KMA

CompuWorks discuss ROI and the Need for a Training Baseline

One of the many challenges for IT services providers is to convince buyers of ROI, or Return on Investment, and in difficult economic times, the question is ALWAYS asked when establishing the business case for any new project.  Nowhere does this apply more than in measuring ROI in Training.

Gone are the days when CEOs justified training by saying “It’s good for our people.”  Today they’re saying “Show me the return.”  So since ROI is particularly “squishy” when it comes to training, we’ve come up with a few ideas on how to effectively measure the ROI.  Let’s use the example of a SharePoint implementation here:

Three keys in measuring the ROI from a SharePoint project (or any project, for that matter) are:

1. Getting the most accurate possible picture of the “before” state. If you can’t accurately assess where you started relative to your goals for the implementation, you’ll never know how far you’ve progressed later.
2. Determining what you’re going to measure. SharePoint is a broad application platform and making sure that your metrics are consistent with your business objectives is essential.
3. Leaving room to grow. SharePoint tends to be adopted in unforeseen, sometimes “viral” ways. Make sure you monitor how users actually use the solution you deploy – you may find yourself surprised!

For example, if you plan to implement SharePoint as an Extranet platform for collaboration with external business partners, consider surveying your users, or prospective users, before your implementation with questions like:
Please rate (on a 1-10 scale):

• Your ability to securely share data with your counterpart(s) at XYZ Co.
• Your ability to find data when you need it
• Your ability to track version or revision history

You can also ask for additional self-assessment measures such as how long key functions currently take, or perform your own external measures, such as how much storage e-mail takes (multiple versions of attached documents, etc.)

We advocate updating this survey/assessment a few times:

a. Immediately following initial training (literally, at the end of the class or on-line training)
b. Approximately 60-90 days after going live with the solution
c. Approximately a year after going live to assess success/failures and to map additional training requirements

These steps to measuring ROI do not need to be overly complicated, but they do need to be consistent, specific to your objectives for your implementation, and updated so that you can understand (and present to the business stakeholders funding your project) the distance you’ve covered.  The critical thing is to start that measurement before the project commences so that you have an accurate picture of the baseline and a clear path to fully realizing your investment.

Liz Hatch reviews TechEd and Microsoft's entry into “Complex Event Processing”

Each year I look forward to attending Microsoft’s Tech Ed to learn about and explore new technologies currently under development.  It’s all the more exciting when some of our client needs will be directly met with the release of these new technologies.  This year, apart from the excitement surrounding the release of Windows 7, the highlight for me was the announced entrance of Microsoft into the CEP (Complex Event Processing) domain.  CEP will be released as an analytical component of SQL Server 2008.

What is CEP?  CEP describes the processing of low-latency events with the goal of deriving meaning and arriving at the ability to take action in response to these events in real-time.  This technology allows for event correlation and abstraction to aid in, for instance, anomaly and production-quality detection and KPI monitoring.  It also facilitates real-time root cause analysis.  CEP is currently used in utilities, web analytics, manufacturing, and financial services and is an excellent fit for processing data in the cloud.  Events could originate in a flow of transactions from a system or from instrumented devices, and analysis may incorporate static data or other high-latency data in a database along with complex event data.  Analysis based in CEP can be used to refine and enhance performance throughout a broad array of systems, both physical and virtual.   

How does CEP differ from database applications?  As a comparison, in the traditional world of database applications we see the landscape as:

• Ad-hoc queries and requests
• Latency in seconds, hours, days
• Data rate of perhaps hundreds of events per second

When we move to the arena of low-latency complex event processing, we turn the use of our database engine, in effect, upside-down.  We’re now processing:

• Continuous standing queries
• Latency in milliseconds or less
• Data rate of tens of thousands or more events per second
• Potentially out-of-order timed events

Microsoft will provide a Community Technology Preview of CEP in mid-2009, and the production release will follow in 2010.  See this white paper for additional details, and look for more information from KMA on this topic in the future!

Virtualization of SQL Server: The Time Has Come

At KMA we continuously guide our customers as they roll out new software and hardware deployments, as well as upgrades.  For a number of years, we have advised against placing SQL Server installations in a virtual environment due to performance limitations.  With the release of Windows Server 2008 R2, the landscape has changed, and we can now confidently recommend virtualized SQL Server deployments in Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 R2.  As long as your server hardware is appropriate to load and includes hardware-assisted virtualization, virtualization can bring many advantages to SQL Server deployments, including:

Fewer physical servers 

• Lower licencing fees
• Lower hardware costs
• Less rack space
• Less power required

Improved management 

• Shared Hyper-V management console
• Allows for live VM movement across servers

Allows for hot addition of storage

Is this the case only with SQL Server 2008?  No, SQL Server 2005 is also a candidate for virtualization following the same guidelines.

Best practices and hardware requirements include:

• Use pass-through disks or fixed VHDs
• Use virtual integration components for Hyper-V rather then emulated components
• An x64-based processor
• Hardware-assisted virtualization
• Hardware-enforced Data Execution Prevention (DEP) must be available and enabled

For an overview of system configurations, work loads and performance, please see Microsoft’s white paper on “Best Practices and Performance Considerations”

MSDN Road Show: To LINQ or Not to LINQ

While attending the recent MSDN Roadshow, we couldn’t help but notice the strong interest in the heretofore “missing LINQ,” which made its debut in .NET 3.0 and can be seen creeping its way into application source code. 

You may ask “What is LINQ?” and “Is it worth the investment?”  Below we address these with some examples that can bring immediate results.

LINQ stands for Language Integrated Query and provides a way of performing queries against data sources as a part of the C# language.  Besides ease of use, variables are strongly typed (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strongly_typed ) and validated at compile time, which improves reliability and programmer productivity.

Though LINQ offers a list of robust features, it takes very little effort to benefit from the core concepts because of the similarity between LINQ and SQL queries.

Simple Example

 

A SQL query like:

SELECT saleRevenue FROM Sales WHERE SalesRepId = 45

is written in LINQ C# as:

    var salesDollars = from S in Sales

where S.SalesRepId == 45

select S.SalesRevenue;

    double totalSales = 0.0;

    foreach (var selectedSale in salesDollars)

   totalSales += selectedSale;

 

Notice the query is reordered to create the LINQ statement.  Strong typing isn’t obvious in the above snippet.  I left off the class definition and initialization, which looks like this:

   

    class Sales

    {

    private double _SaleRevenue;

    private int _SalesRepId;

    private DateTime _DateClosed;

    public double SalesRevenue

    {

    get { return _SaleRevenue; }

    set { _SaleRevenue = value; }

    }

    public int SalesRepId

    {

    get { return _SalesRepId; }

    set { _SalesRepId = value; }

    }

    public DateTime DateClosed

    {

    get { return _DateClosed; }

    set { _DateClosed = value; }

    }

    }

 

The class defines a strongly-typed record.  Let’s build sample data:

   

var Sales = new List<Sales> {

    new Sales {

    SalesRevenue = 8000.40,

    SalesRepId = 45,

    DateClosed = DateTime.Parse("3/27/2003") },

    new Sales {

    SalesRevenue = 4267.10,

    SalesRepId = 45,

    DateClosed = DateTime.Parse("4/1/2003") },

    new Sales {

    SalesRevenue = 876.99,

    SalesRepId = 10,

    DateClosed = DateTime.Parse("12/15/2002") }

    };

 

Now the LINQ query can select from the var Sales in the previous example and totals the first two entries in the list.

Complex Results

After reviewing this, you may ask: “What if I need more than just one item returned in the query?” 

This is the nice thing about var. It holds complex types as in the following where we want to compute the commission in addition to the sale:

   

    var salesResult = from S in Sales

  where S.SalesRepId == 45

  select new

{

S.SalesRevenue,

    Commission = S.SalesRevenue * 0.15

      };

The anonymous type var salesResult now contains both SalesRevenue and Commission properties that can be accessed:

   

    double totalSales = 0.0;

    double totalCommission = 0.0;

    foreach (var selectedResult in salesResult)

    {

    totalSales += selectedResult.SalesRevenue;

    totalCommission += selectedResult.Commission;

    }

More Complex Expressions

Queries used in real applications are more complicated than the above examples, but can be expanded in the same way we are used to seeing in SQL.

The following shows both Joining and Ordering.

   

    var X = from S in Sales

    join c in Customers on o.CustomerID equals S.CustomerID

    where S.SalesRevenue > 1000.00

    orderby S.SalesRepId

    select new

    {

    S.SalesRepId,

    c.CustomerID,

    S.SalesRevenue,

    Commission = S.SalesRevenue * 0.15

    };

LINQ also allows multiple Froms and Grouping as well.

Summary

We have shown LINQ here, but .NET 3.0 also supports DLINQ to query directly against a database.

LINQ and DLINQ bring a lot of power to the C# developer with this new declarative format and we hope you can see it takes very little effort to benefit from it.  

Your developers can realize excellent gains with virtually no pain. 

To learn more about LINQ, visit the Microsoft library at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb308959.aspxor ask your KMA representative to arrange a conversation with us.

A Review of Banker to the Poor by Muhammad Yunus by Adrian duCille

I recently had the pleasure of reading Banker to the Poor, by Dr. Muhammad Yunus.  Reading this book, took me back to July, 2008, where I and 10,000 of my closest colleagues had the privilege of seeing Dr. Yunus speak live at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference.  Whether live or in print, Yunus comes across as a genuine person who cares about the well being of his fellow man.

As I reflect on reading about and listening to Dr. Yunus, I admire the idea of one man recognizing the economic woes of the individual, and assuming the challenge to provide real solutions to poverty.  He is able to successfully apply common sense principles aimed at fighting the macroeconomic forces of corporate greed and bureaucracy, bringing economic aid and self-esteem to the individual. 

Dr. Yunus is a man; a man with common sense, compassion for others, and the patience of a saint.  He is a creative problem solver who understands the unbalanced economics in a society, where the wealthy advance and the poor further descend on the socioeconomic ladder.  Dr. Yunus makes a point of identifying the social responsibility which should be expected of government and industry, as he navigates the long and confusing path required to connect the macroeconomic resources of a society to the microeconomic needs of its individuals.

Human beings like Dr. Yunus should remind us that improvement of socioeconomic conditions is everyone's responsibility.  We have a duty to help others and should be mindful of that fact in everything we do. 

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