Can the real-time enterprise be efficient?

The Xpragmatic View #149
August 9, 2010
by Marc Buyens (@mbuyens), Xpragma
marc.buyens@xpragma.com
url: http://www.xpragma.com/view149.php
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We are living times with a growing focus on NOW. Increasingly, we have access to information anywhere, anytime and increasingly, our interaction behaviour asks for anywhere, anytime, now. That is evolution. However, is it also progress?

Years ago, we worked for Tandem Computers. Tandem was a provider of fault-tolerant computer systems, specifically designed for online transaction processing. TPS (transactions per second) were our key metric. IBM was our main competitor.

And then, IBM introduced MQSeries. MQSeries was message queuing software that allowed that transactions involving multiple applications or systems were completed in an asynchronous way. If one of the participating applications or systems was not available, the update for that application o system was secured in a message queue, which allowed the transaction to complete anyway. Once that application/system became available again, the update was processed and everything was again in sync.

For us at Tandem, it didn't make much sense. What's the point of doing things asynchronously when you can do them immediately, in real-time? Of course, when you're not that good at transaction processing, perhaps you have to do the things a bit more slowly. Isn't it, IBM?

But we were wrong. In many real-life situations, doing things asynchronously is often the better approach.

First, it removes the need that all systems are available and ready to process the transaction when it arrives. But, perhaps more important, it avoids dependencies. With asynchronous processing, every system can be managed as a stand-alone system. Maintenance can be scheduled whenever you want, without the need to check with the other systems whether it is convenient for them...

In the real world, asynchronous processing is often the only approach that works and the more complex the network of systems becomes, the more the need for asynchronous processing increases.

Therefore, also in business, asynchronous is very present. An example of this are the documents that are dropped in your inbox, so that you will take care of them later on. And of course, e-mail is the prime example of an asynchronous system. You send a message and it will be read. Eventually. Perhaps.

Whatever the inconveniences, asynchronous processing has one major advantage: it allows you to stay in control. YOU decide when and what you will read, process or respond to and not some nitwit who decides that now is the moment to initiate interaction.

But now we are building the real-time enterprise.

An increasing part of our toolbox is filled with real-time information and communication systems. Status updates, activity streams, RSS feeds... From a technical point of view, most of the technology behind is asynchronous, but our perception of these solutions is real-time. Now is the new mantra.

And indeed, to really grasp the full potential of some of these tools, "now" is indeed a must.

In our daily life, we work most of the time at customer premises. Often, Web 2.0 tools are not available or restricted and anyway, we prefer not using them to keep a clear line between what we do for the customer and our own stuff.

So, the feeds, the flows and the streams are essentially a thing for the evening or the weekend, when we get bombarded with hundreds of status updates, tweets, links...

Unfortunately, it makes little sense reacting to some of them. The moment has passed. The spike of conversation is already gone. The person who wrote the message lives perhaps in another time zone and is long since off-line. The NOW-moment is gone.

That is unfortunate. So, when we work in our home office, we have a TweetDeck column open on our desktop and we see (and hear) the flow coming in and sometimes, we hook in and join the conversation.

Some of the people we are following seem to be doing this all day. Looking at the number of links they post, they must be reading stuff all day. Even if this stuff is directly related to their job, don't they have to some "real" work?

Even in our home office, when we have to do some serious work, the TweetDeck column is closed. It is too distracting. It does not allow us to work efficiently. How do they manage?

So, comes the question: can the real-time enterprise really be efficient? Does the advantage of the immediate access to the latest information, the last question, the better conversation, the immediate response... outweigh the apparent information overload, the decreased productivity, the wasted time?

What do you think?

About Marc Buyens

Marc Buyens is analyst, management consultant and owner of Xpragma. He started Xpragma in 1999 after a 20+ years career in the IT sector. Today, he provides advice, training and mentoring services focusing on the intersection of technological evolution, organisational change and business strategy: a messy world of unfulfilled promises.

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