Software infrastructure initiatives, brought to you today by the letter “R”

Mark Herring is vice president of software infrastructure for Sun Microsystems.

Based on what we’ve been hearing lately from our customers, the top business imperative for CIO-level executives today is expanding the organization’s reach – whether into new geographies, to other organizations, or across technology systems. It’s an inevitable consequence of the growth in partnerships, acquisitions, and other activities that characterize the way people do business today.

But with the imperative to expand reach comes the challenge of controlling risk. The principle is pretty simple; in fact, if you've ever met with a financial advisor, you're familiar with the idea that lower risk means less potential for reward. It's the same in business: The less reach you have, the less risk – and vice-versa. If your operations are confined to a secret underground bunker with secure, isolated IT systems, for example, you don’t have much risk – or reach either, for that matter. For most organizations, though, greater reach means greater opportunity. At the same time, the further you extend that reach into new places, and the more people you give access, the more vulnerable your business becomes. (And, if you're a public or large company, controlling risk is likely to be mandated by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act or other regulations.)

I think that question is best answered by way of example. To that end, I'd like to share some customer stories that show how different organizations are successfully handling this balancing act of reach, risk, and return.

• GE uses identity management to expand its reach to 300,000 employees and contractors worldwide, ensuring that they have immediate access to resources such as cell phones, audio conferencing, and email and can begin to work productively upon joining the company – rather than having to wait days or weeks for manual provisioning. At the same time, to reduce risk, the company is using the same portfolio to just as efficiently end or change access anytime someone’s association with the company ends or their job role changes. This reduces the risk of security vulnerability as well as reducing expenses that could result from delays in canceling account resources or making changes to access privileges.

• Equifax has implemented a pre-integrated software stack that brings together identity management, application server, and other software systems. This is a key part of the company's initiative to centralize corporate security and compliance worldwide. Previously, Equifax used a departmental approach in which different business units across 14 countries all operated their own security and compliance programs, resulting in significant operational and cost inefficiencies, as well as potential security vulnerabilities. Now, the company is taking advantage of centralized and integrated capabilities to operate more efficiently and securely, and at a lower cost.

• Cleveland Clinic, which operates clinics serving millions of patients in major cities throughout the country, has created a composite-applications-based e-prescription system that enables secure sharing of patient prescription information among clinics and retail pharmacies. This ensures that everyone involved in the prescription process can view all the pertinent information they need to fill prescriptions quickly, accurately, and safely. By extending its reach in this way, Cleveland Clinic reduces the risk of dangerous drug interactions or other problems that can result from working with incomplete information.

• Harrod's, a leading UK-based retailer with online, catalog, and bricks-and-mortar businesses is using composite applications in a SOA to reach across all of its systems and create a single view of the customer. The ability to track customer activities across systems enables the company to identify its top customers and develop programs aimed at keeping their business by rewarding their loyalty. With “attracting and retaining customers” having been identified by Gartner as a top priority for enterprises in 2008, this is critical. The single view gives Harrod's an unprecedented window into top customers' needs and preferences, no matter where or how they buy – information that's invaluable to efforts to improve customer service and offer more of the products and services that customers want.

• The Government of Norway has built a portal server that reaches across disparate technology systems to improve citizen access to all government services. With a single gateway to the public sector in Norway, citizens no longer have to log on to different government agencies' Websites to get all the services they need. The portal server dramatically increases the government's reach while also employing sophisticated access management capabilities to control the security risk.

We’re constantly working to help customers find new ways to expand their reach and control their risk, and to maximize their return on the software infrastructure that makes it possible to do just that. If you want to address the business imperative to expand your reach – whether across your customer base, your internal systems, or your partners' operations – but you're concerned about the risks associated with doing so, contact us. We can help you achieve both goals while getting a substantial return on your technology investment.