BriefingsDirect Podcasts

What The Open Group refers to as Open Platform 3.0 encompasses the combined impacts of cloud, big data, mobile, and social. But to each of these now we can add a new cresting wave of complexity and scale as we consider the rapid explosion of new devices, sensors, and myriad endpoints that will be connected using internet protocols, standards and architectural frameworks. This so-called Internet of...

It's only been a few years since Waste Management's IT organization began rebuilding their quality assurance processes from the ground up. "Our availability scorecard was pretty bad. Our services were down. At times, we didn’t know that our services were down. Our first indication of a problem was from customers calling us," remembers Gautam Roy, Vice President of Infrastructure, Operations and Te...

It's a shame when the data analysis providers inside a company get the cold shoulder from the business leaders because the data keeps proving the status quo wrong, or contradicts the conventional corporate wisdom. Fortunately for GSN Games in San Francisco, there's no such culture clash there. "The real thing that's helped us get to the point we are is a culture where everybody is open to being wr...

The old model of just being an outsourcer or on-premises service provider is dead for many IT solutions providers. Instead, we’re all now in a hybrid world where will have some private-cloud solutions and multiple public clouds. The challenge is to have the right level of governance, and to be in a position to move the workloads, and adjust the workloads with the needs. These words of wisdom come...

It’s no secret that communication service providers (CSPs) are under a lot of pressure as they make massive investments in upgraded networks while facing shrinking margins and revenues from their eroding traditional voice or broadcasting businesses. Traditional operators understand that they must go beyond what they did before. They need to offer more compelling services to reduce churn and acquir...

The next BriefingsDirect deep-dive discussion explores how one of the most costly and complex parts of any enterprises IT infrastructure -- storage -- is being dramatically improved by the accelerating adoption of software-defined storage (SDS). The ability to choose low-cost hardware, to manage across different types of storage, and radically simplify data storage via intelligent automation means...

As a provider of both application development management and infrastructure outsourcing, Denmark-based NNIT needed a better way to track, manage and govern the more than 10,000 services across its global data centers. Beginning in 2010, the journey to better overall services automation paved the way to far stronger cloud services delivery, too. NNIT uses HP Cloud Service Automation (CSA) to improv...

Over the past five years, the impetus for cloud adoption has been primarily about advancing the IT infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) fabric or utility model, and increasingly seeking both applications and discrete IT workload support services from Internet-based providers. But as adoption of these models has unfolded, it's become clear that the impacts and implications of cloud commerce are much...

Systems Mechanics Limited used to use relational databases to assemble and analyze some 25 or 30 different data sources in near real-time. But most relational database appliances used 1980s technical approaches, and the ability to connect more data and manage more events capped off. The runway for their business expansion just ended. So Systems Mechanics looked for a platform that scales well and...

An expected deluge of data and information about patients, providers, outcomes, and needed efficiencies is pushing the healthcare industry to rapid change. But more than dealing with just the volume of data is required. Interoperability, security and the ability to adapt rapidly to the lessons in the data are all essential. The means of enabling Boundaryless Information Flow, Open Platform 3.0 ada...

When Swedish communications services provider TDC needed network infrastructure improvements from their disparate networks across several Nordic countries, they needed both simplicity in execution and agility in performance. Our next innovation case study interview therefore highlights how TDC in Stockholm found ways to better determine root causes to any network disruption, and conduct deep inspe...

As smartphones have become de rigueur in the global digital economy, users want them to do more work, and businesses want them to be more productive for their employees -- as well as powerful added channels to consumers. But neither businesses nor mobile-service providers have a cross-domain architecture that supports all the new requirements for a secure digital economy, one that allows safe comm...

A stubborn speed bump continues to hobble the digital economy. We're referring to the outdated use of passwords and limited identity-management solutions that hamper getting all of our devices, cloud services, enterprise applications, and needed data to work together in anything approaching harmony. The past three years have seen a huge uptick in the number and types of mobile devices, online serv...

The advent of the application programming interface (API) economy has forced a huge, pressing need for organizations to both seek openness and improve security for accessing mobile applications, data, and services anytime, anywhere, and from any device. Awash in inadequate passwords and battling subsequent security breaches, business and end-users alike are calling for improved identity management...

The next BriefingsDirect innovation case study interview highlights how Capgemini uses big data and HP Vertica analytics infrastructure to help its financial services clients better manage risk. When Capgemini's business information management (BIM) practices unit needed to provide big data capabilities to its insurance company customers, it sought to deliver the right information to businesses mu...

The next BriefingsDirect case study interview explores how improved visibility analytics and predictive responses are improving supply-chain management. We’ll now learn how SAP’s Supplier InfoNet, coupled with the Ariba Network, allows for new levels of transparency in predictive analytics that reduce risk in supplier relationships. BriefingsDirect had an opportunity in this podcast to uncover mor...

We have surely entered a golden age of mobile apps development, not just for app stores wares, but across all kinds of enterprise and productivity applications. The notion of mobile-first has altered the development landscape so much that the very notion of software development writ large will never be the same. With the shift comes a need for speed, but not so much so that security and performanc...

The power of big data technology is being successfully applied to understanding such complex unknowns as consumer sentiment and even intent. And that understanding then vastly improves how retailers and myriad service providers manage their users' experiences -- increasingly in real time. Fortunately, today's consumers are quite willing to share their intents and sentiments via social media, if yo...

The next BriefingsDirect case study interview explores the new face of customer engagement and procurement modernization by examining how MSC Industrial Supply is improving how they define and relate to their customers in the manufacturing sector. MSC has been using the Ariba Network to innovatively bolster customer engagements, and to provide new solutions to their customers based on increased co...

This BriefingsDirect panel discussion defines new business values from the massive Platform 3.0 shift that combines the impacts and benefits of big data, cloud, Internet of things, mobile and social. Our discussion comes to you from The Open Group Conference on May 13, 2014 in Amsterdam, where the focus is on enabling boundaryless information flow. To learn more about making Platform 3.0 a busines...

The next BriefingsDirect panel discussion explores one of the most broadly deployed collaboration platforms, Microsoft SharePoint, to determine how it's rapidly evolving from local network portal roots into the new cloud and mobile era. Delivering information as an actionable asset in a widely collaborative and increasingly mobile environment has clearly become a top business priority. Business ar...

The next BriefingsDirect case study interview explores how American Electric Power improves their financial processes and operations using Ariba Dynamic Discounting. It turns out that a real-time business-process approach to billing, ordering and settlement terms between buyers and sellers benefits both American Electric Power, one of the largest investor-owned electric utilities in the U.S., and...

Heartland Payment Systems has successfully leveraged software-assurance tools and best practices to drive better security within its IT organization -- and improve their overall business performance. In this first of a two-part series -- Does Software Security Pay? -- hear directly from Ashwin Altekar, Director of Enterprise Risk Management at Heartland, as he shares his insights and knowledge wit...

The next BriefingsDirect thought-leader interview focuses on the Ariba product roadmap for 2014 -- and beyond. Ariba’s product and services roadmap is rapidly evolving, including gaining more analytics capabilities. BriefingsDirect had an opportunity to learn first-hand how at the 2014 Ariba LIVE Conference in Las Vegas. To learn more about the recent news at Ariba LIVE -- and also what to expect...

This next BriefingsDirect case study explores how AribaPay early-adopter Arlington Computer Products (ACP) improves their financial processes and operations using the cloud-based B2B payment service. Agile business services are entering into a new era, an integrated and on-demand approach to ordering, billing, and settlement processes between buyers and seller. A prime example is Ariba's partnersh...