Six Mistakes that Lead to Poor Enterprise Software Adoption
One of the often overlooked aspects of Big Data and the Internet of Things is the ability to model and simulate advanced data architectures. This is likely to become a crucial element in the emerging data-driven economy because it allows business leaders to further optimize their digital footprints in support of business goals without disrupting current operations.
As expected, there is a plethora of new simulation platforms hitting the channel that utilize both cloud and on-premises resources to, ironically, model cloud and on-premises infrastructure in support of advanced development and productivity applications.
Rescale’s new ScaleXTM Enterprise solution combines an engineering simulation platform with a new admin portal and developer toolkit to enable CIOs to transform legacy infrastructure into dynamic data architectures. The platform utilizes NVIDIA GPUs for advanced graphics rendering, as well as more than 120 simulation applications from Siemens PLM, Dassault Systems and others. Company executives say they can help guide the transition to advanced cloud operations and even scale-out HPC infrastructure, and then provide insight into how these architectures will react to changing conditions in dynamic data environments.
Meanwhile, ANSYS has delivered the latest release of its ANSYS platform (Ver. 16.1) along with its Enterprise Cloud system that utilizes Amazon Web Services to provide workflow simulation and other data across wide geographic areas. The company says that its end-to-end simulation can be deployed within a few days and can then scale both infrastructure and software assets on-demand to accommodate changing business conditions. The system is available as a single-tenant release that supports 3-D graphics and “parametric optimization,” which automatically selects appropriate algorithms for key functions.
Simulation of the business process itself is also gaining popularity. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) recently teamed up with visualization software developer iRise to produce the Business Process Innovation and Simulation and Visualization as a Service (VaaS) platform. The system offers global collaboration capabilities for application design, user scenarios, system specifications and other functions that support business development. At the same time, TCS has established a Visualization Center of Excellence at its Global Business Solutions Lab aimed at driving faster adoption of niche technologies for business process and software development, product engineering and other initiatives.
Simulation can also drill down into very finite aspects of the enterprise, such as storage design and optimization, says the Register’s Bryan Betts. Emerging Flash-based SAN and modular infrastructure solutions can be very unpredictable, with actual performance determined only after systems are deployed and integrated into existing production environments. Tools like HP’s Flash Advisor can help chart out implementation strategies, particularly when advanced data management functions like deduplication and reduction are added to the equation.
In the old days, software modeling and simulation was a handy way to assess the impact of a planned change to infrastructure and architecture. In the modern world of dynamic data workflows and rapidly changing digital ecosystems, simulation will become a fundamental component of the deployment and development process. As such, it will focus more on the virtual and cloud-based architectures that will rise and fall at a steady pace, rather than the underlying physical layer.
Running a simulation before provisioning new resources or launching an app or service will no doubt delay the process somewhat, but it ultimately improves business performance by allowing development teams to get it right the first time. And for those who are still playing the long game, foresight into how each development will affect the overarching business strategy goes a long way toward charting a clear course to the future.
Arthur Cole writes about infrastructure for IT Business Edge. Cole has been covering the high-tech media and computing industries for more than 20 years, having served as editor of TV Technology, Video Technology News, Internet News and Multimedia Weekly. His contributions have appeared in Communications Today and Enterprise Networking Planet and as web content for numerous high-tech clients like TwinStrata, Carpathia and NetMagic.
