The business of analytics: It takes a village…
August 8, 2016 by Michael O'Neil, InsightaaS principal analyst

In recent interviews with Allegis Global Solutions, Dealertrack, and DMI, InsightaaS learned that the main goal in partnering with Information Builders is the alignment of supplier, partner and customer business objectives.

The fourth element of the equation
Investing in operational support to build the partnering relationship can also help to drive growth in the analytics ecosystem. For instance, “DMI […] has worked with IB to develop joint account strategies that combine IB’s platform features with DMI’s focus on user experience,” explained Michael O’Neil, principal analyst at InsightaaS. Read more

Microsecond speed in new financial fabric
August 9, 2016 by Mary Allen

CenturyLink’s IQ+ Financial is a new Canadian fibre platform that provides companies with the capabilities they need to address three challenges, which have emerged in financial markets: rapid digitalization of the capital market business, Big Data volumes, and lagging profitability.

A new connectivity solution
Roji Oommen, managing director, CenturyLink Financial Services, offered an analogy to describe how IQ+ Financial links trading customers, sellers in trading venues, financial data feeds and third party data centre assets: it is like “cable TV, where you can access multiple channels from a single line, and depending on your authorization, watch any channel at any time – or all of them at once.” Read more

Do you have what it takes for Agile?
August 3, 2016 by Denise Deveau

Training can facilitate the smooth transition to Agile methodologies; however, enterprises will have to overcome skills gaps and organizational barriers to achieve a successful implementation.

Soft skills: harder to master
The Agile journey requires training, and soft skills need to be learned. However, “the hardest part for organizations [to learn] is how to support a learning environment in an extremely dynamic, complex and unpredictable marketplace. Learning is not just something you do when you have a budget surplus,” stressed David Sabine, scrum trainer and consultant at BERTEIG. Read More

Containers FTW
August 1, 2016 by Lynn Greiner

If you aren’t sure about containers, tech journalist Lynn Greiner makes sure you understand more in a comprehensive overview describing how containers are changing the game in cloud solutions.

What makes containers so important?
According to Greiner, containers are “a package that contains an entire runtime environment: an application, all of its dependencies, libraries, configuration files, and binaries that it needs to run.”
To support broader use of the technology, Docker, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Oracle, Microsoft, Intel, Twitter, Google, VMware, Cisco, and Dell have just joined forces to support the Open Container Initiative. Read more