Kicking goals from Brazil to the IT department
The world’s biggest and most anticipated football tournament is well under way in Brazil, and this year’s kick-off has arguably been unlike anything the world has ever seen.
Four billion football fans are expected to tune in to the various matches broadcast ‘live’ around the world, with a third of them expected to do so through mobile apps on smart, connected devices such as smartphones and tablets.
A global sporting event such as this presents an interesting microcosm of the application economy, where our news, entertainment, banking, education and communications industries and more are being driven by a mobile application-based world that sits in the palm of our hand.
Our mobile devices are gateways to an endless universe of information, and plugging into this all-you-can-eat buffet has become second nature to us. This presents sporting teams and brands with an unprecedented opportunity to extend their content and experiences beyond the confines of the physical sporting arena and directly to spectators worldwide, wherever they may be. The application economy pulses with life every second, as live scores are pushed to smartphones and video clips of every goal streamed to tablets as they happen.
At the centre of this user experience is data. Developers need open access to data in order to foster an ecosystem of development necessary for an application economy to thrive. Yet, to an enterprise about to open up its servers, numerous challenges have to be tackled, such as data management, security, and compatibility. It wouldn’t be wise to allow applications to dive into your servers as and when they like to without any defence!
This is where APIs enter the field. Enterprises that invest in a sound API strategy can easily and securely tap into the application economy opportunity, enabling third-party innovation to carry your data and information further than you alone can.
With an abundance of data and billions of people around the world demanding to consume it, the pressure is on for IT teams to continuously deliver their apps and services faster and more efficiently than before in the face of rising customer expectations. No one is going to like waiting around for you to update your app when football players are striking goals this very instant!
And yet, many IT organisations are unable to cope with such rapid release cycles, as they’re still sticking with the traditional approach of passing the ball back and forth between the software development and IT operations teams.
But just like how action on the field flows and adapts to changing match conditions, a movement called DevOps has emerged that aims to solve that problem. DevOps places emphasis on breaking down the siloed walls between software development and IT operations and blending their capabilities for greater efficiency and productivity, enabling apps to be developed and deployed simultaneously.
More than just a methodology, DevOps has to permeate an entire organisation’s team culture for it to be effective, just like how a winning football team’s spirit has to be shared between all roles, from the defenders to the strikers.
That’s not all. The countless ways IT is being utilised for this season’s football frenzy can help us draw even deeper insights into the application economy, from big data and infrastructure management to service assurance, all of which are interdependent and could take days to delve into.
The bottom-line is this: every business and industry in today’s economy is being re-written by software and applications, and the only way to stay ahead of the curve and innovate is to invest in an appropriate portfolio of robust and proven software solutions, from Planning to DevOps to Security to Systems Management.
So, what does all this have to do with the world’s biggest football tournament?
As you relish in every pass and tackle until that final whistle blow, pay particular attention to the way you’re producing and consuming content this football season, and you may be surprised to learn how information technology surrounding the tournament fittingly parallels the application economy.
To score a winning goal in their business, enterprises must be well-equipped with the tools and skills needed to take advantage of the opportunity the application economy creates for developers, IT organisations, and even the consumer.
Vic Mankotia is vice president, Solution Strategy, Asia Pacific & Japan at CA Technologies