By Dr. Chris Harding, The Open Group
The results of The Open Group Convergent Technologies survey point to secure integration of the technologies as a major challenge for Open Platform 3.0. This and other input is the basis for the definition of the platform, where the discussion took place at The Open Group conference in London.
Survey Highlights
Here are some of the highlights from The Open Group Convergent Technologies survey.
- 95% of respondents felt that the convergence of technologies such as social media, mobility, cloud, big data, and the Internet of things represents an opportunity for business
- Mobility currently has greatest take-up of these technologies, and the Internet of things has least.
- 84% of those from companies creating solutions want to deal with two or more of the technologies in combination.
- Developing the understanding of the technologies by potential customers is the first problem that solution creators must overcome. This is followed by integrating with products, services and solutions from other suppliers, and using more than one technology in combination.
- Respondents saw security, vendor lock-in, integration and regulatory compliance as the main problems for users of software that enables use of these convergent technologies for business purposes.
- When users are considered separately from other respondents, security and vendor lock-in show particularly strongly as issues.
The full survey report is available at: https://www2.opengroup.org/ogsys/catalog/R130
Open Platform 3.0
Analysts forecast that convergence of technical phenomena including mobility, cloud, social media, and big data will drive the growth in use of information technology through 2020. Open Platform 3.0 is an initiative that will advance The Open Group vision of Boundaryless Information Flow™ by helping enterprises to use them.
The survey confirms the value of an open platform to protect users of these technologies from vendor lock-in. It also shows that security is a key concern that must be addressed, that the platform must make the technologies easy to use, and that it must enable them to be used in combination.
Understanding the Requirements
The Open Group is conducting other work to develop an understanding of the requirements of Open Platform 3.0. This includes:
- The Open Platform 3.0 Business Scenario, that was recently published, and is available from https://www2.opengroup.org/ogsys/catalog/R130
- A set of business use cases, currently in development
- A high-level round-table meeting to gain the perspective of CIOs, who will be key stakeholders.
The requirements input have been part of the discussion at The Open Group Conference, which took place in London this week. Monday’s keynote presentation by Andy Mulholland, Former Global CTO at Capgemini on “Just Exactly What Is Going on in Business and Technology?” included the conclusions from the round-table meeting. This week’s presentation and panel discussion on the requirements for Open Platform 3.0 covered all the inputs.
Delivering the Platform
Review of the inputs in the conference was followed by a members meeting of the Open Platform 3.0 Forum, to start developing the architecture of Open Platform 3.0, and to plan the delivery of the platform definition. The aim is to have a snapshot of the definition early in 2014, and to deliver the first version of the standard a year later.
Meeting the Challenge
Open Platform 3.0 will be crucial to establishing openness and interoperability in the new generation of information technologies. This is of first importance for everyone in the IT industry.
Following the conference, there will be an opportunity for everyone to input material and ideas for the definition of the platform. If you want to be part of the community that shapes the definition, to work on it with like-minded people in other companies, and to gain early insight of what it will be, then your company must join the Open Platform 3.0 Forum. (For more information on this, contact Chris Parnell – c.parnell@opengroup.org)
Providing for secure integration of the convergent technologies, and meeting the other requirements for Open Platform 3.0, will be a difficult but exciting challenge. I’m looking forward to continue to tackle the challenge with the Forum members.
Dr. Chris Harding is Director for Interoperability and SOA at The Open Group. He has been with The Open Group for more than ten years, and is currently responsible for managing and supporting its work on interoperability, including SOA and interoperability aspects of Cloud Computing, and the Open Platform 3.0 Forum. He is a member of the BCS, the IEEE and the AEA, and is a certified TOGAF® practitioner.
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