Elasticity in the Mainframe Environment

By Brenda J. Christie

This week's Enterprise Systems Media feature article centered around the concept of "elasticity," a nice buzzword that really means flexibility.  Or in project management speak, it is called "resource balancing."  However, the article, "IT Sense: Elastic Storage" talks about the difficulty of assessing the availability of a resource due to a lack of standardization within the environment itself.

Engaging the Stakeholder

by Brenda J. Christie

Years ago there used to be this breed of IT professional who essentially espoused the philosophy of "if you build it, they will come."  They got a whiff of what the business said it needed, came up with a solution immediately, and then off to the races they charged.  Using the Waterfall methodology, designing, testing and producing the deliverable usually took months, after which the stakeholder said, "But that's not what I wanted."  Everyone was disappointed.

Fortunately, thanks to the advent of Agile and the whole concept of collaboration, those types of results are, hopefully, infrequent.  Not that Waterfall was the culprit.  After all, any tool is only as good as the person using it.  I'll use my experience as an example.