Strategies for SaaS, Cloud Computing, Open Source and Governance

Established companies venturing into SaaS business or newbies starting off as SaaS companies have to deal with a lot of new and evolving challenges. Everything that you can possibly think of is different with SaaS model. To say that it is changing the software business is an understatement.
Starting with delivery model, architecture, sales, support [...]

Data Security breaches, leaks are a frequent news item these days. If it is not a hacker intruding a network, it is disgruntled employees taking data with them when they are let go.  If all else went well, it is a laptop that an employee lost and along with it all the crucial information on [...]

Going with SaaS comes with a set of concerns around Data Security. Intrusion Detection, Prevention and Penetration Testing should allay those fears to a large extent.

If you are customer having a business application like Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft or SAP in production I am sure you have constantly run into this need to clone/replicate Production database.
Why would someone need a copy of production instance?
Some of the most common reasons are

to create a test environment with representative production data
to create a [...]

One of the critical requirement of both SOX 404 and PCI Compliance mandates is that companies manage their provisioning in a more controlled manner.
Companies with disparate applications from different vendors are confronted with the challenges around it. As part of my discussions with companies I have been talking to (in the Oracle E-Business Suite customer [...]

While IT is focused on getting their arms around the Application Management problem, the Regulatory mandates like Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), HIPAA, PCI Data Security Standard, FDA 21 CFR Part 11, Gramm Leach Bliley Act, FISMA, BASEL II are pushing the IT and business users to brink with all the myriad of compliance and audit requirements. Having [...]