"Journeying to the Land of On-Demand: Principles to Follow, Pitfalls to Avoid".
Annie W. Shum, Jeffrey P. Buzen · Int. CMG Conference · 2004
The Land of On Demand is a magical Metropolis where agile enterprises abound and IT dreams come true. The pixie-dust that makes all this possible includes a strategic amalgam of Web services, SOA (Service Oriented Architecture), EDA (Event Driven Architecture), BI (Business Intelligence/Insights) and BPM (Business Process Management), built on XML, standards-based autonomous software services and messaging/security/policy/orchestration/management standards. Will you need a “Wizard of Oz” to reach this land? Follow us as we attempt to provide a balanced view, separate facts from misconceptions, and paint a realistic picture of the road ahead. 1.0 The Land of On Demand : the fabric of future computing Journey to the Land of On Demand where you will find “Something old and something new, something borrowed and something blue. “ Fundamental advances in Information Technology have become in integral part of our popular culture and are now the subject of prime time television commercials, print advertising in popular magazines, and countless press interviews with industry gurus. Over the past year, one such concept that has attracted more than its share of attention is the notion of On Demand computing. According to the slightly whimsical advertising campaign developed by IBM, the On Demand era in computing will be marked by flexible and highly responsive systems that interoperate seamlessly with each other while adapting effortlessly to changing external demands and emerging business opportunities. Although the potential of On Demand computing is exceptionally attractive, the vastness of its promise is matched only by the imprecision of its definition. No sooner did IBM announce their On Demand initiative then confusion began to surface. Some observers associated On Demand with other important industry trends such as utility computing, hosted outsourcing services, autonomic computing, capacity on demand and Grid computing. At the same time, other critics dismissed the entire initiative as nothing more than a recycling of old concepts. “On Demand reminds me of the emperor with no clothes – there’s nothing there that‘s new or different.” – Michael Cusumano, Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management [1]. So we will begin this paper with a question: does the mystical “Land of On Demand” reflected in IBM’s lighthearted advertising campaign contain a tangible “Emerald City” that is solidly grounded on achievable technologies and sound organizational principles. According to information on the IBM Web site, On Demand computing should not be thought of simply as a new set of hardware or software technologies, or a new “vertical” business process. Instead it represents “a broad approach to doing business that integrates processes across a company and its networks of customers and suppliers, and harnesses technology to create competitive advantage. Businesses become more capable of responding to customers, suppliers, competitors, and to rapid changes in the marketplace.” Other vendors have offered their own views of this issue. HP has stated that enterprises are faced with the task of balancing people, processes and IT. HP addresses this through its Adaptive Enterprise strategy, which is the company's answer to IBM's On