The Insider's Guide to Next-Generation BPM
By Dennis Byron, Analyst, ebizQ , 08/14/2007
Print this article
Email this article
Talk Back!
Write to Editor
Read about the birth of UNIX in the early 1970s and you see a closely linked effect on open source software (OSS) as we know it today. Trace the OSS concept back further through IT history and you find MIT and Bell Labs. That makes sense as well. But what did GE, IBM, DEC and the founders of the Lakeside Programming Group have to do with OSS? It's less clear but the outline is strong. Through the 1970s, what we think of as OSS today was just the way software was done.
In the beginning, software development was dictated by the technology-not culture or philosophy. Before 1960, technology dictated that computing would be centralized. I am not talking 'centralized' as in Oracle's single-instance vision of running an enterprise today; I am talking 'centralized' as in U.S. government economists predicted there might never be the need for more than a dozen computers. That prediction was of course based on what computers could do at that time and how much it cost to build them. It just didn't make sense that people would use vacuum tubes to replace mechanical calculators.
By 1970, when secretaries were starting to get their own Electronic typewriters and you could find a growing number of single-purpose minicomputers stuck in corners of research labs and on factory floors, analysts were admitting that maybe GM, Ford, McDonnell Douglas and a few government agencies and universities might actually be able to use their own electronic data processing (EDP) machines.
At that point, economists were predicting a few tens of thousands of discrete EDP systems-worldwide. Other than that, when it came to business and academic computing at least, the rest of us could get by with a couple of dozen computer centers in the United States. All of us would share our computer center's power in time slices, probably with plenty of time left over to oil the ¾-inch tape drive mechanisms. One of those potential time-sharing centers was at MIT in Cambridge, MA. Working with grants and in-kind support from GE and Bell Labs, in 1965 MIT launched a follow on to its initial time-sharing software studies.
The new project went by the acronym Multics (for Multiplexed Information and Computing Service). Multics introduced-or perfected commercially-features such as a segmented ring memory with an integrated file system; a virtual memory derived from the breakthrough UK Atlas system; operating software mostly written in a high-level language, PL/1, for the first time; a shared memory multiprocessor; multi-language support (including support for BASIC, which had been developed on another time-sharing system at Dartmouth), a relational database that debuted before Oracle's; and security, on-line reconfiguration, and software engineering features that took many years to permeate the rest of the industry. Multics debuted commercially in 1972 and the last system was decommissioned in 2000.
-1-
Best Practices in Moving Processes to the Clouds
How Can the Cloud Fit Into Your Applications Strategy?
Cloud Data Integration Best Practices
The Economics of Cloud Computing
Data Services Insight: Successful implementation of Canonical Information Models
Open Source and Cloud Computing: A Match Made in Heaven? 
BPM VIEWPOINT: Are You Asking Yourself the Hard Questions about BPM in Today's Economy?
BPM VIEWPOINT: Does Oracle/Sun Mean It's a Horse Race for BPM?
Managing Case Management Within BPM
ebizQ editorial highlights and updates, compiled by Site Editor Anne Stuart
March 10, 2011
The sixth annual BPM in Action 2011 Virtual Conference will explore cutting-edge market developments in BPM and describe how to leverage them for improved business operation and performance. More
Date:Apr 07, 2010
Time:13:00 PM
ET- (17:00 GMT)
Date:Apr 07, 2010
Time:12:00 PM
ET- (16:00 GMT)
In part two of Joe McKendrick's recent podcast with Miko Matsumura, chief strategist for Software AG, they talk about how SOA and IT systems need to change and grow and adapt with the organization around it.
Listen Now
Phil Wainewright interviews David Vap, VP of products at RightNow Technologies, and finds out how sharing best practices can help businesses understand how best to engage with online communities.
Listen Now
Scott Hebner, Vice President of Marketing and Strategy for IBM Rational, discusses a topic on the top of every company's mind today: getting the most from IT investments.
Listen Now
In BI, this tough economy and the increasing role of Web 2.0 and MDM are certainly topics on people's minds today. WiseAnalytics' Lyndsay Wise addresses each of them in this informative podcast.
Listen Now
Deepak Singh, President and CTO of Adeptia, joins ebizQ's Dennis Byron in a podcast that gets its hand around the trend of industry-specific BPM.
Listen NowSmart event processing can help your company run smarter and faster. This comprehensive guide helps you research the basics of complex event processing (CEP) and learn how to get started on the right foot with your CEP project using EDA, RFID, SOA, SCADA and other relevant technologies. Learn More
A lot of people are talking about Enterprise 2.0 as being the business application of Web 2.0 technology. However, there's still some debate on exactly what this technology entails, how it applies to today's business models, and which components bring true value. Some use the term Enterprise 2.0 exclusively to describe the use of social networking technologies in the enterprise, while others use it to describe a web economy platform, or the technological framework behind such a platform. Still others say that Enterprise 2.0 is all of these things. Learn More
|
|
This new publication from our sister site SearchSOA.com explores workflow, business activity monitoring (BAM) and complex event processing (CEP) issues. |
|
|
