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When working with project or strategic planning it is essential to achieve consensus regarding overall goals and objectives and at least basic agreement when it comes to upcoming action points. Getting to that point can be challenging when dealing with groups made up of members with widely varying viewpoints, expectations, and areas of influence and interest. Communication is key to understanding each other and reaching agreement about priorities, but sometimes focusing exclusively on what should be done can lead to conflict between seemingly unreconcilable priorities or personalities.

One way to get around such blockages is to take the discussion in an entirely new direction by focusing on what should be avoided at all costs. Have group members try to come up with a range of possible negative outcomes as if they had jumped forward in time and they needed to write a blues or country song describing how things went wrong with the project or business. This should probably not include spouses leaving or dogs dying or pickup trucks breaking down, but it might be worth talking about the potential effects of losing of strategic suppliers or clients, or bad publicity, or significant failure of enabling services.

Changing the mindset and clarifying the picture of what must be avoided in this fashion can help people move beyond their perceived differences to identify areas of common ground. This can improve overall communication and understanding within the group, and make subsequent discussions regarding what needs to be done more inclusive, productive, and efficient.

This article is written by Dane Thomas, Senior Business Consultant at ELITS.

As the world around us get more and more connected and predictions estimate that 28 billions things might be connected to the internet by 2020, its not farfetched to conclude that more businesses will have to ad software and application development to their business agenda. As Goldman Sachs states in one of their research reports “The global industrial sector is poised to undergo a fundamental structural change akin to the industrial revolution as we usher in the IoT. Equipment is becoming more digitized and more connected, establishing networks between machines, humans, and the Internet, leading to the creation of new ecosystems that enable greater productivity, efficiency, and higher profitability.”

So as more and more companies enter the SaaS business, how do you leverage the software and application development side of the business by creating something that deliver faster time to market and quality of work? Que DevOps, a new way of looking at the development process. No wait, let´s not even refer to it as a process, because it´s more of a mindset or an evolutionary step away from traditional code writing and integration. The growth in DevOps also correlate with the increased transition to Agile methodologies, as DevOps and Agile go hand in hand. Many organisations struggle with breaking down walls between departments and increase the flow of communication. From a DevOps perspective nothing stands out as more important, to get people talking. So what is DevOps?

Dev-Ops according to ELITS
DevOps is the task merger of the application development and system operations teams, within a company. The approach seeks to combine application development and deployment resulting in a more streamlined performance. The goal, of course is to create a competitive advantage in reducing the time-to Market and better quality software. But what this boils down to is a tighter knit between the resources consuming the infrastructure and those who support it.

Dev-Ops vs. Release Management
It is important to distinguish the differences between DevOps and Release Management. DevOps empowers the development side with insights into the operations, allowing applications to respond to scalability requirements more quickly, and with more flexibility. It provides visibility into the deployment environment and ties together continuous integration, automation and numerous other disciplines. The Release Management differ in the sense that its a defined as a process where the developers “ask-wait-get” and don’t have direct access to the required infrastructure without passing the operations department. DevOps is a mutually beneficial arrangement: knowing what is going on in development benefits operations, and likewise, knowing what´s going on i operations benefits development. This knowledge sharing leads to faster resolve in issues that arise. The different clusters of people are enabled to communicate in a more efficient manner, and more important identify problems when and where they occur. This in turn reduces friction between development and operation of the application. The third part of this is adding the feedback loop from the consumer/customer for product improvements, that in the end will create true customer value. So what is ELITS take on adding value to DevOps? We simply call it ELITS cloud solutions

ELITS cloud solutions for DevOps
With our cloud solutions you receive all the tools you need to truly implement a DevOps mindset into your organisation. The GUI allow users to set up new resources quickly and effectively. You get the tools to deploy virtual machines, and other instances, for managing an enterprise environment by the push of a button. It also makes horisontal scaling easy. This means that tasks that benefit from running simultaneously can easily serve additional or fewer users on the fly, by adapting the structure to the prevailing circumstances. Delivery of new application environments for DevOps which used to take weeks, now takes a few minutes. Implementation of various servers, storage, computing power and services i.e. databases such as MySQL are handled by a few simple clicks. ELITS cloud solutions also allow you to easily implement network topology as well as user management. You can even mix hardware with virtual servers.

One more important key aspect of our cloud solutions is the real time monitoring of your infrastructure, virtual or bare metal. Because it doesn’t matter how effective you are at structuring your environments if you don’t have the possibility to visualise and monitor all performance. A virtual infrastructure, as well a bare metal, is complicated and all parts are interconnected in a complex web which all fulfil their specific function. Network, storage, applications and servers, the challenge lies in creating an overview in all layers. This becomes extremely relevant in the instances when you have to locate an error and preserve business continuity and avoid downtime. If you don’t have the full picture, you don’t have the tools to properly do your job.

These are just some of the benefits and success factors that ELITS cloud solutions allow you to leverage:

• Reduce friction between developers and operation
• Real-time overview of your infrastructure
• Faster time to market
• Cost-Save
• Agile
• Broadens the role of the developer creating business efficiency

To summarise
The overall objective of any company, from a technical innovation point of view, must be to provide an environment that provides the best conditions for developers to do their job and let them improve the software. This means both from a customer perspective, but also from an internal resource management perspective. What does this mean bluntly? It means improving the program code. With ELITS cloud technology we provide the solution and possibility to do just that. It gives the developers the possibility to quickly set up a development environment that exactly fits the needs of the project that they are currently working on, while at the same time keeping costs at a minimum. The data centre also provides an effective platform for instantaneous collaboration between developers and operation, truly leveraging the power of DevOps. Increased understanding of each other’s needs and activities result in a cost efficient deployment of new releases and allows for business continuity without interruptions.

Would you like to be presented with a demo of our cloud solutions? Just give us a call and we would be proud to show you the full extent of the possibilities that comes with it. We at ELITS have ten years experience from global IT-infrastructure and have developed the tools you need to change your IT-operations into something that delivers business efficiency and innovation. Let our knowledge, become your knowledge, and the road forward. Welcome to ELITS – Another kind of IT.

There is only one unremitting truth in business; change is constant. We at ELITS understand change, and we have made it our mission to come to grip with what is needed for our customers to be successful in an ever-changing market situation.

This is what our employees are experts at, our consultants understand that business and IT are just two sides of the same coin and therefore always implement efficient, flexible and innovative solutions. ELITS´ success lies within the fact that we, as a team together with our clients, dare to push the envelope and come up with inspiring, useful and business oriented solutions.

To recognise those people at ELITS who goes the extra mile we have established the Employee of the Year award. The recipient of this award is selected on the following criterias:

Essential criteria
All nominees share a sense of pride over our culture and live act in accordance with our values in their daily work. They confirm the importance of commitment, cooperation, motivation and creativity.

Other criteria
Inspire others to work collaboratively and creatively
A consistent spirit of teamwork and cooperation
Promote a work environment that is respectful, collegial and supportive
Contribute and inspire others to create a positive culture within the group and ELITS
Congratulations to the winners of Employee of the Year 2015!

Europe:
Hampus Prahl
Hampus Prahl is acting both as a Service Operations Manager and Service Architect for virtualization services. It doesn´t matter if you ask people in the customer organisation or within ELITS, everyone has something good to say about Hampus. Besides being a true professional, delivering high quality in his work, Hampus always bring enthusiasm and a positive mind-set in every situation. Hampus is a true ELITS-ambassador.

China:
Alex Song
Alex has always showed commitment towards ELITS and the customer. He is always friendly, easy-going, nice to everyone and always help new colleagues blend into the team. He is also very competent and professional in his line of work, but at the same time he is open minded and flexible when it comes to new ideas, new situations and handling difficult challenges. We are very honored to have Alex in the team as a genuine ELITS-ambassador.

North America:
Jacques Emery
With his focus on customer satisfaction and being able to accomplish great things as the ELITS-ambassador in Ottawa, we are truly proud to have Jacques as part of the ELITS family for the past 4 year. He truly is a role model to us all and can’t wait to see what ELITS can accomplish in the future with Jacques help!

Vår omvärld blir mer och mer komplex och uppkopplad. Uppskattningar säger att 28 miljarder enskilda ting kommer att vara anslutna till internet år 2020. Då är det inte långsökt att säga att fler och fler företag kommer att behöva addera applikationsutveckling och datalagring i sin affärsstrategi.

Den globala industrisektorn är tvungen att genomgå en fundamental strukturell förändring liknande den industriella revolutionen när “Internet of Things” gör stor entré. Allting runt omkring oss blir mer och mer digitaliserat och uppkopplat, vilket etablerar nätverk mellan maskiner, människor och internet Detta skifte skapar helt nya ekosystem med utrymme för högre produktivitet och lönsamhet.

Då denna utveckling rusar framåt så ställs många företag inför IT-utmaningar som de aldrig har stött på tidigare. Med konsumentkrav på tillgänglighet och säkerhet så blir det avgörande av hitta en IT-struktur där effektivitet, affärsnytta och innovation går hand i hand.

Frukosten riktar sig till dig som är affärsorienterad IT-chef, teknikintresserad marknadschef eller varför inte en tillväxtfokuserad VD. Antalet platser är begränsat så anmäl dig snarast till seminariet som är kostnadsfritt.

We at ELITS are very proud to announce that our co-worker Luciano Patrao recently got featured in the Veeam Community Forum, regarding his excellent blog post on Linux private/public key

Again great job Luciano! You and your colleagues at ELITS are experts on IT-Infrastructure and operations. With ten years of experience in global IT-operations ELITS have constructed a unique delivery model for maximising customer value and quality of service combined with a competitive pricing. If you require consultants with sophisticated expertise and know-how to change and further grow your IT-operations, let us do it together. Let out knowledge become your knowledge, and the way forward.

Welcome to ELITS.

WWF’s Earth Hour är en global rörelse för positiv förändring för miljön. Det handlar inte längra bara om att släcka ljuset under en timme, en gång om året. Tillsammans kan vi göra mycket mer. Vi ser Earth Hour som en möjlighet att förenas och kommunicera budskapet om vår möjlighet att påverka som företag och privatpersoner. Vi ser Earth Hour som ett startskott där vi tänder vårt engagemang på nytt inför det kommande året.

Vad vi gör
Under Earth Hour, 19 Mars (20.30–21.30) kommer vi: Uppmuntra alla medarbetare och kunder att delta i Earth Hour och ta det extra klivet och inte bara släcka ljuset under en timme. Vi uppmuntrar till enkla åtgärder som gynnar planeten.

Vi uppmuntrar våra medarbetare och kunder att delta i Earth Hour genom att släcka och prova nya klimatsmarta handlingar i vardagen, både på jobbet och hemma. Vi uppmuntrar också till att man ska visa sitt stöd för Earth Hour genom att släcka ljuset på sina personliga profiler i Sociala Medier och på vårt Intranät. Helt enkelt ta en bild av sig själv i mörkret och ladda upp som en profilbild. Sedan berätta om det för sina vänner och kollegor och hjälpa till att sprida ordet.

/Olle Hasselblad, VD för ELITS.

Eventet 600Minutes Executive IT är ett årligt tvärindustriellt arrangemang för beslutsfattare inom IT-funktionen på Sveriges största företag. Arrangören Management Events beräknar att drygt 200 beslutsfattare inom IT kommer att besöka eventet, som består av möten, runda-bordssamtal och intressanta föredrag.

ELITS är på plats för att tala om de trender som utmanar och förändrar IT-chefens roll i alla verksamheter – utmaningar inom outsourcing och fördelar med out-tasking. På 600Minutes Executive IT representeras ELITS av Olle Hasselblad, vd, Jim Johansson, Försäljningschef.

Läs mer här.