Restricted or Delayed Access to Information

Restricted or Delayed Access to Information

ORACLE

As data volumes increase and are locked inside proprietary systems, business users are increasingly forced to work without the information they need to make decisions. A custom-coded approach to data and business process integration is too cumbersome and time-consuming for IT departments. Business users need to access information at a speed that the old IT infrastructure can no longer support. But access to information is not only about sales forecasts, operational metrics, and worker performance. Access to information also has an impact on regulatory compliance. Government regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley require that companies verify that their systems are doing precisely what they claim they do. Executives cannot safely vouch for their systems unless the company fully documents its processes. To improve transparency and track ongoing business process changes, many organizations are taking advantage of process-driven SOA to create applications that reflect and implement application processes as they are defined by the business. Using SOA components makes it much easier to track the current processes, as well as when and how they change. Higher Operating E Organizatixpensesons already spend a large percentage of their IT budgets on the maintenance of legacy applications -- and this cost is increasing. Operational expenses have become such a significant portion of the IT budget that they edge out the organization’s ability to focus on innovation, and force IT staff to do more and more maintenance. To free up funds to address ongoing business needs, IT organizations must bring the cost of maintaining legacy applications under control. Achieving these cost reductions is possible by moving to lower-cost software and hardware platforms, leveraging packaged applications where possible, and consolidating technology and technology providers. Knowing that cost control goes hand-in-hand with process flexibility, CIOs should pay close attention to their IT infrastructure: with integrated, automated processes, it can enable IT staff to get things done faster. Shortage of Resources with Legacy Skill Sets People with skill sets in legacy technologies are getting harder and harder to find, creating increasing cost and risk for all organizations with legacy applications. Knowledge of languages such as ADSO, NATURAL, or IDEAL, and expertise with databases such as ADABAS, IDMS, and Datacom/DB, are increasingly scarce and expensive. Even people with skills in COBOL -- the once predominant language -- are becoming more difficult to find. Most programmers no longer learn COBOL in school; even if they were trained in it, they prefer to work in environments that support the latest technologies. Organizations need only check with their human resources department for the retirement dates of COBOL–trained personnel to determine when legacy applications written in COBOL will become a problem. Once they switch out their hard-coded mainframe environments with standards-based application infrastructures, companies typically realize significant cost savings, reduced dependence on hard-to-find programming skills, and newfound flexibility and agility. Conclusion Organizations that use legacy applications probably already realize that those systems are problematic. As operating costs rise, legacy skill sets become scarce, information becomes inaccessible, compliance requirements escalate, and IT becomes unresponsive to changing business requirements, IT modernization is no longer optional -- but has become the indispensable next step. IT modernization can be done as quickly or as slowly as an organization requires. Strategies and road maps can span multiple years and stay aligned with the organization’s business priorities and budget constraints. To determine the best IT modernization approach or combination of approaches for a specific organization, CIOs and enterprise architects must plan ahead and work closely with their IT modernization partners. That will be the topic of Part 2 of this article.Author: Véronique Anxolabehere, Senior Director, Oracle Modernization Marketing

Mission Statement:

Computer, the flagship publication of the IEEE Computer Society, publishes peer-reviewed technical content that covers all aspects of computer science, computer engineering, technology, and applications. Computer is a resource that practitioners, researchers, and managers can rely on to provide timely information about current research developments, trends, best practices, and changes in the profession.

Visual Effects and Beyond

Oliver Bimber

Visual effects are becoming increasingly realistic, with advancing processing power, computer graphics methods, and display technology that in some cases even go beyond a pure visual experience. This special issue presents four articles that describe the state of the art in visual effects in theatrical movies, TV broadcasts, computer games, and theme parks. An additional article reviews the state of practice in software architectures and another offers a sociotechnical solution to the problem of controlling spam to improve communication efficiency.