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The Future of Enterprise IT, Special Edition for GEOINT October 2009 Published by Crucial Point LLC Copyright 2009 http://crucialpointllc.com Suite 500, 1818 Library Street, Reston VA 20190 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................ 4 THE MEGA TRENDS IN IT................................................................................................ 5 Convergence and Trend Towards Unified User Empowerment............................... 5 Globalization, Demographic Shifts, and Increasing Internationalization of IT and Demographic Shifts...................................................................................... 6 Increasing Open Development of Software and Hardware...................................... 6 Cloud Computing..................................................................................................... 7 Increasing Pace of Technology Development and Probability of Disruption............ 7 THE DISCIPLINES OF ENTERPRISE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND MARKET LEADERS.......................................................................................................... 8 Storage.................................................................................................................... 8 Communications...................................................................................................... 9 Search and Discovery.............................................................................................. 9 Applications..............................................................................................................10 Virtualization.............................................................................................................11 Open Source............................................................................................................ 12 Security Technologies.............................................................................................. 12 Collaboration Technology......................................................................................... 13 Web2.0 and Social Media........................................................................................ 13 GEOINT Tools.......................................................................................................... 14 Visualization............................................................................................................. 15 Cloud Computing..................................................................................................... 15 Green IT................................................................................................................... 17 Summary.................................................................................................................. 18 DRAWING LESSONS FROM THE FUTURE OF IT........................................................... 19 Concluding Thoughts............................................................................................... 21

The Future of Enterprise IT

From Mega Trends to Off the Shelf Technologies

Introduction
This report on the future of enterprise technology was produced with the Geospatial enterprise and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) in mind. Geospatial Intelligence places many unique demands on information technology, including requirements for increased processing power, increased storage, new means of indexing data and increased functionality in communications networks. Fortunately, developments in those and many other fields of IT are coming fast and can help address key GEOINT community challenges. A new challenge is arising, however. How can we know which of todays problems are nearly solved and which remain intractable? And how can we know what is immediately available to address outstanding mission needs? One answer: focused thought and assessments on the future of enterprise IT. Focused thought on the future of technology can provide real insights of use to planners and decision-makers of today. Views of the future can help users express requirements with more clarity and can help Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) and Chief Information Officers (CIOs) decide which technologies to accelerate to meet those requirements. Whether you are a user or a technologist, studying the future of IT can help you decide which constructs to accelerate into todays reality. This report uses two models of predicting the near term future: 1) Tracking mega-trends in the IT industry. 2) Defining the disciplines of Enterprise Information Technology and highlighting market leaders. Using these models, we are able to present forward-looking reccomendations to use in planning the IT systems of today. The material here is largely from the online resources of CTOvision.com. The blog and reference pages there are reviewed and commented on by a wide swath of technologists including CTOs from the IT community, systems integrators and large enterprises. Please consider using the blog there to provide feedback and input for future iterations. This booklet has applicability for any large organization, but was written with the technology needs of the Geospatial enterprise in mind.

The Mega Trends in IT

A mega trend is a movement so big it cannot be avoided. Ignoring it will only ensure the trend acts on you vice giving you a chance to proactively shape it. These are expressions of major driving forces that move globally and impact wide swaths of humanity. The five mega trends explored here are: Convergence and trend towards unified communications and user empowerment Globalization and increasing internationalization of IT and demographic shifts Increasing open development of software and hardware Cloud Computing Increasing pace of technology development and probability of disruption

leveraged by the enterprise for their mission. Consumer demand continues to fuel advances in communications and networking capability, which ends up supporting enterprise buyers by reducing cost and enhancing capabilities. And consumer demands on IT are also a key driver in emerging Cloud Computing trends (a mega trend so critically important we discuss it separately as its own wave). Enterprises are also increasingly being enabled by the social media/social networking dimensions of this shift to users. Social media and its ability to bring mass collaboration to problems has shown benefits in ways that is fueling increasing consumer demand and that should ensure continued advancement of social media tools. Enterprises are also bringing social media to bear on problems, both inside and outside of their firewalls.

Globalization, Demographic Shifts, Increasing Internationalization of IT

and

The CTOvision.com Technology Titan List covers the 16 largest IT firms (Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Google, Cisco, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Qualcom, SAP, EMC, Dell, Yahoo, Adobe, Vmware, Symantec). These powerhouse companies all have a market capitalization of over $16 Billion. A review of the list highlights an incredible fact: These are all, with the exception of one case (SAP), American companies. This chart shows that U.S. companies conduct the majority of commercial IT engineering and development for big enterprises. This is good news for the country. An important fact to highlight, however, is that these companies all work globally and have development and research labs around the world. Just because a U.S. company is fielding your capabilities does not mean the capability was developed in the U.S. In fact, odds are it was not With all western nations forecast to see a significant graying of the workforce and pending mass retirement, additional dynamics are at play in this megatrend. Japan is the first nation to feel a significant impact form the reality of a retiring

Convergence and Trend Towards Unified User Empowerment

Enterprise CIOs and CTOs remain key players in the IT ecosystem. But, the IT industry has been shifting to support an increasingly important player -- the individual. The commercialization and commoditization of IT, paired with the ubiquity of computing devices, has caused a shift in IT developer focus towards the individual consumer. This trend can both compete with and enable enterprises. The competition comes from the pull on developers focus and time. Increasingly the limited pool of computer engineers is being pulled towards coding for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, the iPhone and consumer focused cloud services providers (like Google and Amazon). The enablement comes from enterprises with incredibly competent/capable workforces skilled in technology, plus access to increasingly powerful devices and cloud capabilities that can be

workforce. This graying of the workforce is affecting every U.S. ally, fueling the global competition for IT talent. This trend underscores the critical importance of strategic planning, both for companies and countries. Coordination, communication and collaboration are critically important activities. And knowledge capture capabilities, many of which may be IT based, will be of growing importance around the globe.

big enterprises still spend money on this, just less than on proprietary software). The smart use of open source by big enterprises is having an impact on many other elements of the environment. For example, enterprises have increasing needs for in-house programming talent, in part because of the need to understand open source. There is also a drive towards community engagement with open source software, with more large enterprises spending time and energy to engage with open

Increasing Open Development of Software source software development collectives. and Hardware Cloud Computing
Open source software started with hobbyists. It has now been embraced by all major IT companies, even the largest proprietary shops (like Microsoft) have open source software strategies and activities. And all major enterprises are using open source software to some degree. The reasons for this are many. One is the large number of developers supporting this community. Another is the ability to review code and make it better. Another is the ability to save money on licensing fees (in general, open source software support requires license or support contracts, and

The term Cloud Computing is used two different ways in the IT community. To most users, cloud computing is any capability delivered over the network. If it is not local computing it is from the cloud. To these users, almost all enterprise IT is cloud computing. Technologists and enterprise architects use the term in a different way. To them, cloud computing implies new ways of providing capability on demand by use of virtualized resources. It involves pools of storage, network, processing and other computational resources that can be efficiently allocated on demand. It also implies far

CTOVision.com Tech Titan List

50

100
Market Cap in $B

150

200

250

Tech Titan List, Figure 1


Demographic Trends, Figure 2

more agility in support of operational missions. Technolodeliver computer power via an application program interface (API). One thing all agree on is that this elastic provision of computational resources is changing the computing landscape. Public clouds are providing incredible capabilities to individuals and small businesses and even some large enterprises. Private clouds are becoming important parts of the enterprise landscape. This trend is providing benefits of cost, agility and security, but introduces risk as well, including, if done wrong, significant availability and security threats. We will dive deeper into Cloud Computing details in a later section.

and broadening of acceleration into other technology fields also increased because it is impossible to master IT without having mastery of NanoTech and BioTech. Things are just moving too fast for that. The complexity of modern enterprises means as things change there is an increasing chance that things will not work after a new change. Our systems are so complex that they are overly susceptible to degradation from change. Additionally, improvements in IT are at times so significant they can introduce unforseen changes to business processes, which can significantly improve but disrupt current activities. Bottom line -- we must all plan to find ways to decide what

gists view cloud computing as a means to most efficiently is making it very hard to track developments. Complexity is

Increasing Pace of Technology Development technologies are relevant for bringing into the enterprise and Probability of Disruption and must find ways to make related decisions around that
The many trends highlighted above all have speed components and all are accelerating. The pace shows no sign of slowing, especially since other technology segments (especially NanoTech and BioTech) are also now accelerating and are contributing to IT in unexpected ways. This acceleration fast.

The Disciplines of Enterprise Information Technology and Market Leaders

Tracking megatrends provides important context that can help inform major decisions. But we need to seek more resolution on the state and trends of the many disciplines of IT in order to make more refined predictions on the impact of the future on today. In the following sections we will review IT constructs and disciplines such as: Storage, Communications, Search, Discovery, Applications, Virtualization, Open Source, Security Technologies, Collaboration Technologies, Web2.0 and Social Media, GEOINT tools, Visualization and Cloud Computing.

Disparate, heterogeneous storage will be the norm well into the future. Distributed data synch and the software to manage data as an enterprise is the key requirement. Simultaneous shared access to large file storage systems is a mission need. Data at rest will be increasingly encrypted. To find the right data it must be indexed (while unencrypted). The index to data must also be protected since it contains critically important information to protect. Indexes and metadata will grow. Frequently our data will have more meta than data. Deduplication is important for optimization of the entire storage enterprise. Enterprise storage vendors, including Tech Titans like IBM, Oracle (with Sun), and EMC continue to closely track these trends and are accelerating these capabilities as they can. Enterprise CIOs and CTOs should clearly articulate to these vendors which of these capabilities are most important in the enterprise. The most dramatically positive benefits in storage will likely come from small firms with dramatic new capabilities including: Data Domain: Deduplication storage solutions. Deduplication storage solutions dramatically reduce the amount of disk storage needed to retain, protect, and recover critical data. Enterprises large and small are using Data Domain to achieve the performance, reliability and scalability to address their backup, disaster recovery and archiving needs. DataDirect Networks (DDN): Create storage solutions based on parallel architecture that enable the storage of large amounts of structured data, rapid access to data, and scalability for enterprises of any size. This is great for digital video and other large media. DDN stores and protects mission-critical information and deliver results quickly and economi-

Storage
In this context, the term storage applies to the ability of the enterprise to securely hold information. Enterprise storage options remain Direct-attached Storage (DAS), Networkattached Storage (NAS), Storage-area Networks (SAN) with Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) options. All will drop in price and increase in capability. In general, the trend in enterprise storage is moving us away from storage tightly coupled to individual programs/projects towards storage that is managed as an enterprise mission/function. Key storage trends include: Rapid increase in sensor feeds and Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) sources as well as continued mission demands to store and index large quantities of historical data will continue to drive storage requirements. The GEOINT enterprise is not the only one with these demands, global storage requirements in all sectors are growing dramatically. Expect growth to multi-petabyte online distributed, federated archives. High performance grid storage.

cally to all customers. The DDN Storage Fusion Architecture (SFA) fuses the best parts of todays advanced processor technology, busses, and memory architecture with an optimized RAID engine and data management algorithms. These are tightly integrated to derive peak performance out of a massive IO infrastructure and multi-media disk drives to maximize system performance and lower storage investment costs. The fusion of unprecedented levels of bandwidth and IOPS enable this system to serve as the storage foundation for any Extreme Storage application set. Brocade: Provides data center infrastructure designed to work at extreme speed from enterprise data centers to the service provider core. They connect data stores and processing to networking solutions that connect important information in missioncritical environments. Their SAN and IP Networking solutions support business requirements such as virtualization and consolidation.

Increasing expectations of users to be able to collaborate with very high quality video will also drive communications requirements. Comms must support real-time tele-presence and tele-collaboration and enhanced video Continuous, always on communications is a key requirement for leveraging cloud computing capabilities. Increases in communications capabilities to mobile users will not be as fast as increases to fixed facility users. Expect use of technologies like WiMax for enhancing communications to mobile users. The critically important demands of the tactical GEOINT environment will always present challenges to dissemination of national intelligence to battlefield users. IPv6 is in use at about 5% of US circuits. Or perhaps we should say, is intentionally in use in about 5% of US circuits. Unfortunately, many networks allow for the protocol and it may be in use without the knowledge of the operators of the networks since most legacy network monitoring tools are not able to monitor IPv6. This is a tremendous backdoor threat to the enterprise. Tech Titans Cisco and Qualcomm remain market leaders in fixed and mobile communications and warrant continued tracking by enterprise CTOs. For communications security solutions and management of IPv6 while combating network congestion examine Cloudshield, the best in the field carrier-class network solution device.

Communications
In the enterprise IT context, this refers to technology that moves data. The most common, most widely known protocol in communications is the TCP/IP protocol. Long haul communications and data center interconnect may use other protocols, but TCP/IP remains the most important protocol. Trends to watch are: Communications capabilities between fixed facilities will be enhanced by a factor of 10 over the next five years, through natural lifecycle upgrade of existing systems. If decisions are made to accelerate comms capability into enterprises this could increase by a factor of 100 over the next five years. The need for increased communications is being driven by requirements to move large quantifies of data.

Search and Discovery

By search, we mean the computer based but human focused/driven examination designed to find that which is

concealed. Search helps you find what you know exists and providing means to both search and discovery. GEOINT what you know you need. By discovery, we mean features what to look for. This is a much more open ended problem. Some key trends of note: Federated, semantic based search capabilities will continue to improve, but these do not scale as they are limited by the critical thinking ability of the user. Expect continuing advances in new, more powerful search capabilities including in-stream media management using new multi-threaded capabilities. However, these powerful search capabilities are not keeping up with the drive to interconnect and access increasingly large data sets (which is required for horizontal interoperability). We will all continue to face search-scaling problems. We expect richer, higher bandwidth interfaces into more human senses, including the use of more interactive interfaces. This is a movement away from entering terms into a web-based search box. First, the search box gets on every app, but later the search box goes away and is replaced with a statement of desire the computer always looks for. Federating and integrating results is a long term challenge. Protecting against new threats to federated search, such as attacks on relevance, are also a challenge. Capabilities provided by leaders in guided navigation like Endeca provide disruptive capabilities we will want to accelerate into the environment. Architect so data finds data, the right info (and relevance) finds users, and users continually access relevance. Endeca remains the most disruptive capability in this field, and all source intelligence fusion solutions based on Endelogs for these capabilities are available at sites like http:// newssift.com that help users find what they need, even if they dont know ca operate on classified networks today. Unclassified ana-

Applications
In the context of enterprise IT, applications are software that does things. Applications are the primary point of user interaction. Of most importance is the mission-focused software of the enterprise. Applications are increasingly becoming user-focused, which is good news for many reasons. When it comes to prediction, we really just need to predict future user requirements and we can know what future applications will deliver. Other key constructs to consider regarding the future of applications: Expect stronger enterprise management of application development and more code reuse and service reuse. Also expect more efficient ways of transitioning code to operations. Do not expect all applications to be developed from a single integrated development environment (IDE). No enterprise will have a single IDE or single architecture long into the planning period. Also, expect more use of the Adobe Flex environment. Expect web and software services allowing users more power over their own app creation, including creation of composite apps and mashups (giving the ability to create applications to the people closest to the problem). JackBe is the exemplar here. Enterprises will have a continuing need for apps and solutions that can empower users to get data/info their way and rapidly collaborate/create/share. Too few of todays apps do this well. Apps must access/ leverage enterprise requirements for Data Layer and fit in to the Service Oriented Architecture. Applica-

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tions will comply with enterprise storage system requirements. Enterprises today do not suffer from a lack of applications. They suffer from incredibly complex integrations of applications that were not designed to work together in any strategic way. As an exemplar of applications that can work together in a common framework, this example of a document management/exploitation is provided: The Twister Document Screening Application provides the intelligence community enterprise and its users with an ability to rapidly examine captured/found/gathered written documents (in multiple languages). The Twister DOCEX app provides users with a simple interface, but technologists will see a very smart, well thought out framework which uses the strength of Twisters ability to connect any data and any process to any app, securely. Users can import documents in soft copy or hard copy. Documents are translated from their initial language, but are also indexed in their existing language. Documents can be rapidly screened, managed, exploited, stored and subjected to very high powered analytical tools, all within minutes. This state of the art, faster, simpler process will have dramatic positive workflow implications on the intelligence community, saving time and giving analysts more time to think. This application uses a new integrated model made possible by adherence to enterprise standards. This enables addition of new capabilities in modular ways as desired (current capabilities include hard copy OCR by NovoDynamics, Entity Extraction and Translation and indexing by Basis Technology, Machine Translation by Language Weaver, and automated ingestion and integration by Twister).

system, application or storage device) act like multiple resources. It can also make multiple resources look like one. With virtualization, enterprises can now centrally manage their computing, storage and network environments while: Increasing server utilization, performance and system uptime Reducing cost and complexity of delivering enterprise class service Lowering the risk and platform costs of rolling out new applications Some key trends of note: Virtualization has proven effective as a means for increasing efficiencies, and as a potential solution for disaster recovery. Virtualization is saving power, which is becoming of critical importance. Virtualization is also solving space challenges, enabling consolidations of existing data centers. Virtualization technologies will change the way enterprises support all users, but most users will not know that. Virtualization is a flattener for hardware producers, which might change the hardware end of the PC and Server business. It will also likely impact most enterprise architectures with virtualized SOA environments. Wireless laptops with totally virtualized, stateless power are available today. As wireless communications increase expect more of these. Although many players are entering the virtualization field, including Microsoft and IBM, the clear leader for now and the near future is VMware. Their proven virtual infrastructure solutions enable enterprises to increase the efficiency

Virtualization
In the enterprise context, this is a technology that allows for far more efficient use of resources. It is a technique for hiding the physical characteristics of computing resources, including making a single resource (like a server, operating

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and cost-effectiveness of their IT operations.

velopment support environments like those provided to the DoD under Forge.mil. This CollabNet solution is the same solution that drives the open source communitys Java.net, OpenOffice.org as well as most other large open source codebase projects.

Open Source
This term refers to software that is developed with its source code open to review and input (and with an OSI license). Open source hardware architectures are also included in this category. Some key trends of note: Commercially supported open-source solutions will increasingly be found in the same solution stack with proprietary solutions. Commercially supported open source is an important distinction for enterprise-class users since enterprise CIOs prefer an ability to tap into support networks. Open source software (including software you have no idea who wrote), will be part of every major solution. Issues can arise with sloppy practices such as reusing open source without conducting any testing or characterization for suitability. Always use commercial open source. Intellectual property indemnification issues remain. The biggest benefits to open source come from code sharing and reuse, as well as the ability to build on what is already there. Leveraging these benefits requires a framework for effective use of code. The worlds leading open source company is Red Hat, which focuses primarily on Linux. They provide operating system software along with middleware, applications and management solutions. In addition to offering support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide, their Open Source strategy offers customers a long term plan for building infrastructures that are based on and leverage open source technologies with focus on security and ease of management. Another key capability to track in open source is the de-

Security Technologies
Security technologies are those that contribute to the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information. Security technologies all operate under the configuration control and guidance of a Chief Information Assurance Officer. These technologies include: firewalls, intrusion detection devices, PKI, auditing, security testing, policy servers, and access control mechanisms. Some key trends of note: We are tracking the ability of government-provided encryption to scale to future comms requirements. All IT providers are getting more serious about security, however, not one controls the entire stack, leaving lots of room for fault lines that can be exploited. \ Identity and authentication of users will long remain a critical component of security technology. We do not expect any Single Sign On solution to provide comprehensive access to dispersed data. Single Sign On will provide access to more and more data, but current data management/ownership constructs will prevent ubiquity. Cross domain solutions will all be governed at the enterprise-level. Individual programs will not develop their own cross-domain solutions. The DoD Encryption at rest enterprise buy will help change the marketplace in a very positive way. The combination of increased entry points and more sophisticated threats has prompted many organizations to reassess endpoint security as it relates to their networks.

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Symantec is the Tech Titan to watch in this field. Their endpoint security solutions are aimed at a key enterprise security challenge. Symantec Endpoint Security solutions enable organizations to evaluate and protect systems as they connect to corporate assets. Client protection technologies, integrated with industry standards, provide protection for systems and networks. Another company of note is Initiate, a provider of master data management, entity resolution and advanced relationship analysis solutions. Initiate transforms distributed data used to detect and defeat threats before they occur. Their trusted solution scales to support missions involving billions of records and enables cross-organizational information sharing, providing accurate information at all critical decision points, while protecting privacy and security. Configuration management is increasingly important to remediation and Triumfant is one to watch there.

The rapidly shifting consumer focused capabilities found in an increasing number of social software and other Web2.0 sites will be a key driver. This is not only about collaboration with intelligence but with customers. And it is most definitely about collaboration with allies. Look for tools that bridge workflow across and outside the enterprise. From private clouds to public clouds to external partners.

sets into resolved entities of high confidence that can be Like applications, there are many exemplars in this field. One key capability of note is the solutions provided by Adobe Connect, which links entire enterprises together. It enables sharing of documents, images, and other files, as well as hosting web seminars and collaborative sessions.

Web2.0 and Social Media

Originally coined to mean the next generation Internet,Web 2.0s popular usage now has the term meaning whatever is hottest/newest/available now on the net. Web 2.0 websites typically include some of the following features/techniques: Rich Internet application techniques Flex open source framework for web apps Flash for interactivity Semantically valid XHTML and HTML markup Microformats extending pages with additional semantics Folksonomies (in the form of tags or tagclouds, for example) Cascading Style Sheets to aid in the separation of presentation and content REST and/or XML- and/or JSON-based APIs

Collaboration Technology
In the enterprise context, collaboration is a technology which assists humans in working together. This is normally humans (probably geographically dispersed) working together to create intelligence. Some key trends of note: The age of stand-alone collaborative tools is nearly over. Expect all future tools to have a collaboration feature. Trends toward convergence indicate future collaborative capabilities will be centered on existing full service directories and will also integrate standard enterprise scheduling software and desktop video and voice. GEOINT analysts need means to collaborate via multiple paths at all levels. Pervasive tele-collaboration is a key requirement.

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 Syndication, aggregation and notification of data in RSS or Atom feeds Mashups, merging content from different sources, client- and server-side Weblog-publishing tools Wiki or forum software, etc., to support user-generated content For enterprises to use these features, capabilities are required that serve behind the corporate firewall and can securely pull in information and people-to-people connections from outside the enterprise. Jive Softwares Jive Social Business Software (SBS) establishes a trusted online environment with appropriate controls that leverages social media and community software for connecting people and knowledge. Their solutionwhich is the de facto standard for the intelligence communitypromotes fluid collaboration, consolidated information, and access to diverse expertise to improve the quality and timeliness of agency work.

threads and real-time mission GEOINT. GEOINTs newest, hardest missions require systems which can automate the population of knowledge bases, provide next-best observation, support uncertainty management, and provide integrated planning tools. Systems must enable real-time, dynamic re-tasking. SOA constructs will be the greatest single driver of future GEOINT tools, but in the context of GEOINT tools, Web Services will probably not be the technology of choice for SOA. Too much data is being moved and too many users will need access to the tools and services for a web service approach to be used in SOA. Like other capabilities discussed in the applications section, GEOINT solutions are now only limited by the imagination. But to efficiently and effectively bring solutions to the customer, the best practice is to accelerate the best available to the entire enterprise. A key example is the use of Adobe and TerraGo integrations. TerraGo leverages Adobe PDF document formatting to provide maps to anyone with a PDF reader. Extending access to maps and geographical data to the soldier on the ground, or any Adobe user provides access to GEOINT on the go. GeoPDF, 3D PDF, Flash/Flex embedded in PDF, with content control/DRM. Dashboards that auto synch for command situational awareness. Other recent GEOINT examples include an integration based on Thetus semantic knowledge modeling and discovery software called Savanna. Savanna is a rich internet application, model/services-driven Intelligence Analysis application. Its focus is on the analysis challenge; key questions, assumptions, hypothesis and conclusions and the associated data used to support the analysis. Savanna includes configurable analysis workspaces that facilitate analytical views of supporting information, locations, relationships and reports. It is expandable and tailorable but typical

GEOINT Tools
In this context, these are capabilities that assist users in planning, visualizing, managing and directing GEOINT. Some key trends of note: Too many of todays GEOINT tools are not fully integrated into the enterprise, resulting in sub-optimized performance for end users. Future tools are being written to take advantage of SOA concepts Geospatial location of individuals is becoming the greatest biometric. Where you are and when is a standoff biometric that is highly reliable. Expect more movement towards force-structureaware networks and networks that sense where on earth all force structure is. Expect a greater ability to focus on long mission

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configurations use Mark Logic Server as the high performance XML store, Metacarta for geotagging and location constrained search, Kapow for web harvesting and Janya for automated entity extraction. The Geospatial element ensures Savanna is of maximum relevance/utility while fine tuning results to expose cultural, political and other human terrain practices.

iMove: Provides immersive video camera systems that collect geo-referenced imagery from multiple cameras simultaneously. iMove enables mission success by giving operational assets increased intelligence of the area of operation. iMove provides up to 360 degree x 360 degree views of any target area, by integrating numerous video streams into one continuous panorama, or immersive view, that is both archived for forensic analysis, and is available in real time. PiXlogic: Provides a visual search engine that automatically analyzes, indexes, and searches the contents of images and video files with high levels of accuracy and speed.

Visualization
In this context, visualization refers to the ability to link the two greatest processors in our grid, the computational power of our enterprise and the human brain. Some key trends of note: The tie to commercial technology so far has not provided a good way to enable GEOINT analysts with wrap-around desktop screens. This need is met by lining up more monitors next to each other, but enhanced 2D/3D workstations with agile wideband interfaces to the brain are the need. Utility of capabilities like Touch Table or Jeff Hans Perceptive Pixel to visualize and interact with data shows promise. If live data is brought in these will be disruptive technologies. The Penn State CAVE might provide another disruptive capability. Its use in multiple academic centers of excellence and its use in a couple of government locations is a positive note. SuperHDTV, HR Motion Imagery, 40Kx40K hyperspectral are driving key visualization requirements. Solutions of note include: MotionDSP: MotionDSPs ability to stabilize, clean up, and enhance video in real-time using off-theshelf Windows PCs is boon to SIGINT and HUMINT gatherers across the DoD, federal agencies, and the Intelligence community.

Cloud Computing
This mega trend has translated into an emerging discipline we need to track with much more fidelity. One of the most critically important capabilities in the cloud computing domain is that just rolled out by the federal government in http://apps.gov. This online cloud services capability provides access to key technologies needed now by government users, and since it is a cloud based approach the functionality there will continue to grow. As noted on the Apps.gov website: Cloud computing plays a key role in the Presidents initiative to modernize Information Technology (IT) by identifying enterprise-wide common services and solutions and adopting a new cloud-computing business model. The Federal CIO Council under the guidance of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO), Vivek Kundra, established the Cloud Computing Initiative to fulfill the Presidents objectives for cloud computing. Apps.com also notes that cloud computing offers the following features:

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 Significant Cost Reduction: Cloud computing is available at a fraction of the cost of traditional IT services, eliminating upfront capital expenditures and dramatically reducing administrative burden on IT resources. Increased Flexibility: Cloud computing provides ondemand computing across technologies, business solutions and large ecosystems of providers, reducing time to implement new solutions from months to days. Access anywhere: You are no longer tethered to a single computer or network. You can change computers or move to portable devices, and your existing applications and documents follow you through the cloud. Elastic scalability and pay-as-you-go: Add and subtract capacity as your needs change. Pay for only what you use. Easy to implement: You do not need to purchase hardware, software licenses or implementation services. Service quality: Cloud service providers offer reliable services, large storage and computing capacity, and 24/7 service and up-time. Delegate non-critical applications: Cloud computing provides a way to outsource non-critical applications to service providers, allowing agency IT resources to focus on business-critical applications. Always the latest software: You are no longer faced with choosing between obsolete software and high upgrade costs. When the applications are webbased, updates are automatic and are available the next time you log into the cloud. Sharing documents and group collaboration: Cloud

computing lets you access all your applications and documents from anywhere in the world, freeing you from the confines of the desktop and facilitating group collaboration on documents and projects. Some key Cloud Computing trends: Increasingly organizations will leverage computing power from other organizations. Device and location independence enables users to access systems regardless of their location or what device they are using, e.g., PC, mobile. Multi-tenancy enables sharing of resources and costs among a large pool of users, allowing for: Centralization of infrastructure in areas with lower costs, e.g., real estate, electricity, etc. Peak-load capacity increases -- users need not engineer for highest possible load levels. Utilization and efficiency improvements for systems that are often only 10-20% utilized. On-demand allocation and de-allocation of CPU, storage and network bandwidth. Performance is monitored and consistent. Reliability is enhanced by way of multiple redundant sites, which makes it suitable for business continuity and disaster recovery. Scalability meets changing user demands quickly without users having to engineer for peak loads. Massive scalability and large user bases are common, but not an absolute requirement for using Cloud. Sustainability is achieved through improved resource utilization, more efficient systems, and carbon neutrality.

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 Security typically improves due to centralization of data, increased security-focused resources, increased ability to patch and upgrade, increased ability to monitor, increased ability to encrypt and many other reasons. However, there are concerns about loss of control over certain sensitive data. When designed in at the beginning, security of cloud architectures is significantly higher than non-cloud approaches. Enterprises requiring significantly enhanced security should consider private clouds, where the data center is controlled by the enterprise vice outsourced. Key players to track in this area include: VMware: Provides several technologies of critical importance to enabling cloud computing, and has also started offering its own cloud computing on demand capability called vCloud. This type of capability allows enterprises to leverage virtualized clouds inside their own IT infrastructure or hosted with external service providers. Cisco: Has long provided the switch fabric of the Internet and the interconnect inside datacenters and is now offering enhanced collaborative tools and unified computing capabilities that bring the foundation of cloud computing to any datacenter.

federal agencies to modernize to take advantage of new Green technologies. The fundamentals of being green focus on efficiencies. Being green, in this context, means not wasting power, not wasting resources, and not polluting. Efficiencies save money for your organization. Efficiencies also contribute to your organizations agility and ability to rapidly respond to shifting mission needs. Green Hardware Solutions You Need to Know Recently, Intel Corporation released their newest iteration of the Xeon Server Processor, the S5500 series. This chip, codenamed Nehalem, increases processing power but decreases energy consumption. This chip allows for servers that require about half the power and run cooler then previous architectures. The Xeon S5500 processors have almost 2x the processing power of the previous generation, and 9x the power of 2005 processors. This means that to maintain processing power, 1 Nehalem server rack replaces 9 older ones. Needing 1/9th of the number of servers, means you need 1/9th of the power (at least!), 1/9th the space, and 1/9th of the number of licenses (think about 1/9 the Windows or Oracle licenses). Intel estimates that replacing 9 older server racks with just 1 Nehalem rack will pay for itself in 8 months. For firms interested in Total Cost of Ownership, the S5500 processor is a great boon. Another new technology is the Solid State Disk (SSD) hard drive. SSDs run cooler, faster, and require less power then traditional spindle drives. While they are currently more exfor the initial costs. SSDs transfer data at speeds up to 10x that of traditional drives. They do this without moving parts, creating less heat. Fewer moving parts also means less things to fail. A recent study done by Principled Technologies shows that

Green IT
Green IT is more than a movement, it is a path toward costsavings and efficiencies that is drawing the attention of decision-makers at all levels. For the federal enterprise there Leadership in Envronmental, Energy, and Economic Performance. This order requires action by all agencies in many areas of energy performance, including IT. Agencies must ensure energy-efficiencies of IT in measurable ways, As this executive order is implemented we can expect

is now a Presidtially signed an executive order for Federal pensive per GB than spindle drives, their benefits make up

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by replacing an array of HDDs with SSDs you can realize a 97% power savings under load, and a 98% power savings at idle. This is the difference in power consumed by the disk solution, not the difference consumed by the system. The system will consume an average of 60% less power with a SSD solution. These power savings are very real, and thus these technologies can pay for themselves within a few short months, all the while increasing the IT capabilities of your organization. Software For Energy Efficiency in IT Software is also driving the greening of the organization. The right software can save energy, reduce heat, and reduce the number of servers required to do the same task, all of which are very green characteristics. The following is a sample of software that matters in this space: Verdiem: Verdiem empowers organizations to dramatically reduce their carbon footprints and their IT energy bills with a single, simple PC power management solution. This software establishes central control of the PC and then implements policy for power settings. VMWare: VMWare also offers significant energy saving and productivity enhancing capabilities. Servers rarely use their full processing capabilities. VMWare creates the possibility of utilizing unused memory and processing capacity to create additional computers. If a sever is running at 10% of its workload, using VMware can let you run virtual servers in a way that maximizes the servers use. You might see, for example, an 8 to 1 reduction in the number of servers you need. For private clouds, which most organizations are building today, capabilities like Appistry can maximize the agility and scalability of your cloud. Appistry can turn your data center into a private scalable, automated cloud environment which can deliver green capabilities you need today. Appistry does not replicate Google Apps, but the applications you run in your data center will be made more scalable

and will be managed in a smarter way. Increasingly federal mandates will drive green. But there are actually even more powerful reasons to rush towards green computing. Modernizing and optimizing your IT infrastructure will reduce your costs and make your organization more efficient while helping you meet goals for reducing your carbon footprint. Our bottom line recommendation: consider all these green technologies as part of your modernization efforts. And it goes without saying, we hope your organization is able to rapidly accelerate your green plans, for all our sakes.

Summary
The many areas of information technology reviewed above -- Storage, Communications, Search, Discovery, Applications, Virtualization, Open Source, Security Technologies, Collaboration Technologies, Web2.0 and Social Media, GEOINT tools, Visualization and Cloud Computing -- will interact with each other in interesting and exciting ways. We can now envision an enterprise where mobile users have bandwidth supporting the highest quality video and incredible data to mobile devices, connecting them securely to enterprises with seemingly infinite ability to store data and easily navigable interfaces to discover the relevant meaning of the data. Enterprise users will be served with applications that meet their needs while being interoperable with all other applications and media. These applications will meet CIO goals for maintainability. The enterprise cloud will deliver increasing bang for the buck with increasingly optimized, energy efficient data centers. And security will be thought of as the key way to deliver on the promise of assured functionality. Collaboration will increasingly link humans together in ways that serve the mission. And all of this, if done right, will be done with far greater agility and ability to respond.

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Drawing Lessons From the Future of IT

The future is here, its just not evenly distributed yet. -- William Gibson The mega trends review and deeper dive into functional areas above lead to some key conclusions and recommendations relevant to todays enterprise. The primary conclusion: Brace yourself! Your world is about to change. Other conclusions: IT power is increasing in a relentless march, and so is bandwidth. Human nature says there will always be more requirements than capability so IT professionals will always be optimizing what is provided. Doing that will require constant learning, constant adjustment, and constant planning. It also requires an understanding of what your enterprise is building on. Consider your current environment. If you are in the classic large enterprise you have probably seen incredible contributions of technology to support your mission. The list of fielded enterprise capabilities is large. For most it will include things like: Global directories of all in the enterprise and their contact information. Extremely reliable voice, video and e-mail connectivity. Durable, resilient enterprise datastores giving protection to most key enterprise data. Many mission specific applications. Portals which help make sense for users. But most large enterprises also face huge challenges, which may include: Every enterprise has someone with CIO or CTO or J6/etc-6 title, and there are frequent overlaps and

gaps in authority and responsibility. Customized, complex applications many designed locally, are not well managed or backed up. Limitless user interfaces, each designed for customized, complex applications which are hard to teach users how to use. Proprietary datastores with business logic coded into the datastore, making interoperability hard to impose. Servers bought and owned by local IT departments, making future planning awkward and inefficient. Desktops bought and owned by local IT departments, introducing configuration nightmares and slowing agility. Desktops loaded and configured individually or by local IT, placing high burdens on IT staff. Inefficient Datacenters driving enterprise costs up while sub optimizing performance. Large power bills for large data centers. Local IT departments increasingly inefficient. Attempts to satisfy needs of mobile users are difficuly given the variety of devices and de-centralization. Knowledge workers who need automation but get poor IT service. No understanding of the future of IT, so no ability to plan. Poor ability to search, poor ability to discover. So we have had at least a little glimpse of what is coming and we have a working knowledge of what we have now. So how do we accelerate the good into the enterprise? What does our review motivate us to do?

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If you are primarily an IT user or customer, this review of the future provides several considerations for how you can articulate requirements for future systems. If you are a CTO, CIO or other IT leader, this review can help you re-invigorate your strategic planning. Some suggestions: Plan now to enhance agility. The most important agility is in the ability to analyze whether or not a proposed capability or new technology will actually result in a net gain in productivity and mission capability. Also of importance, but of a secondary importance to the above, is enhancing the ability to adopt new technologies. We must also speed the ability to configure existing technology. Some more specific recommendations for technologists: Find and eliminate applications/solutions that are not delivering required functionality or that can be terminated for other reasons. Find and eliminate unneeded work being asked of government or contract positions and refocus those positions on things that contribute to agility. Enhance liaison and interactions with others to enhance agility, support to customers on starved nets, and to avoid tech disruption. Interdependence will be an enduring requirement. For the government team, linkages to DISA are critical because of the challenges of disseminating intelligence to users in comms starved environments. The potential for disruptive technology from industry or academia (including DNA computing or quantum computing) is high during the planning period so a continued tracking of those fields is critically important.

Refocus job skills to emphasize communications and enterprise storage management. Retain expertise in all enterprise IT technologies, but the mix of technologists should shift to include more advanced network engineers and more enterprise storage technologists. These disciplines will become as important to us in the future as enterprise systems engineers are today. Build a five year roadmap for enterprise management capabilities and related enterprise visualization systems. All technology disciplines must have views into the state of the enterprise to ensure mission focus and agility. The increase in virtualization and the increase in automation will make IT failure an even more costly proposition. This will drive the need for more complex enterprise modeling and simulation technologies. Plan now for increased engagement in the open source technology community. If we are using open source, widely known, multiple author software we should be involved in ensuring its quality. Speed the conversion of legacy applications and tightly coupled data to SOA-type model where data is separated from application. Plan now for redesign of government networks (including NIPRNET, SIPRNET, JWICS) to use new networking standards to ensure operation of the grid at the highest possible capacity. Engineer for enhanced wide area wireless Secret and SCI capability. Which solution do we scale up? WiMAX? Plan now to shift more IT workers to be user-facing. Pure IT know-how will no longer be enough. IT workers will require strong leadership ability, knowledge

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of their non-IT partner mission needs, and knowledge of the processes of their customers. Security will be a continuing concern. New techniques and tools are required to mitigate new threats, especially new threats regarding open source in the enterprise. Multi-level security and cross domain are enduring requirements. Investigate new ways of encrypting data and identity management to enable better use of grid computing and to enable better use of commercial off the shelf devices. Automate with brutal efficiency. If it can be automated, automate it.

we make today. If you are a user of IT, I recommend you get vocal about your expectations and requirements. That can do wonders in accelerating new realities into today. If you are an enterprise CTO, CIO or other technologist, I recommend you get busy helping your users understand the realm of the possible. Their advocacy and support can help you transform your enterprise faster, which can help in meeting the ever increasing mission needs. Keep seeking out disruptive IT Maintain focus on user and the mission And a final note: A reminder that technology is changing fast. Whoever you are and whatever your role is in the enterprise, you should seek out and find ways to self educate yourself on the changing landscape. An avenue that I hope factors into your self awareness plans is the http://ctovision. com website.

Concluding Thoughts
Many things are uncertain about the future. But one piece of timeless advice keeps returning to the discussion: The greatest determinant of what comes next is the decisions

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About CTOvision.com

The CTOvision.com blog provides context for the enterprise Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Chief Information Officer (CIO) and other enterprise technologists. It is home to the CTOvision.com Disruptive Technologies list, which reviews disruptive innovations thought to be most relevant to todays enterprises. The site also contains information and context on the largest technology firms and maintains a Technology Titan list for reference.

About The Author Bob Gourley is the primary blogger at CTOvision.com and is the founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Crucial Point LLC, a technology research and advisory firm. He is a former CTO of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and a former senior executive with Northrop Grumman. He was named one of the top 25 most influential CTOs in the globe by Infoworld in 2007, and selected for

AFCEAs award for meritorious service to the intelligence community in 2008.

He was named by Washingtonian as one of DCs Tech Titans in 2009. Bob holds three masters degrees including a master of science degree in scientific and technical intelligence from Naval Postgraduate School, a master of science degree in military science from USMC university, and a master of science degree in computer science from James Madison University. Bob has published over 40 articles on a wide range of topics and is a contributor to the 20 Jan 2009 Book titled Threats in the Age of Obama.

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