As IT professionals, we build solutions to resolve business problems. To create a solution, we then have to choose the right technology. How to choose the right technology? Let's discuss this topic today.
Social Responsibility
You may feel surprised that this topic comes first. Have you consider the bigger picture of how technology changes people's life and the society. Vivek Wadhwa brings this subject to my attention with his Choosing the Right Technology [3] class at Lynda.com. This is a good topic. We know everything has it's bright and dark side. The same applies to the technology. Analyzing the impacts and being aware of implications is a good habit while we introduce a new technology.
You may feel surprised that this topic comes first. Have you consider the bigger picture of how technology changes people's life and the society. Vivek Wadhwa brings this subject to my attention with his Choosing the Right Technology [3] class at Lynda.com. This is a good topic. We know everything has it's bright and dark side. The same applies to the technology. Analyzing the impacts and being aware of implications is a good habit while we introduce a new technology.
Set Criteria for Your Selection
Setting criteria for the selection help us make unbiased decisions. The criteria should be a list of the fundamental aspects or qualities that your solution must provide. [1] In general, you would consider the followings:
Setting criteria for the selection help us make unbiased decisions. The criteria should be a list of the fundamental aspects or qualities that your solution must provide. [1] In general, you would consider the followings:
- Functionality: you have to understand the problem well and choose the relevant technology. For example, the unauthorized user attached your server, only install a new firewall will not address the issue. [2]
- Security: Any incident could cause a significant loss. You don't want to risk your career on build any insecure solution.
- Performance: solution always has some performance implication. For example, If you need to create a real-time reporting with a high volume of data updates, you would use data replication rather than query-based data loading.
- Manageability: No matter how good technology is, if you can't manage it, you can't use it.
- Support capability: if the technology has few people using it and there is no good support, you will waste a lot of time debugging issues.
Synergy between Technology
We normally have to use multiple technologies to resolve a problem. It's important that all of the technologies have the synergy: all of them has to be compliant to each other, work together and be well behaved.
We normally have to use multiple technologies to resolve a problem. It's important that all of the technologies have the synergy: all of them has to be compliant to each other, work together and be well behaved.
Resources
- Wes Dean, Six Tips to Assist in Choosing the Right Technology for Your Business
- IT Security Fundamentals, lynda.com
- Choose the Right Technology, lynda.com