AlignIT Manager Tech Talk: Straight Talk About Windows Azure

It's a bit of a Catch-22 – deploying a new operating system can be an expensive proposition, but not using up to date technology can cost a business worker productivity, recruitment of top talent, and integration with customers and partners. For development shops, making sure your application runs on the latest platform contributes to the longevity of a useful product. It's exhausting trying to keep up but not to do so can mean obsolesce.
The question is, are there things you can do today to make things easier tomorrow? Coming hot on the heels of the BUILD conference and the release of the developer preview of Windows 8, Ruth Morton and Jonathan Rozenblit talk with David Remmer, Depth Evangelism Manager at Microsoft Canada and former Architect Evangelist about what you need to do to get your applications and infrastructure ready today to take advantage of tomorrow's advances.
Featured Guest: David Remmer
An industry veteran and former Senior Architect Advisor, David Remmer now heads up the Depth Evanglism Team for Microsoft Canada. David has worked solutions for the financial, multi-media, security, manufacturing, services and health care industries and specializes in leveraging advances in technology in order to realize ongoing business value within organizations.
Connect with David at dremmer@microsoft.com.
Additional Resources
AlignIT Manager Tech Talk Podcast
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About AlignIT
The Align IT program is dedicated to keeping IT leaders informed about what really matters in business and technology. We do that through in-person events, web casts, our blog and of course, this Manager Tech Talk series. You can find more information about the Align IT program at www.alignit.ca.
Comments, suggestions and ideas for future topics can be left below as a comment or emailed directly to the Align IT program feedback alias at alignit@microsoft.com.
Great discussion on the challenges and solutions for new technologies adoption
My time bookmarks notes of the video in minute:second approx format follow:
1:15 technology fatigue issue and what do you need today to setup for success
3:30 Catch-22 technology upgrade discussion
5:25 success stories of infrastructure upgrade
7:00 frustrations with old technologies
7:30 how to justify moving to new technologies
9:20 benefits of new technology are hard to quantify
11:00 developers vs IT reaction to new technology adoption: "if it's not broken don't fix it"
11:20 the challenge of quantifying vs qualifying
13:35 evolution vs starting fresh with new technology
14:00 the challenge of evolutionary deployment
14:24 how do you plan for what you don't know?
15:00 ability to respond to change depends on the degree of components decoupling
15:52 80/20 rule. Last 20% is very hard to plan. 80% should be as flexible & reusable as possible.
17:15 industry moves to standards to decouple technologies
17:35 moving to the cloud contributes to decoupling
19:20 example of coupling challenge
20:00 virtualization advantages in decoupling
22:00 the need to step back & look at the requirements = the need for a strategic view to get competitive advantages
23:25 what are the most important emerging technologies? HTML5 online / offline & XAML advantages
25:30 references to web sites and future events.