape.

Public clouds are providing incredible capabilities to individ-uals and small businesses and even some large enterpris-

es. Private clouds are becoming important parts of the en-

terpriselandscape.Thistrendisprovidingbenetsofcost,

agility and security, but introduces risk as well, including, if

donewrong,signicantavailabilityandsecuritythreats.

We will dive deeper into Cloud Computing details in a later

section.

Increasing Pace of Technology Development

and Probability of Disruption

The many trends highlighted above all have speed compo-

nents and all are accelerating. The pace shows no sign of

slowing, especially since other technology segments (espe-

cially NanoTech and BioTech) are also now accelerating and

are contributing to IT in unexpected ways. This acceleration

andbroadeningofaccelerationintoothertechnologyelds

is making it very hard to track developments. Complexity is

also increased because it is impossible to master IT without

having mastery of NanoTech and BioTech. Things are just

moving too fast for that.

The complexity of modern enterprises means as things

change there is an increasing chance that things will notwork after a new change. Our systems are so complex that

they are overly susceptible to degradation from change.

Additionally,improvementsinITareattimessosignicant

they can introduce unforseen changes to business pro-

cesses,whichcansignicantlyimprovebutdisruptcurrent

activities.

Bottomline--wemustallplantondwaystodecidewhat

technologies are relevant for bringing into the enterprise

andmustndwaystomakerelateddecisionsaroundthat

fast.

Demographic Trends, Figure 2


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Tracking megatrends provides important context that can

help inform major decisions. But we need to seek more

resolution on the state and trends of the many disciplines of

ITinordertomakemorerenedpredictionsontheimpact

of the future on today.

In the following sections we will review IT constructs and

disciplines such as: Storage, Communications, Search,

Discovery, Applications, Virtualization, Open Source, Se-

curity Technologies, Collaboration Technologies, Web2.0

and Social Media, GEOINT tools, Visualization and Cloud

Computing.

Storage

In this context, the term storage applies to the ability of the

enterprise to securely hold information. Enterprise storage

options remain Direct-attached Storage (DAS), Network-

attached Storage (NAS), Storage-area Networks (SAN)

with Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) options. All

will drop in price and increase in capability. In general, the

trend in enterprise storage is moving us away from stor-

age tightly coupled to individual programs/projects towards

storage that is managed as an enterprise mission/function.

Key storage trends include:

RapidincreaseinsensorfeedsandGeospatialIntel-

ligence (GEOINT) sources as well as continued mis-

sion demands to store and index large quantities of

historical data will continue to drive storage require-

ments. The GEOINT enterprise is not the only one

with these demands, global storage requirements in

all sectors are growing dramatically.

Expect growth to multi-petabyte online distributed,

federated archives. High performance grid storage.

The Disciplines of EnterpriseInformation Technology and

Market Leaders

Disparate,heterogeneousstoragewillbe thenorm

well into the future. Distributed data synch and the

software to manage data as an enterprise is the key

requirement. Simultaneous shared access to large

lestoragesystemsisamissionneed.

Dataatrestwillbe increasinglyencrypted.Tond

the right data it must be indexed (while unencrypt-

ed). The index to data must also be protected since

it contains critically important information to protect.

Indexesandmetadatawillgrow.Frequentlyourdata

will have more meta than data.

Deduplicationisimportantforoptimizationoftheen-

tire storage enterprise.

Enterprise storage vendors, including Tech Titans like IBM,

Oracle (with Sun), and EMC continue to closely track these

trends and are accelerating these capabilities as they can.

Enterprise CIOs and CTOs should clearly articulate to these

vendors which of these capabilities are most important in

theenterprise. Themostdramatically positivebenets in

storagewilllikelycomefromsmallrmswithdramaticnew

capabilities including:

Data Domain: Deduplication storage solutions. De-

duplication storage solutions dramatically reduce the

amount of disk storage needed to retain, protect, and

recover critical data. Enterprises large and small are

using Data Domain to achieve the performance, reli-

ability and scalability to address their backup, disas-

ter recovery and archiving needs.

DataDirect Networks (DDN): Create storage solu-tions based on parallel architecture that enable the

storage of large amounts of structured data, rapid

access to data, and scalability for enterprises of any

size. This is great for digital video and other large

media. DDN stores and protects mission-critical in-

formation and deliver results quickly and economi-


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cally to all customers. The DDN Storage Fusion

Architecture (SFA) fuses the best parts of todays

advanced processor technology, busses, and mem-

ory architecture with an optimized RAID engine and

data management algorithms. These are tightly in-

tegrated to derive peak performance out of a mas-

sive IO infrastructure and multi-media disk drives to

maximize system performance and lower storage in-

vestment costs. The fusion of unprecedented levels

of bandwidth and IOPS enable this system to serve

as the storage foundation for any Extreme Storage

application set.

Brocade: Provides data center infrastructure de-

signed to work at extreme speed from enterprise

data centers to the service provider core. They con-

nect data stores and processing to networking solu-

tions that connect important information in mission-

critical environments. Their SAN and IP Networking

solutions support business requirements such as

virtualization and consolidation.

Communications

In the enterprise IT context, this refers to technology that

moves data. The most common, most widely known pro-

tocol in communications is the TCP/IP protocol. Long haul

communications and data center interconnect may use oth-

er protocols, but TCP/IP remains the most important proto-

col. Trends to watch are:

Communicationscapabilitiesbetweenxedfacilities

willbeenhancedbyafactorof10overthenextve

years, through natural lifecycle upgrade of existingsystems. If decisions are made to accelerate comms

capability into enterprises this could increase by a

factorof100overthenextveyears.

The need for increased communications is being

drivenbyrequirementstomovelargequantiesof

data.

Increasingexpectations ofusers tobe abletocol-

laborate with very high quality video will also drive

communications requirements.

Comms must support real-time tele-presence and

tele-collaboration and enhanced video

Continuous,alwaysoncommunicationsisakeyre-

quirement for leveraging cloud computing capabili-

ties.

Increasesin communicationscapabilitiesto mobile

userswillnotbeasfastasincreasestoxedfacility

users.

ExpectuseoftechnologieslikeWiMaxforenhancing

communications to mobile users.

ThecriticallyimportantdemandsofthetacticalGEO-

INT environment will always present challenges to

dissemination of national intelligence to battleeld

users.

IPv6isin useat about5% ofUS circuits. Orper-

haps we should say, is intentionally in use in about

5%ofUScircuits.Unfortunately,manynetworksal -

low for the protocol and it may be in use without the

knowledge of the operators of the networks since

most legacy network monitoring tools are not able to

monitor IPv6. This is a tremendous backdoor threat

to the enterprise.

Tech Titans Cisco and Qualcomm remain market leaders

inxedandmobilecommunicationsandwarrantcontinued

tracking by enterprise CTOs. For communications security

solutions and management of IPv6 while combating net-

workcongestionexamineCloudshield,thebestintheeld

carrier-class network solution device.

Search and Discovery

By search, we mean the computer based but human fo-

cused/driven examination designed to nd that which is


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concealed.Searchhelpsyoundwhatyouknowexistsand

what you know you need. By discovery, we mean features

thathelpusersndwhattheyneed,eveniftheydontknow

what to look for. This is a much more open ended problem.

Some key trends of note:

Federated,semanticbased search capabilities will

continue to improve, but these do not scale as they

are limited by the critical thinking ability of the user.

Expect continuing advances in new, more power-

ful search capabilities including in-stream media

management using new multi-threaded capabilities.

However, these powerful search capabilities are notkeeping up with the drive to interconnect and ac-

cess increasingly large data sets (which is required

for horizontal interoperability). We will all continue to

face search-scaling problems.

Weexpect richer, higher bandwidthinterfacesinto

more human senses, including the use of more inter-

active interfaces. This is a movement away from en-

tering terms into a web-based search box. First, the

search box gets on every app, but later the searchbox goes away and is replaced with a statement of

desire the computer always looks for.

Federating and integrating results is a long term

challenge.

Protectingagainstnewthreatstofederatedsearch,

such as attacks on relevance, are also a challenge.

Capabilitiesprovidedby leadersinguidednaviga-

tion like Endeca provide disruptive capabilities wewill want to accelerate into the environment.

Architectsodatandsdata,theright info(andrel-

evance) ndsusers, and userscontinually access

relevance.

Endeca remainsthemostdisruptivecapabilityinthiseld,

providing means to both search and discovery. GEOINT

and all source intelligence fusion solutions based on Ende-

caoperateonclassiednetworkstoday.Unclassiedana-

logs for these capabilities are available at sites like http://

newssift.com

Applications

In the context of enterprise IT, applications are software that

does things. Applications are the primary point of user inter-

action. Of most importance is the mission-focused software

of the enterprise. Applications are increasingly becoming

user-focused, which is good news for many reasons. When

it comes to prediction, we really just need to predict futureuser requirements and we can know what future applica-

tions will deliver. Other key constructs to consider regarding

the future of applications:

Expectstrongerenterprisemanagementofapplica-

tion development and more code reuse and service

reuse.Alsoexpectmoreefcientwaysoftransition -

ing code to operations.

Donotexpectallapplicationstobedevelopedfrom

a single integrated development environment (IDE).

No enterprise will have a single IDE or single archi-

tecture long into the planning period. Also, expect

more use of the Adobe Flex environment.

Expect web and software services allowing users

more power over their own app creation, including

creation of composite apps and mashups (giving the

ability to create applications to the people closest to

the problem). JackBe is the exemplar here.

Enterpriseswillhaveacontinuingneedforappsand

solutions that can empower users to get data/info

their way and rapidly collaborate/create/share. Too

few of todays apps do this well. Apps must access/

leverage enterprise requirements for Data Layer and

t in to theService OrientedArchitecture.Applica-


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tions will comply with enterprise storage system re-

quirements.

Enterprises today do not suffer from a lack of applications.They suffer from incredibly complex integrations of ap-

plications that were not designed to work together in any

strategic way. As an exemplar of applications that can work

together in a common framework, this example of a docu-

ment management/exploitation is provided:

The Twister Document Screening Application provides

the intelligence community enterprise and its users with an

ability to rapidly examine captured/found/gathered written

documents (in multiple languages). The Twister DOCEXapp provides users with a simple interface, but technolo-

gists will see a very smart, well thought out framework

which uses the strength of Twisters ability to connect any

data and any process to any app, securely. Users can

import documents in soft copy or hard copy. Documents

are translated from their initial language, but are also in-

dexed in their existing language. Documents can be rap-

idly screened, managed, exploited, stored and subjected to

very high powered analytical tools, all within minutes. This

state of the art, faster, simpler process will have dramatic

positiveworkowimplicationsontheintelligencecommu-

nity, saving time and giving analysts more time to think. This

application uses a new integrated model made possible by

adherence to enterprise standards. This enables addition of

new capabilities in modular ways as desired (current capa-

bilities include hard copy OCR by NovoDynamics, Entity

Extraction and Translation and indexing by Basis Technol-

ogy, Machine Translation by Language Weaver, and auto-

mated ingestion and integration by Twister).

Virtualization

In the enterprise context, this is a technology that allows

forfarmoreefcientuseofresources.Itisatechniquefor

hiding the physical characteristics of computing resources,

including making a single resource (like a server, operating

system, application or storage device) act like multiple re-

sources. It can also make multiple resources look like one.

With virtualization, enterprises can now centrally manage

their computing, storage and network environments while:

Increasingserverutilization, performance andsys-

tem uptime

Reducing cost and complexity of delivering enter-

prise class service

Loweringthe risk and platformcostsof rolling out

new applications


Virtualizationhasproveneffectiveasameansforin-

creasingefciencies,andasapotentialsolutionfor

disaster recovery.

Virtualizationissavingpower,whichisbecomingof

critical importance.

Virtualization isalsosolvingspacechallenges, en-

abling consolidations of existing data centers.

Virtualization technologies will changethe wayen-

terprises support all users, but most users will not

know that.

Virtualizationisaattenerfor hardwareproducers,

which might change the hardware end of the PC and

Server business. It will also likely impact most en-

terprise architectures with virtualized SOA environ-

ments.

Wireless laptops with totally virtualized, statelesspower are available today. As wireless communica-

tions increase expect more of these.

Althoughmanyplayersareenteringthevirtualizationeld,

including Microsoft and IBM, the clear leader for now and

the near future is VMware. Their proven virtual infrastruc-

turesolutionsenableenterprisestoincreasetheefciency


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and cost-effectiveness of their IT operations.

Open Source

This term refers to software that is developed with its source

code open to review and input (and with an OSI license).

Open source hardware architectures are also included in

this category. Some key trends of note:

Commerciallysupportedopen-sourcesolutionswill

increasingly be found in the same solution stack with

proprietary solutions. Commercially supported open

source is an important distinction for enterprise-class

users since enterprise CIOs prefer an ability to tap

into support networks.

Opensourcesoftware(includingsoftwareyouhave

no idea who wrote), will be part of every major solu-

tion.

Issues can arisewith sloppypracticessuchas re-

using open source without conducting any testing or

characterization for suitability. Always use commer-

cial open source.

Intellectualpropertyindemnicationissuesremain.

Thebiggestbenetstoopensourcecomefromcode

sharing and reuse, as well as the ability to build on

whatisalreadythere.Leveragingthesebenetsre -

quires a framework for effective use of code.

The worlds leading open source company is Red Hat,

which focuses primarily on Linux. They provide operating

system software along with middleware, applications and

management solutions. In addition to offering support,training and consulting services to its customers worldwide,

their Open Source strategy offers customers a long term

plan for building infrastructures that are based on and lever-

age open source technologies with focus on security and

ease of management.

Another key capability to track in open source is the de-

velopment support environments like those provided to the

DoD under Forge.mil. This CollabNet solution is the same

solution that drives the open source communitys Java.net,

OpenOfce.orgaswellas mostotherlarge open source

codebase projects.

Security Technologies

Security technologies are those that contribute to the con-

dentiality,integrityandavailabilityofinformation.Security

technologiesalloperateunderthecongurationcontroland

guidanceofaChiefInformationAssuranceOfcer.These

technologiesinclude:rewalls,intrusiondetectiondevices,

PKI, auditing, security testing, policy servers, and accesscontrol mechanisms. Some key trends of note:

Weare trackingthe abilityof government-provided

encryption to scale to future comms requirements.

AllITprovidersaregettingmoreseriousaboutsecu-

rity, however, not one controls the entire stack, leav-

ing lots of room for fault lines that can be exploited. \

Identityandauthenticationofuserswilllongremaina

critical component of security technology.

WedonotexpectanySingleSignOnsolutionto

provide comprehensive access to dispersed data.

Single Sign On will provide access to more and more

data, but current data management/ownership con-

structs will prevent ubiquity.

Crossdomainsolutionswill all begovernedatthe

enterprise-level. Individual programs will not develop

their own cross-domain solutions.

TheDoDEncryptionatrestenterprisebuywillhelp

change the marketplace in a very positive way.

Thecombinationofincreasedentrypointsandmore

sophisticated threats has prompted many organiza-

tions to reassess endpoint security as it relates to

their networks.


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SymantecistheTechTitantowatchinthiseld.Theirend-

point security solutions are aimed at a key enterprise se-

curity challenge. Symantec Endpoint Security solutions en-

able organizations to evaluate and protect systems as they

connect to corporate assets. Client protection technologies,

integrated with industry standards, provide protection for

systems and networks.

Another company of note is Initiate, a provider of master

data management, entity resolution and advanced relation-

ship analysis solutions. Initiate transforms distributed data

setsintoresolvedentitiesofhighcondencethatcanbe

used to detect and defeat threats before they occur. Their

trusted solution scales to support missions involving billions

of records and enables cross-organizational information

sharing, providing accurate information at all critical deci-

sion points, while protecting privacy and security.

Congurationmanagementisincreasinglyimportanttore -

mediation and Triumfant is one to watch there.

Collaboration Technology

In the enterprise context, collaboration is a technology

which assists humans in working together. This is normally

humans (probably geographically dispersed) working to-

gether to create intelligence. Some key trends of note:

Theageofstand-alonecollaborativetoolsisnearly

over. Expect all future tools to have a collaboration

feature.

Trends toward convergenceindicate future collab-

orative capabilities will be centered on existing full

service directories and will also integrate standardenterprise scheduling software and desktop video

and voice.

GEOINT analysts need means to collaborate via

multiple paths at all levels. Pervasive tele-collabora-

tion is a key requirement.

The rapidly shifting consumer focused capabilities

found in an increasing number of social software and

other Web2.0 sites will be a key driver.

Thisisnotonlyaboutcollaborationwithintelligence

but withcustomers.And itis mostdenitelyabout

collaboration with allies.

Lookfortoolsthatbridgeworkowacrossandout-

side the enterprise. From private clouds to public

clouds to external partners.

Likeapplications,thereare manyexemplarsin thiseld.

One key capability of note is the solutions provided by

Adobe Connect, which links entire enterprises together. It

enablessharingofdocuments,images,andotherles,as

well as hosting web seminars and collaborative sessions.

Web2.0 and Social Media

Originally coined to mean the next generation Internet,Web

2.0spopularusagenowhasthetermmeaningwhatever

is hottest/newest/available now on the net.

Web 2.0 websites typically include some of the following

features/techniques:

RichInternetapplicationtechniques

Flexopensourceframeworkforwebapps

Flashforinteractivity

SemanticallyvalidXHTMLandHTMLmarkup

Microformats extending pages with additional se-

mantics

Folksonomies(intheformof tagsortagclouds,for

example)

CascadingStyleSheetsto aidin theseparationof

presentation and content

RESTand/orXML-and/orJSON-basedAPIs


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Syndication,aggregationandnoticationof datain

RSS or Atom feeds

Mashups, merging content from different sources,client- and server-side

Weblog-publishingtools

Wikiorforumsoftware,etc.,tosupportuser-generat-

ed content

For enterprises to use these features, capabilities are re-

quiredthatservebehindthecorporaterewallandcanse -

curely pull in information and people-to-people connections

from outside the enterprise. Jive Softwares Jive SocialBusiness Software (SBS) establishes a trusted online en-

vironment with appropriate controls that leverages social

media and community software for connecting people and

knowledge. Their solutionwhich is the de facto standard

fortheintelligence communitypromotes uidcollabora-

tion, consolidated information, and access to diverse exper-

tise to improve the quality and timeliness of agency work.

GEOINT Tools

In this context, these are capabilities that assist users in

planning, visualizing, managing and directing GEOINT.


ToomanyoftodaysGEOINTtoolsarenotfullyinte-

grated into the enterprise, resulting in sub-optimized

performance for end users. Future tools are being

written to take advantage of SOA concepts

Geospatial location of individuals is becoming the

greatest biometric. Where you are and when is astandoff biometric that is highly reliable.

Expect more movement towards force-structure-

aware networks and networks that sense where on

earth all force structure is.

Expect a greater ability to focus on long mission

threads and real-time mission GEOINT.

GEOINTs newest, hardest missions require sys-

tems which can automate the population of knowl-edge bases, provide next-best observation, support

uncertainty management, and provide integrated

planning tools. Systems must enable real-time, dy-

namic re-tasking.

SOAconstructswillbethegreatestsingledriverof

future GEOINT tools, but in the context of GEOINT

tools, Web Services will probably not be the tech-

nology of choice for SOA. Too much data is being

moved and too many users will need access to thetools and services for a web service approach to be

used in SOA.

Like other capabilities discussed in the applications section,

GEOINT solutions are now only limited by the imagination.

Buttoefcientlyandeffectivelybringsolutionstothecus-

tomer, the best practice is to accelerate the best available

to the entire enterprise. A key example is the use ofAdobe

and TerraGo integrations. TerraGo leverages Adobe PDF

document formatting to provide maps to anyone with a PDFreader. Extending access to maps and geographical data to

the soldier on the ground, or any Adobe user provides ac-

cess to GEOINT on the go. GeoPDF, 3D PDF, Flash/Flex

embedded in PDF, with content control/DRM. Dashboards

that auto synch for command situational awareness.

Other recent GEOINT examples include an integration

based on Thetus semantic knowledge modeling and dis-

covery software called Savanna. Savanna is a rich internet

application, model/services-driven Intelligence Analysis ap-plication. Its focus is on the analysis challenge; key ques-

tions, assumptions, hypothesis and conclusions and the

associated data used to support the analysis. Savanna in-

cludescongurableanalysisworkspacesthatfacilitateana-

lytical views of supporting information, locations, relation-

ships and reports. It is expandable and tailorable but typical


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1

congurationsuseMark Logic Serveras the high perfor-

mance XML store, Metacarta for geotagging and location

constrained search, Kapow for web harvesting and Janya

for automated entity extraction. The Geospatial element en-

suresSavannais ofmaximumrelevance/utility while ne

tuning results to expose cultural, political and other human

terrain practices.

Visualization

In this context, visualization refers to the ability to link the

two greatest processors in our grid, the computational pow-

er of our enterprise and the human brain. Some key trends

of note:

Thetietocommercialtechnologysofarhasnotpro-

vided a good way to enable GEOINT analysts with

wrap-around desktop screens. This need is met by

lining up more monitors next to each other,

butenhanced 2D/3D workstations withagilewide-

band interfaces to the brain are the need.

UtilityofcapabilitieslikeTouch Table or Jeff Hans

Perceptive Pixel to visualize and interact with datashows promise. If live data is brought in these will be

disruptive technologies.

ThePenn State CAVE might provide another dis-

ruptive capability. Its use in multiple academic cen-

ters of excellence and its use in a couple of govern-

ment locations is a positive note.

SuperHDTV, HRMotion Imagery, 40Kx40K hyper-

spectral are driving key visualization requirements.

Solutions of note include:

MotionDSP: MotionDSPs ability to stabilize, clean

up, and enhance video in real-time using off-the-

shelf Windows PCs is boon to SIGINT and HUMINT

gatherers across the DoD, federal agencies, and the

Intelligence community.

iMove: Provides immersive video camera systems

that collect geo-referenced imagery from multiple

cameras simultaneously. iMove enables mission

success by giving operational assets increased intel-

ligence of the area of operation. iMove provides up

to 360 degree x 360 degree views of any target area,

by integrating numerous video streams into one con-

tinuous panorama, or immersive view, that is both

archived for forensic analysis, and is available in real

time.

PiXlogic: Provides a visual search engine that au-

tomatically analyzes, indexes, and searches the

contentsofimagesandvideoleswithhighlevelsof

accuracy and speed.

Cloud Computing

This mega trend has translated into an emerging discipline

weneedtotrackwithmuchmoredelity.

One of the most critically important capabilities in the cloud

computing domain is that just rolled out by the federal gov-

ernment in http://apps.gov. This online cloud services capa-

bility provides access to key technologies needed now by

government users, and since it is a cloud based approach

the functionality there will continue to grow.

As noted on the Apps.gov website:

CloudcomputingplaysakeyroleinthePresidentsinitia -

tive to modernize Information Technology (IT) by identifying

enterprise-wide common services and solutions and adopt-

ing a new cloud-computing business model. The Federal

CIOCouncilundertheguidanceoftheOfceofManage-ment and Budget (OMB) and the Federal Chief Information

Ofcer(CIO),VivekKundra,establishedtheCloudCom-

putingInitiativetofulllthePresidentsobjectivesforcloud

computing.

Apps.com also notes that cloud computing offers the follow-

ing features:


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16

Signicant Cost Reduction: Cloud computing is

available at a fraction of the cost of traditional IT ser-

vices, eliminating upfront capital expenditures and

dramatically reducing administrative burden on IT

resources.

IncreasedFlexibility:Cloudcomputingprovideson-

demand computing across technologies, business

solutions and large ecosystems of providers, reduc-

ing time to implement new solutions from months to

days.

Accessanywhere:Youare nolongertetheredtoa

single computer or network. You can change com-puters or move to portable devices, and your existing

applications and documents follow you through the

cloud.

Elasticscalabilityandpay-as-you-go:Addandsub-

tract capacity as your needs change. Pay for only

what you use.

Easy to implement: You donot need to purchase

hardware, software licenses or implementation ser-

vices.

Servicequality:Cloudserviceprovidersofferreliable

services, large storage and computing capacity, and

24/7 service and up-time.

Delegatenon-criticalapplications:Cloudcomputing

provides a way to outsource non-critical applications

to service providers, allowing agency IT resources to

focus on business-critical applications.

Alwaysthelatestsoftware:Youarenolongerfaced

with choosing between obsolete software and high

upgrade costs. When the applications are web-

based, updates are automatic and are available the

next time you log into the cloud.

Sharingdocumentsandgroupcollaboration:Cloud

computing lets you access all your applications and

documents from anywhere in the world, freeing you

from the connes of the desktop and facilitating

group collaboration on documents and projects.

Some key Cloud Computing trends:

Increasingly organizations will leverage computing

power from other organizations.

Deviceandlocationindependenceenablesusers

to access systems regardless of their location or

what device they are using, e.g., PC, mobile.

Multi-tenancy enables sharing of resources andcosts among a large pool of users, allowing for:

Centralizationofinfrastructureinareaswithlower

costs, e.g., real estate, electricity, etc.

Peak-loadcapacity increases -- users need not

engineer for highest possible load levels.

Utilization and efciency improvements for sys-

temsthatareoftenonly10-20%utilized.

On-demand allocation and de-allocation of CPU,

storage and network bandwidth.

Performanceismonitoredandconsistent.

Reliabilityisenhancedbywayofmultipleredundant

sites, which makes it suitable for business continuity

and disaster recovery.

Scalability meets changing user demands quickly

without users having to engineer for peak loads.

Massive scalability and large user bases are com-

mon, but not an absolute requirement for using

Cloud.

Sustainabilityisachievedthroughimprovedresource

utilization,moreefcientsystems,andcarbonneu-

trality.


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1

Security typically improves due to centralization

of data, increased security-focused resources, in-

creased ability to patch and upgrade, increased abil-

ity to monitor, increased ability to encrypt and many

other reasons. However, there are concerns about

loss of control over certain sensitive data. When de-

signed in at the beginning, security of cloud architec-

turesissignicantlyhigherthannon-cloudapproach -

es. Enterprises requiring signicantly enhanced

security should consider private clouds, where the

data center is controlled by the enterprise vice out-

sourced.

Key players to track in this area include:

VMware: Provides several technologies of critical

importance to enabling cloud computing, and has

also started offering its own cloud computing on de-

mand capability called vCloud. This type of capability

allows enterprises to leverage virtualized clouds in-

side their own IT infrastructure or hosted with exter-

nal service providers.

Cisco: Has long provided the switch fabric of the In-ternet and the interconnect inside datacenters and is

now offering enhanced collaborative tools and uni-

edcomputingcapabilitiesthatbringthefoundation

of cloud computing to any datacenter.

Green IT

Green IT is more than a movement, it is a path toward cost-

savingsandefcienciesthatisdrawingtheattentionofde-

cision-makers at all levels. For the federal enterprise there

isnowaPresidtiallysignedanexecutiveorderforFederal

Leadership in Envronmental, Energy, and Economic Per-

formance. This order requires action by all agencies in

many areas of energy performance, including IT. Agencies

mustensureenergy-efcienciesofITinmeasurableways,

As this executive order is implemented we can expect

federal agencies to modernize to take advantage of new

Green technologies.

Thefundamentalsofbeinggreenfocusonefciencies.Be-ing green, in this context, means not wasting power, not

wasting resources, and not polluting. Efciencies save

moneyforyourorganization.Efcienciesalsocontributeto

your organizations agility and ability to rapidly respond to

shifting mission needs.

Green Hardware Solutions You Need to Know

Recently, Intel Corporation released their newest iteration

of the Xeon Server Processor, the S5500 series. This chip,

codenamed Nehalem, increases processing power but de-

creases energy consumption. This chip allows for servers

that require about half the power and run cooler then previ-

ous architectures.

The Xeon S5500 processors have almost 2x the process-

ing power of the previous generation, and 9x the power of

2005 processors. This means that to maintain processing

power, 1 Nehalem server rack replaces 9 older ones. Need-

ing 1/9th of the number of servers, means you need 1/9th

of the power (at least!), 1/9th the space, and 1/9th of the

number of licenses (think about 1/9 the Windows or Oracle

licenses). Intel estimates that replacing 9 older server racks

with just 1 Nehalem rack will pay for itself in 8 months. For

rmsinterestedinTotalCostofOwnership,theS5500pro-

cessor is a great boon.

Another new technology is the Solid State Disk (SSD) hard

drive. SSDs run cooler, faster, and require less power then

traditional spindle drives. While they are currently more ex-

pensiveperGBthanspindledrives,theirbenetsmakeup

for the initial costs. SSDs transfer data at speeds up to 10x

that of traditional drives. They do this without moving parts,

creating less heat. Fewer moving parts also means less

things to fail.

A recent study done by Principled Technologies shows that


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18

by replacing an array of HDDs with SSDs you can realize a

97%powersavingsunderload,anda98%powersavings

at idle. This is the difference in power consumed by the disk

solution, not the difference consumed by the system. The

systemwillconsumeanaverageof60%lesspowerwith

a SSD solution. These power savings are very real, and

thus these technologies can pay for themselves within a

few short months, all the while increasing the IT capabilities

of your organization.

Software For Energy Efciency in IT

Software is also driving the greening of the organization.

The right software can save energy, reduce heat, and re-duce the number of servers required to do the same task,

all of which are very green characteristics. The following is

a sample of software that matters in this space:

Verdiem: Verdiem empowers organizations to dramati-

cally reduce their carbon footprints and their IT energy bills

with a single, simple PC power management solution. This

software establishes central control of the PC and then im-

plements policy for power settings.

VMWare: VMWare also offers signicant energy saving

and productivity enhancing capabilities. Servers rarely use

their full processing capabilities. VMWare creates the possi-

bility of utilizing unused memory and processing capacity to

createadditionalcomputers.Ifaseverisrunningat10%of

itsworkload,usingVMwarecanletyourunvirtualservers

in a way that maximizes the servers use. You might see,

for example, an 8 to 1 reduction in the number of servers

you need.

For private clouds, which most organizations are building

today, capabilities like Appistry can maximize the agility

and scalability of your cloud. Appistry can turn your data

center into a private scalable, automated cloud environ-

ment which can deliver green capabilities you need today.

Appistry does not replicate Google Apps, but the applica-

tions you run in your data center will be made more scalable

and will be managed in a smarter way.

Increasingly federal mandates will drive green. But there

are actually even more powerful reasons to rush towardsgreen computing. Modernizing and optimizing your IT infra-

structure will reduce your costs and make your organization

more efcientwhile helping you meet goalsfor reducing

your carbon footprint. Our bottom line recommendation:

consider all these green technologies as part of your mod-

ernization efforts. And it goes without saying, we hope your

organization is able to rapidly accelerate your green plans,

for all our sakes.

Summary

The many areas of information technology reviewed above

-- Storage, Communications, Search, Discovery, Applica-

tions, Virtualization, Open Source, Security Technologies,

Collaboration Technologies, Web2.0 and Social Media,

GEOINT tools, Visualization and Cloud Computing -- will

interact with each other in interesting and exciting ways. We

can now envision an enterprise where mobile users have

bandwidth supporting the highest quality video and incred-

ible data to mobile devices, connecting them securely toenterpriseswithseeminglyinniteabilitytostoredataand

easily navigable interfaces to discover the relevant mean-

ing of the data. Enterprise users will be served with ap-

plications that meet their needs while being interoperable

with all other applications and media. These applications

will meet CIO goals for maintainability. The enterprise cloud

will deliver increasing bang for the buck with increasingly

optimized, energy efcientdatacenters.Andsecuritywill

be thought of as the key way to deliver on the promise of

assured functionality. Collaboration will increasingly link hu-

mans together in ways that serve the mission. And all of

this, if done right, will be done with far greater agility and

ability to respond.


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Drawing Lessons From theFuture of IT

The future is here, its just not evenly distributed yet.

-- William Gibson

The mega trends review and deeper dive into functional

areas above lead to some key conclusions and recommen-

dations relevant to todays enterprise. The primary conclu-

sion: Brace yourself! Your world is about to change.

Other conclusions: IT power is increasing in a relentless

march, and so is bandwidth. Human nature says there will

always be more requirements than capability so IT profes-sionals will always be optimizing what is provided. Doing

that will require constant learning, constant adjustment, and

constant planning. It also requires an understanding of what

your enterprise is building on.

Consider your current environment. If you are in the classic

large enterprise you have probably seen incredible contri-

butions of technology to support your mission. The list of

eldedenterprisecapabilities islarge.For mostitwill in-

clude things like:

Global directoriesofall inthe enterprise andtheir

contact information.

Extremelyreliablevoice,videoande-mailconnectiv-

ity.

Durable, resilient enterprise datastores giving pro-

tection to most key enterprise data.

Manymissionspecicapplications.

Portalswhichhelpmakesenseforusers.

But most large enterprises also face huge challenges,

which may include:

EveryenterprisehassomeonewithCIOorCTOor

J6/etc-6 title, and there are frequent overlaps and

gaps in authority and responsibility.

Customized, complex applications many designed

locally, are not well managed or backed up.

Limitlessuserinterfaces,eachdesignedforcustom-

ized, complex applications which are hard to teach

users how to use.

Proprietary datastores with business logic coded

into the datastore, making interoperability hard to im-

pose.

ServersboughtandownedbylocalITdepartments,

makingfutureplanningawkwardandinefcient.

Desktops bought and owned by local IT depart-

ments, introducing conguration nightmares and

slowing agility.

Desktopsloadedandconguredindividuallyorbylo-

cal IT, placing high burdens on IT staff.

Inefcient Datacenters driving enterprise costs up

while sub optimizing performance.

Largepowerbillsforlargedatacenters.

LocalITdepartmentsincreasinglyinefcient.

Attemptstosatisfyneedsofmobileusersaredifcu-

ly given the variety of devices and de-centralization.

Knowledgeworkerswho need automation but get

poor IT service.

NounderstandingofthefutureofIT,sonoabilityto

plan.

Poorabilitytosearch,poorabilitytodiscover.

So we have had at least a little glimpse of what is coming

and we have a working knowledge of what we have now.

So how do we accelerate the good into the enterprise?

What does our review motivate us to do?


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20

If you are primarily an IT user or customer, this review of

the future provides several considerations for how you can

articulate requirements for future systems.

If you are a CTO, CIO or other IT leader, this review can

help you re-invigorate your strategic planning. Some sug-

gestions:

Plan now to enhance agility. The most important

agility is in the ability to analyze whether or not a

proposed capability or new technology will actually

result in a net gain in productivity and mission capa-

bility.

Alsoofimportance,butofasecondaryimportanceto

the above, is enhancing the ability to adopt new tech-

nologies.Wemustalsospeedtheabilitytocongure

existing technology.

Somemorespecicrecommendationsfortechnologists:

Findandeliminateapplications/solutionsthatarenot

delivering required functionality or that can be termi-

nated for other reasons.

Findandeliminateunneededworkbeingaskedof

government or contract positions and refocus those

positions on things that contribute to agility.

Enhanceliaisonandinteractionswithotherstoen-

hance agility, support to customers on starved nets,

and to avoid tech disruption. Interdependence will be

an enduring requirement.

Forthegovernmentteam,linkagestoDISAarecriti-

cal because of the challenges of disseminating intel-ligence to users in comms starved environments.

Thepotentialfordisruptivetechnologyfromindustry

or academia (including DNA computing or quantum

computing) is high during the planning period so a

continuedtrackingofthoseeldsiscriticallyimpor-

tant.

Refocus job skills to emphasize communications

and enterprise storage management. Retain exper-

tise in all enterprise IT technologies, but the mix of

technologists should shift to include more advanced

network engineers and more enterprise storage

technologists. These disciplines will become as im-

portant to us in the future as enterprise systems en-

gineers are today.

Builda ve year roadmap for enterprise manage-

ment capabilities and related enterprise visualization

systems. All technology disciplines must have views

into the state of the enterprise to ensure mission fo-

cus and agility.

The increase in virtualization and the increase in

automation will make IT failure an even more costly

proposition. This will drive the need for more com-

plex enterprise modeling and simulation technolo-

gies.

Plan now for increased engagement in the open

source technology community. If we are using open

source, widely known, multiple author software weshould be involved in ensuring its quality.

Speed the conversion of legacy applications and

tightly coupled data to SOA-type model where data

is separated from application.

Plannowforredesignofgovernmentnetworks(in-

cluding NIPRNET, SIPRNET, JWICS) to use new

networking standards to ensure operation of the grid

at the highest possible capacity.

Engineer for enhanced wide area wireless Secret

and SCI capability. Which solution do we scale up?

WiMAX?

PlannowtoshiftmoreITworkerstobeuser-facing.

Pure IT know-how will no longer be enough. IT work-

ers will require strong leadership ability, knowledge


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2

of their non-IT partner mission needs, and knowl-

edge of the processes of their customers.

Security will be a continuing concern. New tech-niques and tools are required to mitigate new threats,

especially new threats regarding open source in the

enterprise. Multi-level security and cross domain are

enduring requirements.

Investigatenewwaysofencryptingdataandidentity

management to enable better use of grid computing

and to enable better use of commercial off the shelf

devices.

Automatewithbrutalefciency.Ifitcanbeautomat-

ed, automate it.

Concluding Thoughts

Many things are uncertain about the future. But one piece

of timeless advice keeps returning to the discussion: The

greatest determinant of what comes next is the decisions

we make today.

If you are a user of IT, I recommend you get vocal about

your expectations and requirements. That can do wondersin accelerating new realities into today. If you are an enter-

prise CTO, CIO or other technologist, I recommend you get

busy helping your users understand the realm of the pos-

sible. Their advocacy and support can help you transform

your enterprise faster, which can help in meeting the ever

increasing mission needs.

KeepseekingoutdisruptiveIT

Maintainfocusonuserandthemission

Andanalnote:Areminderthattechnologyischanging

fast. Whoever you are and whatever your role is in the en-

terprise,youshouldseekoutandndwaystoselfeducate

yourself on the changing landscape. An avenue that I hope

factors into your self awareness plans is the http://ctovision.

com website.


22/22

About CTOvision.com

TheCTOvision.comblogprovidescontextfortheenterpriseChiefTechnologyOfcer(CTO),ChiefInformationOfcer

(CIO) and other enterprise technologists. It is home to the CTOvision.com Disruptive Technologies list, which reviews

disruptive innovations thought to be most relevant to todays enterprises. The site also contains information and context

onthelargesttechnologyrmsandmaintainsaTechnologyTitanlistforreference.

About The Author

Bob Gourley is the primary blogger at CTOvision.com and is the founder and

ChiefTechnologyOfcer(CTO)ofCrucialPointLLC,atechnologyresearchand

advisoryrm.HeisaformerCTOoftheDefenseIntelligenceAgency(DIA)anda former senior executive with Northrop Grumman. He was named one of the

top25mostinuentialCTOsintheglobebyInfoworldin2007,andselectedfor

AFCEAs award for meritorious service to the intelligence community in 2008.

HewasnamedbyWashingtonianasoneofDCsTechTitansin2009.Bob

holdsthreemastersdegreesincludingamasterofsciencedegreeinscientic

and technical intelligence from Naval Postgraduate School, a master of science

degree in military science from USMC university, and a master of science degree

in computer science from James Madison University. Bob has published over 40

articles on a wide range of topics and is a contributor to the 20 Jan 2009 Book

titledThreatsintheAgeofObama.