Cloud Integration and Data Management at Informatica World 2013

I recorded a brief video this week on the new Hybrid IT track that will be a big part of Informatica World 2013. It wasn’t too long ago that there were only a few sessions focused on the topic of cloud integration.

What’s changed?

Analyst firms like Gartner are publishing more and more research on the importance of integration platform as a service (see: Enterprises Should Use iPaaS for Cloud Integration) and enterprise IT organizations continue to seek new ways to keep up with the need for speed, while maintaining good governance practices as SaaS application adoption continues to accelerate.

Join the Informatica team in Las Vegas in June to learn more.

Related articles

• Importance of Informatica (svronlinetraining.wordpress.com)
• Informatica and Amazon Redshift Team to Change the Economics of Data Warehousing (virtual-strategy.com)
• Informatica: Poised To Accelerate? (blogs.gartner.com)
• Active Endpoints Bought by Informatica in Cloud Workflow Deal (xconomy.com)

Cloud Data Management in the Spotlight

This week I had the pleasure of hosting a webinar featuring two great subject matter experts on the topic of cloud data management in the era of hybrid IT:

• Mike West, VP and Distinguished Analyst at Saugatuck Research
• Andrew Bartels, former CIO, CTO and current Cloud consultant, guru and evangelist

Mike West outlined why “hybrid” (or highly interwoven) deployments are the new normal for enterprise IT. He reviewed how the coud is radically changing the role of enterprise IT and why data management must be a part of an overall cloud strategy. He identified 7 trends of the so-called Boundary Free Enterprise and pointed to these 5 best practices:

1. Commit to (Cloud) Data Management
2. Manage the Organizational Issues
3. Partner with a Data Management Provider
4. Manage Both Control and Access
5. Approach Data Management as Value Creation

Andrew Bartels shared the story of how he led the transition at his company to “cloud first” and drove Salesforce adoption from a peripheral system to a key driver of business performance and success. Andrew spoke passionately about the need to treat data as an asseet and concluded with the following words of advice:

• Communication is key
• Focus on real needs not just philosophy
• Establish a Data Committee
• Become a partner & not an obstacle
• Integration & accessibility is key
• Be prepared for a long road

I’ve embedded the video below and posted the slides on Slideshare. There’s some great insight here. I hope you find the discussion interesting and useful – I sure did!

Related articles

• Dirty Secret about Cloud and Data Integration (blogs.gartner.com)

Congratulations to the 2012 Best of AppExchange Award Winners

Every year Salesforce announces the top partners by AppExchange category based on the quantity and quality of reviews. Today they blogged the winners. Congratulations to these partners who continue to demonstrate such a high degree of cloud customer adoption and success.

Sales: There are multiple winners in this category based on functional area.

Overall winner: Adobe EchoSign (They have now won 7 years in a row!  I actually thought the award had only been around for 5 years. Hmmm…. They have an astounding 2040 reviews for their electronic signature application.)

• Reports and Dashboards: Hoopla Scoreboard by Hoopla Software (we have the big screens running in our office!)
• Methodologies: Opportunity Management Optimizer by Sales Optimizer
• Geolocation: Geopointe by Arrowpointe
• Quotes and Orders: Configurator by Big Machines
• Compensation: Xactly Incent by Xactly

Customer Service: Clicktools Surveys and Scripts by Clicktools

IT and Administration: Informatica Cloud Integration for Salesforce (Informatica has been recognized 5 years in a row as the top cloud integration solution!)

Marketing: Marketo (Big win over Eloqua in a very competitive category – congrats!)

Human Resources (HR): Jobscience for Professional Recruiting by Jobscience

ERP: Ascent by Precisio Business Solutions (I’m interested in feedback on this app. Thought you’d see Financial Force here.)

Collaboration: SpringCM Free Content Management from SpringCM

Analytics: Sales Pipeline Visualization by SalesClic (First I’ve heard of this app – looks interesting.)

Congratulations to all of the winners and thanks to the Salesforce users who took the time to post their reviews!

 

Related Articles:

• AppExchange Customer Choice Award Winners 2012 (blogs.salesforce.com)
• Oracle Buys Eloqua: Winners and Losers for B2B Marketing Automation (customerthink.com)
• Top 10 Things You Can Do With Salesforce (blogs.salesforce.com)

Governed Self Service: Applying Lean Principles to Cloud Integration

Today I moderated a webinar focused on Eliminating SaaS Sprawl with Cloud Integration. We focused on the usual challenges of silos and data fragmentation, but also focused on the opportunity to apply Lean Integration principles in a next generation integration Center of Excellence (CoE) or integration competency center (ICC).  The conversation centered on the need for speed and business agility, while also maintaining strong governance and control in IT.  What I call “Governed Self Service.”

David Lyle, co-author of the book on Lean Integration, pointed out that integration is a concept that mirrors the “just-in-time” (JIT) manufacturing principles of the automotive industry. With JIT manufacturing, the necessary components to assemble a car are sourced throughout the supply chain and brought onto the factory floor just before they are needed thus minimizing the amount of time a worker has to wait for the necessary part. Lean Integration transforms organizational processes and relies on leading-edge technology for automation and reuse to systematically reduce costs and accelerate delivery. His presentation summarized how the objectives of cloud integration are one and the same as Lean Integration:

• Eliminate waste
• Increase value for end-user customers
• Drive continuous improvement

Mark Murray from the Informatica Cloud team, then delivered a powerful cloud integration demonstration that focused on re-usable templates and the concept of having a central instance and sub-instances that can be deployed out to the divisions and lines of business, while maintaining centralized administration  Pretty powerful stuff!

I’ve embedded the webinar in it’s entirety below:

Related articles

• From SaaS Spree to SaaS Sprawl to SaaS Sanity? (cloudintegration.wordpress.com)

From SaaS Spree to SaaS Sprawl to SaaS Sanity?

I wrote earlier in the week that cloud integration suddenly seems cool. A few articles this week  reminded me that it’s not just about cloud integration, it’s about cloud data management. And in many cases, it’s about the need for Cloud Master Data Management.

• Cloud Services Becoming Foundational: “Through 2016, a hybrid model (cloud and captive systems) will become the platform of choice, a transitional platform en route to a future dominated by public and private clouds. By 2016, 75 percent or more of new enterprise spending will be cloud-based or hybrid according to Saugatuck’s research.”
• Geoffrey Moore: The Next Decade Will Be About Systems of Engagement: “Moore forecasts the emergence of an enterprise-focused tech industry that will offer workplace versions of consumer technologies that people actually will like to use. He imagines there will be enterprise versions of Facebook, Facetime, Twitter, etc.”
• And bringing it back to Cloud Master Data Management, Mike Vizard wrote about the concept of “Two-Tier MDM” noting:  ”as integration issues become more pressing in the cloud, IT organizations are once again going to discover many of the same MDM issues that have plagued their internal operations for so many years — only this time it will involve a lot more applications that they have less control over than ever.”

It seems we have we gone from a “SaaS spree” to “SaaS sprawl” and now finally to “SaaS sanity”?

Here are three brief videos that explain at a high-level how the key capabilities of a cloud master data management (MDM) solution can help deliver SaaS sanity:

 

Related articles

• SaaS Sees Fastest Growth In Cloud Computing (misco.co.uk)
• The most popular SaaS solutions (c24.co.uk)
• SaaS Adoption Accelerates, Goes Global in the Enterprise (forbes.com)

#DF12 Presentation: Power the Connected Enterprise with Cloud MDM and Integration

The video of 3 great enterprise customers sharing their Salesforce integration and master data management stories at Dreamforce 2012 is now posted. You can read a blog post on two of the companies that presented so far:

• OppenheimerFunds Dreamforce Story: Lay a Foundation of Trusted and Complete Customer Information for Salesforce
• Interstate Batteries Dreamforce Story: How Can You Be #1 Without Trusted Customer Information?

And here’s the video (slides are here):

Related articles

• Salesforce Customers are Asking for Big Data Management #DF12 (cloudintegration.wordpress.com)
• Cloud Master Data Management from Informatica (cloudintegration.wordpress.com)
• Stuck in the Post Dreamforce Cloud #DF12 (cloudintegration.wordpress.com)
• Informatica Positioned in Leaders Quadrant in 2012 Master Data Management of Customer Data Solutions Report (virtual-strategy.com)

Cloud Connect 2012 Conference Highlights

The day before Dreamforce 2012, Informatica hosted the first annual Cloud Connect Conference.  The event kicked off with a keynote outlining the company’s cloud integration vision, a deep-dive roadmap session with product management, a customer and partner panel, hands-on labs with the cloud integration gurus, and the 2012 Cloudy Awards ceremony.  Here is a video highlight reel from the event:

Related articles

• Salesforce Customers are Asking for Big Data Management #DF12 (cloudintegration.wordpress.com)
• Cloud Master Data Management from Informatica (cloudintegration.wordpress.com)

Stuck in the Post Dreamforce Cloud #DF12

Have you recovered from Dreamforce 2012? Next week I’ll be at Oracle Open World talking about cloud integration and to be honest, I’d much rather write about the Marc Benioff show than register for Larry’s World at this point. (Although, I do wonder if we’ll see the 2nd tweet from Mr. Ellison and what his position will be on all things cloud this year. Remember the @Benioff  boot out last time around? Some classic tweets.

I guess like a lot of people you could say I’m stuck in the PDC (Post Dreamforce Cloud) at this point. I’ve been spending time in the Dreamforce Chatter org reviewing sessions, watching YouTube videos and reading a plethora of blogger opinion about the conference (see links below).  Sound familiar?

To bring back some of the #DF12 energy, today I hosted a webinar focused on some of the Dreamforce data management highlights. The presentation congratulated the 2012 Informatica Cloudy Award winners and featured live demonstrations of two of the hottest topics at the Informatica booth:

• Salesforce and SAP integration
• Master Data Management for Salesforce

You can download the slides and watch the recording here:

Informatica Cloud @ Dreamforce 2012 from Darren Cunningham

Denis Pombriant wrote one of the best summaries of Dreamforce I’ve seen so far here.  I also enjoyed his interview with Brent Leary from CRM Essentials.

Related articles

• Dreamforce 2012: Before and During (blogs.salesforce.com)
• Salesforce Customers are Asking for Big Data Management #DF12 (cloudintegration.wordpress.com)
• Event Report: Dreamforce X (#DF12) Emerges As The South By Southwest (#SXSW) For The Enterprise (forbes.com)
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Salesforce Customers are Asking for Big Data Management #DF12

Two things stuck out for me at Dreamforce 2012:

1. What an amazing ecosystem Salesforce has built. The Cloud expo was packed with high-quality booths and there were over 3000 people at the partner keynote! Congratulations to the partner success team and kudos on the newly designed Appexchange.
2. How important cloud integration / enterprise connectivity has become to Salesforce customers, partners and prospects. These two slides from that same partner keynote say it all:

When it comes to the back-office, Big Data Management apps top the list of Salesforce customer requirements. Oh, and by the way, all new cloud applications must connect across the business.

Today two post-Dreamforce 2012 articles caught my attention that address the need for cloud integration head on. In his post – Plumbing the Salesforce Clouds is Your Business, Mark Smith from Ventana Research notes:

“The challenges your organization faces with data are getting larger, and the financial benefits of data in the cloud, such as reduced TCO and reduced implementation fees, are substantive. Too much time and too many resources are wasted in manual approaches where data is transitioned inconsistently and incorrectly. Automation helps organizations rationalize their overall information management efforts.”

Joshua Greenbaum at Enterprise Applications Consulting has this to say his his article, Salesforce.com, Enterprise Platforms, and the End of the End of Software:

“And the tools are there, or on the way. Hence the refrigerator pitch, though it was interestingly devoid of details on just how easy it will be to build an integration framework that could tie together a Pandora-like pure cloud environment or a more common hybrid cloud/on-premise environment. But heck, that’s really hard. It took SAP years to get NetWeaver out of slideware mode and into simple and easy to implement mode, despite all their efforts. So I don’t expect Saleforce.com to settle this issue in just one Dreamforce. It will take a while, no doubt.”

I’ll write about the Informatica Cloud integration and MDM session later this week on the Perspective blog. In the meantime, I’ve embedded the slides below so you can see for yourself how three enterprise organizations have taken advantage of data integration, data quality and master data management technology to drive overall Salesforce adoption and success. It’s Big Cloud Data Management in action!

Power the Connected Enterprise with Cloud Integration and Master Data Management (MDM) from Darren Cunningham

Related articles

• Salesforce.com reveals brief roadmap for AppExchange through 2013 (zdnet.com)
• Dreamforce 2012: Salesforce.com Launches Dropbox Enterprise Rival Chatterbox (techweekeurope.co.uk)
• Dreamforce 2012: Betting On Social Enterprise (cloudave.com)
• Salesforce.com’s New Social Strategy is Brilliant, Here’s Why (studentforce.wordpress.com)

Cloud Master Data Management from Informatica

I’ve written about the topic of cloud-based master data management (MDM) in the past:

1. 2012 Cloud Data Integration Trends
2. What do Salesforce.com Customers Care About?

This week Informatica announced the availability of a new Cloud MDM solution for salesforce.com customers. Here are a couple of perspectives on the news:

1. Will Salesforce be the Catalyst to Propel MDM to the Cloud?
2. Mind the Gap: How Sales Operations Can Overcome Five Customer Information Gaps in Salesforce

If you’re new to the topic of MDM and want to learn why a cloud-based solution built natively on force.com is so relevant to salesforce.com customers, be sure to check out this video: