This is the final installment of a three-part Executive Update series concerning key issues involving the infrastructure as a service (IaaS) model of cloud computing.

What we need is a description of hacking that omits the good/bad distinction because, as this Executive Update points out, exactly the same activities can be positive or negative. This Update provides a judgment-neutral guide to hacking to help you understand what hacking is about and how to facilitate its use (for good) and prevent its misuse.

The data lake is an evolutionary development of the increasing need to process unstructured data and huge stores of structured and semistructured feeds from machine processes and automation. It needs to be integrated with existing database and data warehousing solutions, whose processing and output is essential to analytics tasks. At the same time, the data lake needs to conform to the structural and security requirements of the firm.

If you want to get the most for your organizational improvement money, spend it on your champions. Find those who already believe; those who want the change. Rather than spend energy, money, and resources on the naysayers who would rather celebrate your failure, focus on the champions. Put your energy, money, and resources behind those who not only say "yes" but "heck yes!" to the change.

Architecture, to be complete, needs to be able to pan and zoom in and out across the space occupied by the enterprise. That is the focus for this Executive Update.

This Executive Update provides insight into how some organizations approach “creatively destructing” existing teams and creating Agile’s The Team to make it a success; how to construct The Team in terms of deciding how many developers and QA team members to have on it; how to approach quality; and who should be testing what on The Team.

As we explore in this Executive Update, various standards organizations are working to establish common frameworks, platforms, and protocols intended to ensure widespread interoperability and connectivity among IoT products targeted at various domains, such as smart homes, connected cars, smart grid/energy, industrial systems, smart cities, and healthcare.

This is the second in a series of three Executive Updates concerning key issues involving the infrastructure as a service (IaaS)1 model of cloud computing. Part I dealt with key contract issues associated with the purchase of IaaS offerings. Here in Part II, we discuss important intellectual property (IP) issues (trade secrets, copyright, and trademarks) that arise for businesses using IaaS.

As automation increases, growing amounts of personal, social, and professional information are becoming available from social media networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook, which are now being drawn into a mechanical process. The amount of data available is prodigious, and online media continues to expand the reach of recruitment and the availability of candidate information.

This Executive Update looks at the vital factor of time in EA planning to demonstrate how an awareness of perceptions of time can improve EA development and discusses ways to recognize the most effective ways to make use of time.

It's not that the workers don't want to do the task. It's not that they lack effort. It may simply be that they are not competent in the skills required to get the job done. In this Executive Update, we explore proactive ways management can deal with incompetence.

As big data and analytics move into more diverse applications, across different usage types and different industries, it becomes increasingly important to categorize the analytic processes themselves. The progress of digital business means that processes applied in one realm are easily transferred to another -- provided that the operational similarities can be uncovered. This demands a more inclusive taxonomy, as we explore in this Executive Update.

That fresh start may be why BPMSs are a popular corporate enterprise-wide construct to rectify the inadequacies of existing systems and refactor them into the way people really want to do the work. As we discuss in this <i>Executive Update</i>, clouds serve to expedite the process and, at a high level, can appear to deliver the CTO's dreams more quickly. In reality, however, there is a level of complexity to cloud projects that's different from non-cloud projects.

In the most successful contracts, the contract management is designed  first -- what will be managed, by whom, how often, and so on, with a budget. Then the contract is designed to enable the contract managers to be able to manage. The contract management representative works hand in hand with legal in the drafting, with  procurement in the evaluation, and with the negotiators in finalizing arrangements. Any changes during this process have a corresponding contract management change (and budget effect).

In this Update, we explore an important aspect of architecture: its ability to stretch the imagination into the future, into possibilities that promise much. The word "sparkitecture" seems so appropriate in this context. It is compelling as an abstract frame -- a scaffolding to stand on to undim this important window into architecture.

There is a lot of confusion among practitioners about what "digital" really means. Does it refer to a set of technologies (i.e., social, mobile, big data/analytics, the cloud, the Internet of Things), or is there more to it? To give digital a more precise focus, we have coined the term "ExConomy." It defines what digital entails from a business-value point of view and pinpoints why it deserves consideration in executive committees.

This Executive Update reviews key legal issues that businesses face when reviewing and negotiating contracts for IaaS. It discusses key requirements related to the service itself, remedies if the service fails in one or more of these requirements, and ways to ensure that if a "provider divorce" is necessary, it can be conducted with minimal mess and expense.

As Agile methodologies become increasingly embedded in corporate software development, it becomes necessary to look more closely at how they are integrated into the environment. 

The world of civic apps is much like any other corporate philanthropic effort, but when there's corporate involvement (perhaps involving some of your corporation's specific skills), the efforts can help highlight your capabilities and can provide new opportunities for developing corporate expertise and resources.

This Executive Update explores a structured and integrated approach to EA governance, one that has clear alignment to business and IT objectives and is integrated effectively with existing processes, helping your organization achieve its business and IT objectives.

How can we resolve the polarity in organizations between the need for learning versus the need for producing results? How can we foster a culture that allows taking the time to learn and try different approaches despite the ever-present focus on results? This Executive Update explores learning by doing from different angles and attempts to shine a light on various ways that teams and organizations can speed up their learning curve by consciously taking action and learning from the results.

How do we get value out of the money we earmark for training? How can we get what we paid for? In most purchase situations, we can see what we're getting; we can touch the computer, phone, or car we bought. We can compare product or service reviews to decide which to buy. We can read a list of specifications to determine what we're getting for our money. Yet when it comes to training, the best we have is a list of objectives....

This Executive Update offers an overview of the Sherwood Applied Business Security Architecture (SABSA) — a free-use, open source security architecture framework that is particularly useful for enterprise architects.

This Executive Update provides an understanding of the concepts behind fork and pull and its possible applications for internal and external software development projects, as well as its potential for other applications.

Architecture is becoming more visible. It is necessary to create a solution that is capable of high-speed change and linked to analytics and the increasing stream of infrastructure data that has become available from the Internet of Things. The possibilities with this new architecture are immense.