Tuesday, April 26, 2011

ERP Implementation at Maple Leaf Foods

Maple Leaf Foods is a major Canadian food producer that grew quickly over the past fifteen years through a series of mergers and acquisitions. As with many companies with a similar growth pattern, the company ended up with more then 30 different ERP systems, which in itself was evidence of a somewhat splintered management organization. In addition, they had been faced with a major product recall in 2003 because of tainted meat, which cost the company some 37.5 million dollars. They also, like many other Canadian exporters, are faced with the consequences of a rising Canadian dollar, which seriously affects their sales, particularly to their major market - the US.

All of these factors along with others, prompted the company to launch a thorough five year plan, which includes initiatives on several fronts, one of them being a streamlining of their ERP systems. The article referenced here, which is very comprehensive, provides an interesting case study of their challenges and of the solutions they are rolling out. Great for discussion in class or otherwise.

Monday, April 18, 2011

SDN

Write down this new acronym (as if we needed a new acronym!) - SDN, or Software Defined Networking.

This is a project of The Open Networking Foundation which is a consortium of a group of the leading network providers like Cisco, Microsoft and Juniper. The idea is to virtualize networks on a cooperative basis, giving companies the advantages of latency and scalability to a degree that can only be available with virtualized networks.

It\s bound to be popular  and will be useful for cloud computing as it adds a set of standards that will be helpful in that arena. it's another stepo away from the old proprietor based systems of previous years and is a liberation for companies from the old constraints of those outdated systems. For more on SDN, see this article.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Microsoft Makes a Decisive Move into the Private Cloud

Cloud computing has been a big trend in computer systems because it removes many of the issues around systems development and management. Companies can implement systems on proven platforms using proven applications. Of course, they sacrifice many of the customizations that come with self developed and managed systems, but for many companies the sacrifice is worth it.

On the other hand, some companies have been reluctant to go to the cloud because it is, after all, an outsourcing activity, and subject to many of the pitfalls of outsourcing, such as reliance on outside management, and dependence on security structures that may not fully meet the company's normal standards. Few companies are willing to sacrifice much in the way of security standards.

One solution that has been gaining support is that of private clouds. These are systems, still in the cloud and still offered by outside vendors but which involve more control and management by the customer.

Microsoft has recently announced a major initiative in the field of private cloud computing in the form of System Center 2012.

System Center 2012 is a cloud based application that an IT shop can make available to its users that features a self service portal enabling users to select the features they want without having to deal with the underlying systems. For example, the system allows selection of logical networks, load balancers, storage, memory and virtual CPUs. There is more at this link.

Virtualization in the cloud by using private cloud technology is moving into the forefront of enterprise systems. Watch for the competition to step up.

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

HYBRID HOSTING - The Next Evolution of the Cloud?

"Hybrid hosting, an approach that combines components of dedicated hosting and cloud hosting in a single solution, allows businesses to switch seamlessly between dedicated hosted services and cloud services, or use both simultaneously, as needed. In particular, hybrid hosting solutions recognize that a business will have different sets of requirements for different types of computing needs as well as requirements associated with specific types of applications. For mission-critical applications, including line-of-business and proprietary applications, stability and security requirements may point to the need for dedicated hosting. Usage associated with promotional events and campaigns, or any application that experiences highly variable traffic and usage patterns, may be better suited to scalable cloud solutions.

Rather than forcing businesses to choose just one platform, hybrid hosting gives businesses access to both, integrating the strengths of each seamlessly without incurring unnecessary costs and without introducing undesirable complexity. As a result, “[t]he bulk of business computing will shift out of private data centers to the cloud,” according to noted technology author Nicholas Carr.2 To look at what that shift entails, we will examine next the basic elements of hybrid hosting."
The white paper can be downloaded at this link.