Is Microsoft more open than the Open Source community want us to believe? I think we need to “Hit Refresh” on our opinions as well!
Microsoft
The second day of MS Ignite 2017 was for me all about technical architecture in contradiction to the first day where strategic vision was the focal point.
Having been in my career at both sides of the proprietary vs open divide, I started in an academic and open source java oriented setting and moved to consultancy using MS .and NET oriented technologies, I must admit that what I’ve seen MS doing today with Linux was once again an eye-opener.
You see MS pushing for Windows on Linux and Linux on Windows. Not only is the command line interface cross platform but SQL, VS Code, .NET Core and ASP.NET Core are now running on Linux. This means .NET applications can be developed and run natively in a Linux environment. The support for Linux on Windows is also extending rapidly. Linux containers run on Windows. Bash, a traditional Linux CLI, runs on Windows. Also in the cloud we see great evolutions by now, 8 Linux distributions are supported with close Azure integration something you would only have expected from Windows VM’s before.
In the Apple IOS world, we are already more accustomed to MS solutions to be present. Think about Office for Mac, Skype and Visual Studio. I was amazed to see that Skype would come to Linux. We are still not there yet but I hope to see one day Office and Visual Studio running cross platform.
In the SharePoint and Office 365 world further adoption of open tools to support the development of customizations is realized. The push for JavaScript is remarkable. Development of extensions is relying on TypeScript, Gulp, Yeoman, React and node.js!
If you see the evolution one can ask, who is truly open across all these eco-systems? I remember in 1999 we said Linux and Windows would never work together I guess pigs can fly and hell just frozen over.
I have seen a more people-oriented and a omni-present Microsoft today. The phrase “this is not your fathers’ fill-in -the-blank” was heard often the first day at MS Ignite 2017.
MS Ignite 2017
This statement is so true, it is not your father’s …
Microsoft since Satya became CEO
Office since Office 365 was introduced
ERP and CRM since MS Dynamics became available
SharePoint since SharePoint online was introduced
SQL DB since we can host SQL on Linux now and not forgetting Cosmos NoSQL DB
Server since the support for Docker on Azure
Cloud since Azure stack is the on-premises equivalent
Bing since Bing Enterprise search does enterprise data search
Visual Studio since it is running on Mac, on the web and scaled down in VS Code
OS since Windows has a Linux sub-system and Linux has a Windows sub-system.
Source control as GIT is supported besides Team Foundation Serer
SaaS as for every on-premises there is now a full-fletched Azure equivalent e.g. AD, server, network, DB …
In all the above we see MS becoming omni-present cross layers, platforms and even assimilating competitor solutions.
In the latest announcements, we see Microsoft is empowering people.
Firstly, Office 365 in combination with the MS graph allows you to work multi-device. Starting activates on one device and continue on a different is not that new anymore but MS is raising the stakes by making this multi-sense. We talk on our phone to dictate a mail and continue inking on our table to complete it. Office 365 supporting real-time multi-user editing of documents.
Secondly, we have MS’s AI first approach where classic business processes are enhanced with AI deduced data. Driven by data networks like MS Graph and Azure computing power, we can deduce information at a global scale which are unsolvable puzzles at a smaller scale. The analogy with quantum computing is not far fetched. Lo and behold, MS is also doing a first step into the real quantum physics world supporting qubits research. The announcement for a quantum computing programming language becoming part of Visual studio and a local as well as Azure quantum simulator are just jaw droppers.
The AI first approach has also pushed for new tooling like Azure has Machine Learning (AML) workbench that reduces the data set preparation effort. Wrangling data into a format that AI will understand becomes a straightforward activity. To support all this, we see that Azure compute power keeps on growing: the latest m-series will be go to 128 CPU’s and 3.8 TB of memory. On top of that Azure is the only platform that support nvidea’s P40 and P100 GPU’s.
Doing some literature research, I created a presentation on GDPR based on information of the European Commission. Using information from Microsoft, there is an overview on the impact of GDPR on its technology stack and the level of GDPR compliance.
In the digitalization race, companies struggle to correctly organize Document Management. Most of the time the struggle has to do with an inability to correctly identify what a document means in their business context, let alone define the management part of it and understand the difference with Record Management.
The goal of this article is to remove some of the confusion, to better define the roles of document and record management and to explain how these are related in managing the document life cycle.
The struggle has two main causes. First, the digitalization has turned documents from a paper carrier (physical form) into a digital equivalent. Companies fail to adapt and optimize their business processes. Most of time only the entry and exit activity are adapted: incoming paper documents are replaced by digital documents through scanning and outgoing digital documents are converted into a paper document through printing. An optimized business process should not care or be sensitive to the carrier but focus on the content or what is communicated within the document.
The content is the second cause. Companies struggle to distinguish Document Management from Record Management. The fact that both are intertwined enhances the confusion. Documents are used to carry business information in a way that it is consumable by people and systems. Records register business events to create evidence of a business activity. We often need documents to convey and exchange business events which makes things confusing.
What adds to the confusion is people seeing the physical document flow as an equivalent of the business flow and seeing the document as the synonym of the business event. Think for example about a purchase order. This happens because humans need business events being presented in an understandable way in order to interact with them. In business this is achieved through paper documents or, if things have evolved, electronic forms that represent structured data. Piling on top of the confusion, when the interaction is removed and the information is exchanged between systems, in an automated way without human intervention, business often keeps calling it the electronic document exchange. For example, a Purchase Order is called a document in Electronic Data Exchange. The confusion comes to an absolute high, when people understand that also unstructured data is communicated through documents. For example, the general conditions added along a Purchase Order
As shown below Record Management (RM) and Document Management (DM) have distinct characteristics but also a large area of joined characteristics. These are often combined into Data Management (DaM).
The disambiguation can start by saying that DM has an external focus i.e. how to communicate information between a company and its environment i.e. client, suppliers, government and other stakeholder. Whereas RM has an internal focus i.e. representing business events and storing these in and exchanging these between, Line of Business (LOB) systems. Mapping these concepts on a prototypical architecture diagram, the RM is mostly contained in what is depicted as the core services in the diagram and DM we can found in the satellite services around the core.
The exchange of data internally requires the introduction of another element of confusion. Systems that store business events are called Systems of Record. On the opposite site, there are the systems that use business events, these are called Systems of Reference. The organization and management of the data and data flows between Systems of Record and Systems of Reference is what Master Data Management (MDM) entails.
To link RM and DM, we created the following a high-level view on the Document Life Cycle as shown below.
This high-level view has a predominant DM focus. In the detailed view the interaction between DM and RM becomes clear as this shows the interaction points between DM and RM flow and activities. The RM related activities are encapsulated in the dashed rectangle and the interaction between DM and RM takes place in the Manage and Utilize phase of the document life cycle.
We have added a detailed explanation of all the phases and activities in the overview presentation you can download here:
