The Axis Technical Group Blog

Companies large and small are continuing to seek out new ways to maximize their technology investments to drive new business and lower costs. Over the last 18 months companies have executed numerous plans to reduce cost and maximize efficiency, and in many cases this led to an increased focus on technology. However, technology itself is not cheap either.

With an increase in the development (and use) of software to help save costs and increase productivity, the development cycle has been heating up at organizations coast to coast. But the multitude of platforms and environments organizations need to support are leading to new cost concerns. The fact is, testing software applications or products that support multiple active versions and/or multiple operating systems can be very expensive and time consuming activity.

Many of the clients and IT Executives that Axis Technical Group works with have focused on ways to deal with this challenge. One such solution is to use virtual environments for software maintenance and testing. By using this solution, The Axis India team is helping several clients realize substantial benefits from reduction in overall costs, to improved turnaround time and increased reliability of the test environment.

Axis Technical Group has just published a new white paper on the subject, and it is available for download by clicking here. We would also like to hear from you about the money-saving efforts your organizations are using as we all continue to navigate this new global economy.

Download: Virtual Environments for Software Maintenance & Testing

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So many brains have spent so many brain cycles on this very single puzzle- the right project metric. In simpler terms a measurement method that determines if the project is on track through the life of the project.  Each individual in the group of the ‘stake holders’ and a few outside it has keen interest in the value that this metric delivers. But what is the right metric? We can probably get a couple of hundred finalists and this can easily overwhelm an already burdened project manager. Leaving the right exact single solution to people from the world of academia we still need to find the right substitute as we await the golden answer.

Experience speaks that that there is one single metric which many high performing managers on the ground swear by and that is (thanks to Ron Jeffries) “Running Tested Features” or RTF. This is a simple common sense approach that tries to capture where the project is in terms of its ‘shipability’. Though using this metric in the polarized worlds of waterfalls, Agiles and others, can be a bit tricky, understanding the concept behind the metric often does the trick.

The focus on delivering “real software” is the gist. Right from the word go the team would need to focus on delivering the real features that the end users can actually use. As long as this number is steady in its growth it can be safely assumed that all is well with the project. Any “dead zone” would indicate trouble and would need immediate attention. The team will have to be consistent in the delivery throughout the project and not just at the end as with most of the projects.

What do you think about RTF?
Does it work? Is it possible to game it?

Please post your comments. We are eager to hear back from you.

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We have heard of dark clouds, white clouds, and clouds with a silver lining but now the clouds are D-for-digital (d-clouds) or I- for-internet (I-cloud), not to mention the 24 more possibilities for rest of the alphabet. Well, if you need to pick an alphabet you need to pick it fast as most of them are “going going” and will soon be “gone”. In the “gone” state is the G-Cloud – the “Government Cloud” (It could have been green, growing, gaming or g-whatever) . Yes. Just as is obvious, it does mean a cloud that is of the public sector for the public sector and for the public sector.

In theory this would be huge achievement. Firstly, it would mean hefty cost savings in the IT infrastructure and most significantly energy. Secondly, the availability of the resources will be easier than ever and from the public sector point of view, standardization of all the underlying requirements will make it a dream project. If you think this concept is out of a “vision 2020” book you are wrong. The UK government had announced commencement of work on the G-cloud and that it will be available soon. If this turns out to be a success, this one event is sure going to be a game changer.
Everyone including the software product vendors, hardware vendors, support personnel, software services companies will have to pause and re strategize to meet the enormous transformation that this one single event will cause. But isn’t this taking things too far too soon? Where will all the critical, highly sensitive data lie? “There somewhere on the cloud?” Everyone knows that even the most publicized private clouds place their most sensitive data at the most secured locations.

So will the G-Cloud stand true to the expectations? Will you be comfortable with the Government offices working on the “server in the air”?  Will a single failure be a failure “en masse”?  Will a single security breach compromise the security of a whole nation? Are people behind this really sure of what they are doing or is this one of those policies that can never be realistic. The questions are more and answers are few. An issue for a  rigorous debate that we simply cannot ignore.

What do you think? Which side would you take? We would love to hear from you.

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