Executive Summary Procurement departments can fall into traps that software vendors set. In this article, we cover some of the most common of these. Introduction Suboptimizing IT procurement is easy to do! Vendors often make it a complicated process to optimize. Procurement departments face time pressures, challenges in communicating across internal technical and business teams,…
Executive Summary Oracle has a strategy for the cloud that will lead to long-term issues for Oracle customers. We cover the problems and how customers should interpret what Oracle is doing. Introduction Listen to Oracle’s cloud pitch in the OpenWorld 2018 sessions. The narratives invariably lead to one destination: Database. When Oracle talks about infrastructure…
Executive Summary For years SAP proposed that applications on HANA would remove the need for a data warehouse. Now the message is changing, and BW4HANA is back in the mix. Introduction The original presentation of S/4HANA was that the reporting schemas would no longer be necessary because of HANA. Eliminating the data warehouse would be…
Executive Summary IBM purchased Red Hat. However, how real will the benefits be for IBM customers? In this article, we separate the fluff from the reality of Open Shift and IBM. Introduction There is an extraordinary amount of coverage of the IBM purchase of Red Hat. However, there has been little critical analysis of the…
Executive Summary The different hardware modalities can, in theory, be tied together. One of the answers is Kubernetes, but this article explains why this is an oversimplification. Introduction Up to this point, we have covered the four primary hardware modalities. However, the natural question after one has analyzed each environment is how they can be…
Executive Summary Exadata is central to Oracle’s cloud strategy. Learn why this is a severe problem as Oracle is betting on proprietary designs to defeat open source. Introduction This article will cover the major modalities of computer hardware. Our References for This Article If you want to see our references for this article and other…
Executive Summary Oracle has made a significant commitment to appliances after its acquisition of Sun. Find out how much sense these appliances like Exadata make to use. Video Introduction: How to Understand Exadata and Exadata Cloud Services Text Introduction (Skip if You Watched the Video) Oracle makes exaggerated claims for its Exadata product. Exadata is…
Executive Summary Gartner’s advice on mainframes has been horrible for decades. What Gartner has told its clients about mainframes and how it led to their mismanagement. Video Introduction: How to Understand Gartner’s Disastrous Advice on Mainframes Text Introduction (Skip if You Watched the Video) In performing research for the book The Public Cloud Revolution: How Open…
Executive Summary Mainframes have cost advantages over on-premise servers. The reason for this is that an entity requires very significant numbers of servers to manage them effectively. Introduction There are many advantages of mainframes, one being costs versus most proprietary on-premises servers. What is undiscussed on the many consulting companies and vendors that have marketed how…
Executive Summary Mainframes are engineered systems designed to run at high utilization without virtualization. Mainframes are designed to meet four distinct design objectives. Introduction To understand why AWS and Google Cloud can attain such advantages versus on-premises servers, it is necessary to comprehend mainframes at a basic level. This section’s coverage is known to all…