Compose a golden diary of life

"Those who wake up each morning with work to accomplish and a mission to fulfill are the happiest people of all. SGI members are like this. For us each day is one of supreme purpose and satisfaction. For us each day is New Year's Day. Please exert yourselves vigorously with the determination to live each day to the fullest, so that you may compose a golden diary of life." - Daisaku Ikeda

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Big Data Analytic Analogy

A century ago if you wanted to be wealthy, you'd mine for natural resources from out of the soil, build a factory, build things and then sell them. If you took that same model and applied it to the current digital era, then you mine your data for information, the datacenter is your factory, the data scientists are your workers, and you sell the information to your customers—internal and/or external—and leveraging the intelligence towards operational and financial gains.

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Quote Unquote .... from here & there

Folks, if you are married or going to get married, you must read them. These one liners are so funny that I could not resist collecting and consolidating them. They are not meant to offend anybody and neither are they reflection of my thinking. I hope they flex your facial, jaw and throat muscles for a while. If you don't like them, just ignore this as another blog post!

1. A good wife always forgives her husband when she's wrong.

2. My wife and I were happy for 20 years. Then we met.

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IBM BPM 7.5 – There is something for everyone!

IBM integrated their WebSphere BPM offerings and released a new product - IBM Business Process Manager (BPM) 7.5 late last week and. Here I was sitting with one of my BPM clients at lunch table earlier this week browsing the lunch menu, my client suddenly asked – What is this new product from IBM for business process management? Will I have to migrate to new BPM and how will my existing entitlements change post this upgrade?

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IT sales - You are eligible for bonuses

IT sales has been always fascinating for me because of the bonus component. However Dilbert seems to have a different view. Do you agree?

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Suniyee Santa Banta ko

<<Meant for my friends who can read and understand Hindi>>

gag #1

Banta to Airhostess "Aap ki surat meri biwi se milti hai"
Airhostess ne zordar thappad banta ke muh pe mara.
Banta : "Kamaal hai! Aadat bhi milti hai.

gag #2

Ambani: If i start driving my car @ sunrise, i won't be able to cover even half of my estate by sunset.
Santa: Even i had such a useless car, but i sold it !!!!

gag #3

Santa 15 Saal tak Ro-Ro k Aulad k liye dua Mangta raha,mangta raha,
1 Din Bhgwan dukhi hokar aaye aur bole: Tenu khuda da Vasta,
Pehla Shadi ta Karla Mere Baap

gag #4

Santa:Yaar me to duvidha me fas gya.
Banta:Wo kaise.
Santa:Yaar Biwi k makeup ka kharcha bardasht nahi hota aur makeup na kare to Biwi bardasht nahi hoti!

gag #5

Banta, getting late for a meeting & not finding a parking space, looked up towards heaven & said, "Waheguru, take pity on me. If you find me a parking spot I will go to Gurudwara every Sunday for the rest of my life & give up daaru."
Miraculously a parking spot appeared. Banta looked up again & said, "Never mind. I found one......":

gag #6

Santa- Shirt k liye kapda dikhaiye.
Salesman-plain mein dikhau?

Santa - nai...helicopter mein dikha saale bandar ki aulad..mazak udata hain.

 

 

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IBM 1Q11 - software revenue wows!

Key highlights

• Reported earnings of $2.9 billion, on revenue of $24.6 billion, up 8 percent from a year ago. Financial services revenue increased 14% YoY to $ 7.3 B.


• Software revenue was $5.3 billion, up 6 percent


• Middleware products revenue was $3.3 billion, up 16 percent from a year ago


• WebSphere Family YoY increase 51%


• Information Management YoY increase 13%


• Tivoli YoY increase 8%


• Rational YoY increase 5%


• Business Analytics revenue was up 20%


• Cloud revenue was up by a factor of 5% and Smarter Planet was up about 20%

Details: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/34330.wss

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Chargeback for internal IT services- What are the options?

The use of chargeback to fund internally provided services is a basic part of management culture and tradition.  It provides a predicable revenue stream for your IT organization. Here are some key chargeback mechanisms that you may want to consider depending on your business organization needs

Transaction Based Pricing – In this model service consumers are charged based on number of business transactions.  This approach is very easy to understand from business perspective but it is difficult to correlate IT cost with business transactions as there may be several types of business transactions at any point of time.

Tiered Usage based pricing – Charges in this model are based on pre-established range of usage. Depending on your business organization needs, you can create multiple levels or tiers for example you can create a free usage level to make it easy for customers to give you’re offering a try and then create a set of tiers based on measurable parameters usage, transactions, service levels etc.If you are developing and hosting a new service and you already have business buy-in for this development, you may want to go with model similar to ones used by cell phone service providers in USA. You would charge a sign-up fee and a monthly fee and would then include a certain amount of free usage as part of the first tier, with additional and more costly tiers after that.

Subscription Pricing / Pay per use – Pricing is per unit of time and can include various services that may be independently priced. The charges are based on a contracted period of time and are factor of access, functionality and service levels. The development and operational cost of IT service is calculated and amortized across a subscription period and then divided between all the users of the service. It is recommended that IT organization should add an element of gross margin to create a pool to fund its research and future projects.For example:  In an organization let say Supplier address service is subscribed by Parts, Wiring, Flight, Distribution Control and Engine maintenance applications/ sub-units in an aerospace company and it costs $ 20K per month to provide such a service, the subscription charge (assuming a break-even business model) would be $4,000 per consumer per month.This model doesn’t provide usage monitoring or penalties and works on the assumption that all consumers will use the service at the same level on a constant basis, with no penalties for excessive consumption or peak time usage. Moreover, the model doesn’t provide any metrics by which the actual level of consumption can be measured, calculated and justified to skeptical consumers.

Access based pricing – If your Integration CoE is also responsible for developing business processes, you may want to opt for access based model where charges are based on the ability to access certain functions. You can charge a flat fee to your customers under this model.

Peak Level Pricing – This model is evolved version of Subscription pricing model where a mechanism to monitor and record the peak consumption is added. The service consumers are billed according to the peak use and not according to the average use.  The model gives a clear indication of when a consumer is overshooting the base level.  However if there are few peaks of usage than this model may seem unfair for peak consumers.

User based pricing model – The model works by tracking the authentication of individual users. The model works really well if single sign on is in place in your organization. There is a clear cost justification based on the authentication record. However this model completely ignore system load for example if a consumer application makes a heavy demand when they access the common service, the consumer is not charged for it.

Ticket based pricing: If your organization is one of those where QoS is critical. Going by the ticket based pricing model may be the right option and this model is most powerful in terms of cost justification. This method let’s IT control system load to a fine degree, helping to eliminate usage peaks and ensure business continuity.

Leave me a comment if you have implemented another mechanism in your organization apart from ones listed above!

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Cloud Computing Partner Classification-What type are you?

IBM enhanced its IBM WebSphere business integration software portfolio in early May 2010 after acquiring announced
Cast Iron Systems.  In Q3 2010, IBM reiterated its commitment towards its global ecosystems of business partners by launching first of its kind cloud computing lab in Hursley, United Kingdom.  IBM partners can access IBM's cloud technologies to develop and test new cloud services from IBM's network of 38 Innovation Centers worldwide.

Guess what? IBM has also classified its Cloud partners into six different categories based on partner needs (yes you heard it right, no more public & private cloud creator classification!)

Cloud Builders – Are partners viz systems integrators, hardware integrators and software integrators who build typically private clouds for their enterprise customers.

Cloud Infrastructure Providers – Are partners who own a data center or have some IT operations skills and want to build a public cloud. The list includes Value-added distributors, Value-added resellers, IT services companies, large Telcos and/or hosting providers,.

Cloud Application Providers – Are partners who develop business applications and delivers them as service via a cloud. This category primarily includes solution providers who develop applications.

Cloud Services Re-sellers – Are primarily the re-sellers of the services from public cloud providers viz SI, hardware or software re-sellers.

Cloud Technology Providers – Are partners who have the ability to extend the capabilities of other company’s cloud for example companies that provide automated tools to chargeback customers hosted in cloud.

Cloud Aggregators – Are partners who aggregate services from multiple clouds for their customers.

Here is what Dave Mitchell, Director of Strategy and Emerging Business at IBM has to say:

[youtube width="560" height="340"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5xEsnoHTyg&feature=player_embedded#![/youtube]

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