This 300-plus page-document is an extensive (and exhaustive!) explication of IBM's recommended solution to the present IT challenges confronting businesses worldwide, particularly those which have already migrated to digital recording of business transactions and administrative functions. It starts with the basics of ILM by defining what ILM is and then points to two problem areas that firms have to address to achieve efficiency in their operations: (1) information management and (2) storage of data.
The focus of the manual is right in Part I and Chapter 1. The rest are detailed description of IBM products, i.e., Tivoli Storage Manager, that a firm may procure (a form of advertisement?). Anyone who is not directly involved with IT components (processes, people, hardware, and software) may find himself drowning in the midst of technical terms and abbreviations, illustrations of hardware parts, and various interconnected flow of processes within the IT environment.
What can you say about the following topics?
1. the definition of ILM which, in layman's terms, is: management of information and its storage from cradle to grave.
2. the four (4) IT challenges confronting the firm: (a) surge in criticality, value, and volume of data; (b) excessive rise in IT costs but the service objectives are not met; (c) compliance and regulatory requirements; and (d) effective data access to gain insight.
3. firm's objectives why they would want an ILM solution
4. IBM's response to these objectives
5. the six (6) IBM best practices that are intended to help businesses achieve their goals via IBM ILM solution.
This Redbook (manual) of IBM was conceived in 2007 and perhaps there are already some updates. While trying to look for updates, I came across an article by Craig Rhinehart entitled, "Why Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) Failed But Needs an Updated Look." This can be access through this link: http://craigrhinehart.wordpress.com/2010/11/14/252/
Personally, I find the book useful though I only know a little about IT as a whole. I can relate to the creation and deletion lifecycle as I do this most of the time whenever I use my USB (also an external drive) through my laptop. I think in some very simple and limited ways our laptop can be compared to a micro IT environment.
I agree that this ILM Library: Information Lifecycle Management Best Practices Guide presented by IBM was quite a hard read given its more than 300 pages. However, there are important insights shared by ICT practitioners on how to efficiently manage information throughout its lifecycle relative to its business value.
ReplyDeleteThe following are my responses to the topics raised by Sir Doods:
What can you say about the following topics?
1. the definition of ILM which, in layman's terms, is: management of information and its storage from cradle to grave.
Information can only be meaningful to an organization if it is used to support or contributes to the goals of the organization. As such, given the voluminous information confronting the organization, it is important that an organization knows how identify which information needs to be properly manage from storage (properly categorized) to managed access (whether public or with access rights only), reuse (recorded use of information) and validity (ageing).
2. the four (4) IT challenges confronting the firm: (a) surge in criticality, value, and volume of data; (b) excessive rise in IT costs but the service objectives are not met; (c) compliance and regulatory requirements; and (d) effective data access to gain insight.
I agree with the four ICT challenges that the firms have to contend with nowadays:
a) organizations are now confronted with "too much" unorganized information such that the trend is moving towards business analytics to weave through information and come up with meaningful insights for sound decision making in a much faster turnaround time.
b)It has been observed that many organizations have experienced being in "technology traps" situations, such that they have made investments on technology (i.e. software and hardware) that fell short in delivering ICT service objectives. It is important that business process owners be involved in ICT projects that concern their domain to ensure success.
(c) compliance and regulatory requirements;
There are standards set like ITIL/ITSM which have become benchmarks or acceptable standards in ICT management but not many ICT practitioners are compliant on them. While certifications can be very costly the demand for such continues to grow.
(d) effective data access to gain insight.
The voluminous information that organizations accumulate overtime has become too unwieldy to manage without the use of appropriate ICT tools.
3. firm's objectives why they would want an ILM solution
In my opinion, this item also relates to item 1.
4. IBM's response to these objectives
IBM is a technology solutions provider and its interest would be on how to support organizations to manage their information base to support organizational objectives using IBM technology (i.e. storage servers, business analytics, etc.)
5. the six (6) IBM best practices that are intended to help businesses achieve their goals via IBM ILM solution.
I think that this also relates to item 5.
As organizations move towards digitalization, they will need to appreciate their information life cycle, contend with legal and regulatory frameworks and evolve such information to knowledge using appropriate ICT tools for easy capture, access, analysis and re-use to support their organizational goals.