TABLE OF CONTENTS These final sections cover a variety of current trends that may affect the concepts discussed here. You are also encouraged to not skip the appendices, which cover both the architectural foundations of the approach used here and a discussion of the impending professionalization of enterprise IT which I predict will prove to be a critical success factor for the vision of integrated IT governance.
The it world is an intricate, multidimensional landscape. Consider this image from cyberpunk pioneer and Neuromancer author William Gibson, describing a virtual reality representation of a complex enterprise systems landscape, in his classic short story Burning Chrome:
Ice walls flick away like supersonic butterflies made of shade. Beyond them, the matrix s illusion of infinite space . Trying to remind myself that this place and the gulfs beyond are only representations, that we aren t in Chrome s computer, but interfaced with it, while the matrix simulator in Bobby s loft generates this illusion . The core data begin to emerge, exposed, vulnerable . This is the far side of ice, the view of the matrix that fifteen million legitimate console operators see daily and take for granted. The core data tower around us like vertical freight trains, color-coded for access. Bright primaries, impossibly bright in that transparent void, linked by countless horizontals in nursery blues and pinks. [240.]
Bright primaries linked by countless horizontals that is, databases linked by feeds. Although the preceding scene has...
