Briefings Direct

Virtualization has become imperative to enterprises as they better manage resources, cut total costs, reduce energy use, and improve IT agility. But virtualization is more than just installing hypervisors. The effects and impacts of virtualization cut across many aspects of IT operations. The complexity of managing virtualization IT runtime environments can easily slip out of control. A proper level of planning and management, however, can assure a substantive economic return on virtualization investments. This podcast examines how virtualization can be applied as a larger process, with sufficient tools for governance that allow for rapid, but reasoned, virtualization adoption. Providing an in-depth look at how virtualization best practices make for the best economic outcome, we're joined by Bob Meyer, the worldwide virtualization lead in HPs' Technology Solutions Group. The discussion is moderated by BriefingsDirect's Dana Gardner. Read a full transcript of the discussion at http://briefingsdirect.blogspot.com/2009/03/hp-advises-strategic-view-on.html. Sponsor: Hewlett-Packard.

Doing more for less in IT? Sure, easier said than done. But who said it couldn't be done? BriefingsDirect took the question of how to cut IT costs in the downturn to five analysts and consultants, who can both say and do. The result is the latest BriefingsDirect Analyst Insights Edition, Vol. 38, a periodic discussion and dissection of IT infrastructure related news and events with a panel of industry analysts and guests. In this episode, recorded March 13, 2009, our analyst guests make their top five recommendations for cutting enterprise IT costs amid the economic downturn. How does IT adapt and adjust to the downturn? Is IT to play a defensive role in helping to slash costs and reduce its own financial burden on the enterprise? We ask our panel to list the top five ways that IT can help reduce costs, while retaining full business -- or perhaps even additional business -- functionality. Please join noted IT industry analysts and experts Joe McKendrick, independent IT analyst and prolific blogger; Brad Shimmin, principal analyst at Current Analysis; JP Morgenthal, independent analyst and IT consultant, and Dave Kelly, founder and president of Upside Research. Our discussion is hosted and moderated by BriefingsDirect's Dana Gardner. Read a full transcript of the discussion at http://briefingsdirect.blogspot.com/2009/03/briefingsdirect-analysts-list-top-5.html. Charter Sponsor: Active Endpoints. Sponsor: TIBCO Software.

Welcome to a special BriefingsDirect presentation, a podcast created from a recent Nexaweb Technologies Webinar on application modernization. Learn how enterprises are gaining economic and productivity advantages from modernizing legacy and older client-server applications. The logic, data, and integration patterns' value within these older applications can be effectively extracted and repurposed using tools and methods, including those from Nexaweb. That means the IT and business value from these assets can be reestablished as Web applications on highly efficient platforms. Examine how a number of companies have attained new value from legacy and client-server applications, while making those assets more easily deployed as rich, agile Web applications and services. Those services can then be better extended across modern and flexible business processes. We hear from Dana Gardner, principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions; David McFarlane, COO at Nexaweb, and Adam Markey, solution architect at Nexaweb. Listen or read a full transcript of the discussion at: http://briefingsdirect.blogspot.com/2009/03/webinar-modernization-derives-new-value.html. Sponsor: Nexaweb Technologies.

Welcome to the latest BriefingsDirect Analyst Insights Edition, Vol. 37, a periodic discussion and dissection of software, services, SOA and compute cloud-related news and events with a panel of IT analysts. In this episode, recorded Feb. 13, 2009, our guests examine the essential topic of bringing human activity into alignment with IT supported business processes. We revisit the topic of BPEL4People, an OASIS specification. The need to automate and extend complex processes is obvious. What's less obvious, is the need to join the physical world of people, their habits, needs, and perceptions with the artificial world of service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business process modeling (BPM). This will become all the more important, as cloud-based services become more common. Please join noted IT industry analysts and experts Michael Rowley, director of technology and strategy at Active Endpoints; Jim Kobielus, senior analyst at Forrester Research; and JP Morgenthal, independent analyst and IT consultant. Our discussion is hosted and moderated by BriefingDirect's Dana Gardner. Read a full transcript of the podcast: http://briefingsdirect.blogspot.com/2009/03/briefingsdirect-analysts-discuss.html. Charter sponsor: Active Endpoints. Additional underwriting: TIBCO Software.