Thomas Otter

I’ve been trying to get to grips with in-memory databases. Seems the bard beat me to it.

(image via wikipedia, thanks)
Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brainFull charactered with lasting memory,Which shall above that idle rank remain,Beyond all date, even to eternity:Or, at the least, so long as brain and heartHave faculty by nature to [...]

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I’d been meaning to write this for a while, but Jason’s post prompted me to stop surfing the interwebs and jot it down.
Data has three sources.
1. It is interfaced or integrated in from somewhere else.
2. It is derived from other data. For example net pay is derived from gross pay via some sort of [...]

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(photo via cc attribution licence. ms4jah thanks.
Most of my working career encouraged me to chant the mantra, “we are integrated.”  I have spent the last year or so thinking about integration in a more objective light. Integration for me has undergone a de-reification process.
I was doing a presentation about HR technology recently, and I [...]

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I’ve tried this metaphor on several client calls recently, so let me inflict it on you too.
Cactus

via Flickr, the cc licence of Rodolfo Cartas thanks.
In this architecture, everything is from one vendor, and integration with third party applications is rather difficult. Typical ERP /HRMS pitch of the mid-nineties. Why do you need other [...]

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Lego is used a lot as a metaphor in the software industry, and I’m not sure that it is a particularly good metaphor. I my distant past I blogged about this here.
I came across the story of James May’s Lego house this evening. James May is one of the fellows on Top Gear, and he [...]

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