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Mitchell Ummel

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Mitchell Ummel is Director of Cutter's Government & Public Sector practice and a Senior Consultant with Cutter's Business & Enterprise Architecture practice. Read more ...

Cloud Computing Commoditized

 Mitchell Ummel | Dec 18, 2012  1 Response
Dec 182012
 
Cloud Computing Commoditized

Recent developments in the Cloud Computing market space lead me to believe we are nearing the “tipping point” in the commoditization of IaaS (infrastructure-as-a-service) offerings. This will drive further adoption by enterprises. Earlier this year, Google, a leader in the PaaS market, publicly announced its intention to enter the already burgeoning IaaS market with its Google Compute Engine (GCE) service offering (currently available only in limited preview by Google). Most analysts interpret Google’s spin up of GCE as an aggressive move to go head-to-head with Amazon’s EC2 on all fronts: price, performance, and features. Other IaaS contenders, including HP with its recently launched OpenStack-based HP Cloud Compute, IBM, and Microsoft (notwithstanding its current focus on …

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 Business Technology Trends, Cloud Computing, Featured  Tagged with: , ,

Large Enterprises Will Not Push Microsoft Windows 8 Adoption in 2013

 Mitchell Ummel | Dec 9, 2012  No Responses
Dec 092012
 
Large Enterprises Will Not Push Microsoft Windows 8 Adoption in 2013

Regardless of Microsoft’s massive 2012 marketing and rollout campaign for Windows 8, we will find that large enterprises, most of which are comfortably stable and satisfied with Window 7.0 or other non-Vista Microsoft operating system options on the standard corporate desktop and notebook will not actively evaluate or consider Windows 8.0 in the enterprise until after 2013. Let’s face it: Windows 7.0 (and to some extent Windows XP)  is considered by many to be the most stable and feature-rich operating system in Microsoft’s history. Enterprises now have the knowledge and resources to drive productivity through this operating system. But as enterprises shift even more of their computing capacity to mobile devices that require more integration than is …

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 Business Technology Trends, Mobile Computing  Tagged with: , , ,

Cloud Computing Standards: Talk About Interoperability…

 Mitchell Ummel | Oct 9, 2012  No Responses
Oct 092012
 

The analogy between the evolution of the electric energy industry and cloud computing is oftentimes used, and for good reason. It’s likely the most applicable predictor of where this industry is heading over the next 10-20 years. Although slight regional variances exist, it’s generally the case that I, as a consumer of electric power, can plug in my appliance anywhere in the world and expect it to work efficiently, safely, and reliably. Standards for voltage regulation, plug/outlet design, and circuit protection are mature and widely embraced, and the electric appliance industry can compete, and innovate, on a level playing field for the benefit of consumers worldwide. The clock radio in my office is one of …

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 Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Enterprise Architecture, General  Tagged with:

Hot Skills for IT Pros in 2012

 Mitchell Ummel | Dec 10, 2011  No Responses
Dec 102011
 
Hot Skills for IT Pros in 2012

I see that in 2012, the areas where we’ll see the need for highly skilled IT professionals are business process/innovation analysis, project/program management, enterprise security, and risk management. We’ll also need Enterprise Cloud Solution Architects. And we’ll see that the most effective and innovative CIOs will continue to keep one foot in the business and one foot in the technology; that’s their key to survival. [Editor's Note: This post is part of the annual "Cutter Predicts ..." series, compiled at the Cutter Consortium website.]

 Business Technology Trends  Tagged with: ,

Traditional Enterprise System Vendors to Enter Public Cloud Computing Market

 Mitchell Ummel | Dec 10, 2011  1 Response
Dec 102011
 
Traditional Enterprise System Vendors to Enter Public Cloud Computing Market

In 2012, formidable public cloud computing market players will continue to spin up and mature their offerings. Traditional enterprise systems vendors, including but not limited to Oracle and IBM will enter the IaaS and PaaS fray. Cloud vendor “lock in” will become a more visible issue, with portability standards sorely lagging in development and adoption. By the end of 2012, expect early cloud portability standards to emerge (some driven by government cloud requirements), with Amazon leading the charge in adoption and promotion of these standards [Editor's Note: This post is part of the annual "Cutter Predicts ..." series, compiled at the Cutter Consortium website.]

 Business Technology Trends, Cloud Computing  Tagged with: , ,

The Battle for Mobile OS Wages On

 Mitchell Ummel | Dec 7, 2011  No Responses
Dec 072011
 
The Battle for Mobile OS Wages On

In 2012, the battle for the mobile operating system (OS) platform will wage on, with Android-based tablets and smartphones continuing to gain market share against Apple, whose next iPhone 5 (the design of which the late Steve Jobs was heavily involved in) will be shipped well in time for the 2012 holiday season. Other smartphone and tablet OS vendors, including Microsoft and RIM, will continue to be increasingly irrelevant. Expect corporate “approved technology buy lists” to further extend into the Android and Apple mobile device market, as enterprises rush to support these devices behind and across the firewall. Furthermore, it’s only a matter of time (perhaps in the coming year?) that we see a “hybrid” …

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 Mobile Computing  Tagged with: , ,

Transformational Government 3.0

 Mitchell Ummel | Dec 14, 2010  No Responses
Dec 142010
 

During the past decade, we found Government 2.0 to be evolutionary, serving to increase collaboration and communication through technology-enablement across the domains of Government-to-Citizen (G2C), Government-to-Business (G2B), and Government-to-Government (G2G).  Beginning in 2011, we will see a movement towards Transformational Government 3.0, involving a necessary shake-up of core, longstanding government traditions, through a renewed focus on reinventing how a technology-enabled fabric of governmental processes and people (and the organizations for which they serve) can more effectively and efficiently serve its constituents in the future. [Editor's Note: This post is part of the annual "Cutter Predicts ..." series, compiled at the Cutter Consortium website.]

 Business Technology Trends, Government+Public Sector  Tagged with: ,

Is There A Personal Cloud on Your Horizon?

 Mitchell Ummel | Dec 9, 2010  No Responses
Dec 092010
 

Starting in 2011, a new type of Cloud is rising in the distance. This cloud isn’t about enterprise class computing or the data center: it’s about information; information about you. Today, every individual has information about him/herself — relationships, digital devices under our control, etc. — spewed across the Internet. Often this information is automatically generated; it’s a form of digital exhaust trailing us as a by-product of how we interact with the Internet. Today, we have little or no control about how this information is used. We are each subject to lopsided and confusing “terms and conditions” for every consumer service. The concept of privacy is continually re-interpreted by Internet-based service providers. The concept …

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 Business Technology Trends, Cloud Computing  Tagged with: , ,

Are We Moving Towards a More Architecture-less IT?

 Mitchell Ummel | Dec 7, 2010  2 Responses
Dec 072010
 

Starting in 2011, look to a gradual shift away from constraining or contrived architectures, based on outdated analogies with building architecture or the traditional business, application, data/information, technology architecture EA “stack”. Tomorrow’s IT architectures may be more like the analogy where a building is architected in Zero-G (gravity). In such an environment, would we really pour the foundation first, and then establish the support beams and framing to be pre-requisite, dependant, and therefore locked in, for the life of the system? IT architectures — especially application and information architectures based upon emerging Semantic Web-based technologies — are far less constrained, allowing for refactoring, growth, and evolution in a real-time manner. There is no lock-in to …

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 Business Technology Trends, Enterprise Architecture  Tagged with: , ,

It’s the Tipping Point for Semantic Web Linked Open Data!

 Mitchell Ummel | Dec 5, 2010  No Responses
Dec 052010
 

The Linked Open Data (LOD) cloud has doubled in size approximately every year since 2007 and is now collection of more than 200 datasets that offer more than 25 billion interlinked facts, available across widely diverse domains such as government, scientific, medical, social media, geographic, and other data. All of this publicly accessible data now comprises an estimated 395 million links between around 25 billion RDF statements. Starting in 2011, increasingly interesting and useful Semantically Aware Applications (SAAs), in the form of mashups against this semantically-defined data, will begin to proliferate massively. Look for governments (exemplified by www.data.gov in the United States and www.data.gov.uk in England) — in the continued spirit of transparency and accountability …

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 Business Intelligence, Business Technology Trends  Tagged with: ,
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