Govind Davis

Our conversation continues about the optimal mix of technology to support business process.  In "Living IT, QuickBase Leads The Way", we discussed the concept of Living IT and why organizations should plan for changing and dynamic technology.  To elaborate further on this topic we want to introduce some ideas around what we refer to as the the Application Ecosystem and how technologies such as PaaS and ETL fit in. Core Systems The Application Ecosystem of an organization is a broad way to refer to the various technology tools that the organization uses.  This applies to government, for-profit and non-profit organizations.  At the center of the Application Ecosystem is what we refer to as Core Systems.  These tools are typically associated with basic organizational functions required for accounting and transactional purposes.  For smaller businesses, tools like Quic... (more)

PaaS and the Cloud Continuum

We were recently Tweeted an inquiry about what exactly cloud computing means.  If you are listening in to tech chatter these days it's impossible to avoid the flurry of opinions about what the cloud is. So ... we figured we might as well add our two cents and spent a thought provoking morning developing a cloud stack analogy. Cloud services tend to fit into the category of SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) or IaaS(Infrastructure-as-a-Service), each one delivering a service that encompasses the stack components below.  So, IaaS provides everything needed ... (more)

Web 2.0 Interconnectivity

In the recent TechWise blog PaaS & the cloud Continuum we discussed the structure and phenomenon of Cloud computing.  There really are two technological evolutions occurring simultaneously.  One is the movement of storage and services to the cloud and the other is the push to interconnect these services.  This shift to increased interconnectivity forms the basis of Web 2.0 If you browse the blogsphere for Web 2.0 articles you will often see terms like Service Oriented Architecure, API's, Web Services and WSDL's.  These all refer to methods and technologies that allow Cloud based... (more)

The Good, Bad and Ugly of Technology Service Integration

We are rolling out a project next week that is really one of our crowning achievements as a small company.  The project involves replacing an out-dated and cumbersome Access database that runs a sales and loan process for our medium sized client with an end-to-end solution based on QuickBase.  What is most exciting is that we are integrating three external data sources as part of the process; web based application capture, credit reports and electronic signatures. Our recent adoption of the Talend ETL technology to run our integrations has opened the door for us to tackle this pr... (more)

"Living IT": The Gap Between Management and Technology Is Shrinking

It seems there is a continual push and pull in the technology world between centralizing and consolidating technology vs. distributing and diversifying.  We've asked ourselves this question often of whether our clients will be better served with a single technology to support their needs. This line of questioning typically leads to the evaluation of the trade off between a single multi-purposed technology that solves many problems but none well as opposed to a number of "best-of-breed" solutions. In reality organizations seem to answer this perennial question with decisions tha... (more)