Depois da adequação do Installation Guide, foi a vez do System Architecture Overview ser adequado e remodelado para atender as modificações em decorrência do lançamento do SE Suite e ao novo modelo de documentação desenvolvido pela SoftExpert.

As principais alterações estão na revisão do seu conteúdo, onde foi adequado as inovações tecnológicas do SE Suite, revisão das matrizes de compatibilidade, não sendo mais por componente e sim da Suite e compatibilização das matrizes para os novos ambientes homologados.

Para conferir a nova versão do documento acesse: System Architecture Overview 1.3

Dê suas sugestões para o System Architecture Overview e outras documentações, melhorias e Troubleshooting através do e-mail: documentation@softexpert.com.

Para obter mais informações, entre em contato: cleitond@softexpert.com e edilsoh@softexpert.com.

As companies try to find cost optimization opportunities during the economic downturn, business process management (BPM) investments can provide a cost savings of as much as 20 percent within the first year of implementation, according to Gartner, Inc. Analysts have said enterprises can achieve the payback from their BPM implementation within a year.

“Economic woes are driving increased usage of BPM as a cost-cutting mechanism for survival. We are seeing one-third of companies increasing their investments in BPM,” said Michele Cantara, research vice president at Gartner. “BPM makes business processes visible to both business managers and IT, allowing them to work together and change processes more quickly and effectively. In today’s troubled economy, companies need to continually reduce costs and rapidly react to market changes.”

At the upcoming Gartner BPM Summit, to be held March 23-25 in San Diego, analysts will be providing detailed analysis on the best practices and tactics companies can employ to have a successful BPM strategy. This event follows Gartner’s BPM Summit that was held in London in February of this year.

At the London event, attendees were asked about the impact the economy was having on their business. Gartner estimates that 70 percent of attendees were from companies that are in "survival" mode, and their organizations view BPM as a lifeline keeping them above water in the economic crisis. Approximately 20 percent of attendees said they were "thriving with BPM" — using BPM as a catalyst to grow their business. These were typically organizations that had successfully implemented BPM projects in the past. Some were moving resulting cost savings into other BPM projects for ongoing business process improvement, rather than survival. Approximately 10 percent of attendees were from organizations that viewed BPM as a weapon for capitalizing on transformational opportunities unavailable to beleaguered competitors in this recessionary environment.

“When companies are in survival mode, they tend to slash head count and funding for programs to cut costs to still deliver on their earnings promises. This slashing approach can derail critical business processes and actually cost the company more money. Because BPM makes processes visible, it also helps companies do cost cutting with surgical precision,” said Ms. Cantara.

Gartner recommends that companies use BPM, a discipline that optimizes the performance of end-to-end business processes (interdepartmental functions, partners, suppliers and service providers), to confront business challenges and complex business relationships. While there is tremendous upside to using BPM to realize significant cost savings, if companies do not manage the process correctly, it can result in failed initiatives.

“Too many user organizations are adopting BPM technologies without applying BPM disciplines via the business process competency center (BPCC) and find that their efforts do not deliver the promised results, and their BPM initiatives will subsequently be disbanded,” said Elise Olding, research director at Gartner.

Organizations that plan for and resource the effort to establish and evolve the BPCC will be able to move from discrete BPM projects to transformational BPM programs in six to 12 months. Organizations that do not establish a BPCC will find their BPM efforts stagnating at the project level and delivering meager results. BPMS products will feature reporting capabilities and automated assessments specifically designed to help BP directors manage the BPCC and enhance organizations' BPM maturity levels.

Gartner analysts said that in some ways, BPM is no different from any other management effort. Technology is only a small part of the problem. Changing the behavior of process participants is the bigger challenge. Projects can get bogged down in organizational politics and can lose the way amid a swamp of change management and communication techniques.

“Some organizations get mired in debates about who should drive the effort, who should own the end-to-end process, how to define processes, and how to prioritize which process improvement efforts to tackle first,” said Ms. Cantara. “Yet, there are some organizations that understand BPM and can sustain continuous process improvement. These organizations are able to cope with the thorny problems of getting started with BPM, affecting organizational change, using appropriate technologies, as well as staffing and maturing BPM efforts.”

Font: Gartner

The new SE Suite installation process required changes in the corresponding documentation, which, as well as installation tools, went through some improvements aiming at maximizing installation process quality.

The changes made in this new version include:

- Standardization: Document follows international standards used by renown companies, thereby those people familiar with technical documentation will face no difficulties in understanding the whole process.

- Language unification: Document in the English language, avoiding translation problems in the languages where document is distributed.

- New visual identity: New Installation Guide follows the standard created for documentations by SoftExpert marketing team.

- New layout: Installation Guide layout was recreated and adjusted to provide users with a better understanding and visualization.

- New topics for Troubleshooting: Categorized by incidence place, they help the executor identify and solve problems that may occur during installation execution, through a fast and efficient way.

- New typography: A new typography was created to meet documentation new standard. Typography helps in the identification of information on procedures, mainly.

- More content: Section that describes environment preparation and installation prerequisites was improved, and it now details more information.

- More Effectiveness: Installation process will be successful if it has been properly planned and analyzed. It is also necessary that all requirements are completely understood and the environment is prepared according to what was planned. For this reason, topics related to it had their contents improved, making this process more effective and reducing errors during it. Procedures focus on the whole process, so users can better understand them and define the best configuration to be applied.

Take a look at the new Installation Guide at: Installation Guide 2.0

Give your suggestions for Installation Guide and other documentations improvements and troubleshooting at: documentation@softexpert.com.

For more information, contact us at: cleitond@softexpert.com and edilsoh@softexpert.com.

E a saga continua. Com a liberação do RC0 (Release Candidate) da mais nova versão do gerenciador de bancos de dados da Microsoft, o SQL Server 2008, no dia 06/08 (conforme noticiou a Info), serão disponibilizadas 6 edições, com muitos novos recursos, as quais atenderão necessidades específicas. A única versão indisponível no momento para download é o SQL Server 2008 Express, que é uma edição gratuita. A Microsoft não pretende perder de vista a Oracle, que ainda domina o mercado mundial de SGBD’s e lançou no ano passado a versão 11g do seu SGBD (Sistema Gerenciador de Bancos de Dados).

Mas fica a pergunta: até que ponto a batalha entre a Microsoft e a Oracle realmente me interessa enquanto profissional de tecnologia? Qual desses gerenciadores é definitivamente o melhor?

Antes de responder vamos a alguns fatos. Existem muitos profissionais no mercado que estão cegos pela tecnologia em si, a consideram um fim em si mesma, e não apenas mais um meio de solucionar os problemas do cliente, esses são os profissionais que chamo de garoto-propaganda-technology-especialist

Olha a definição aí:

O garoto-propaganda-technology-especialist é…

… o profissional que se especializou em uma determinada tecnologia, fez muitos cursos, se certificou e acredita que isso é tudo que precisa saber, acha que um dia o seu software preferido vai dominar o mundo, extirpando os demais “softwares do mal” da face da terra (já lembrou de alguém assim né…e nem precisou fazer força!).

Mas…

…não deveria ser a intenção do profissional de tecnologia, no caso, administrador de bancos de dados, oferecer solução para o cliente aliado ao menor custo possível?

Eis aí o que o cliente realmente quer: solução!

Ele não está preocupado nem um pouco quanto ao lucro auferido pela Microsoft no 2 º trimestre deste ano, ou o crescimento do market-share da Oracle, para ele o que interessa é ter uma solução que ofereça o menor custo possível de implementação, manutenção e suporte, de forma que essa diferença em termos de valor financeiro seja sentida, mensurável, tangível.

Em minha modesta opinião não vejo muito sentido hoje em dia que alguém se prenda a uma determinada ferramenta a menos que trabalhe para o fabricante, receba salário e tudo o mais que é de direito (aí até eu). Alguns dizem: “Ah, mas a Microsoft para o meu salario” ou outro diz ainda “A Oracle paga meu salário”, em alusão ao fato de serem especialistas nessas tecnologias.

Se você pensa assim, é melhor começar a mudar. O perfil do profissional de TI vem mudando com os anos, para melhor, diga-se de passagem, tendo em vista a especialização constante da classe, aqueles gerentes de TI bobinhos, que engolem tudo o que o consultor-master-especialista diz estão com os dias contados: E juntamente com eles veja quem vai junto: o garoto-propaganda-technology-especialist !

Você pode vender sua tecnologia para seu gerente como a melhor do mundo. Porém um dia alguém poderá provar como 1 +1=2 que a tecnologia que você vendeu é inviável em termos de custo-benefício, ou seja, traz prejuízos à empresa. E quando o gerente pensar em você depois disso não passarão boas palavras a seu respeito em sua mente, ou pior, quando puder, dirá prontamente a outros como foi enganado por você.

Portanto aí vai a dica:

Como diz o velho dito popular, bastante usado no mercado financeiro:

"Não coloque todos os ovos na mesma cesta"

Portanto, Diversifique seu conhecimento que é seu maior patrimônio!

Conhece Oracle? Ótimo, aprenda SQL Server, DB2, MySQL, Etc…

Agora, quer saber realmente qual o melhor gerenciador de bancos de dados? Depende.

Fonte: http://carreiradeti.com.br

As a part of the installation process improvement, a new tool to be released will enable SoftExpert Excellence Suite to be installed in an automated way, ensuring process effectiveness.

Being part of this package, there are two new tools for database model and configuration management.

SEDBUpdate: Used for creating/updating objects in database according to a predefined model. This tool compares database structure with a model, generating a script with differences found.

SEConfigurator: Domain and database configuration manager. This tool enables database configurations to be added, edited or deleted through a quick and easy way.

The process has gone through a big change: the environment preparation, solution installation and parameterization steps are now separated. To start the installation it is necessary that all environment verification activities are finished, which makes the process more assertive and reliable.

See the video below for the process demonstration: