subject: BE Projects - How to choose a Project Idea [print this page] BE Projects - How to choose a Project Idea
While visiting various campuses we have kept talking about how students should follow the top technology trends in the Industry, identify the direction IT is heading and prepare for the changes in the Industry. Given that this is now BE Project identification season across colleges i thought it would be a good time to talk about the hottest trends in technology. Keep in mind that some of these areas could make for a very doable and interesting college project, others are typically out of reach, just because it might too much hardware and expertise that most of us would not have at this point. All the same it is a good idea for you to be aware of the trends. The list below is based on the Gartner report for 2008.
GreenIT: The focus of Green IT is expected to have a significant impact on the way we use and plan for IT computing technology. The fundamental focus is the study and practice of using computing resources more efficiently. Power reduction and simplification of IT infrastructure form the core of any solution to address this. Other key aspects of a green IT solution would cover aspects like disposal of electronic waste, telecommuting, virtualization of server resources, conserving energy use, thin client solutions.
Unified Communications: It is estimated that almost 20% of all enterprises have migrated to IP telephony and expect that in the next 3 years a majority of all enterprises will depend on IP based telephony infrastructure and in addition focus on integration of all the current communication infrastructure with an IP based backbone. What can you expect ? More and more devices that are currently used for communication like the traditional land phones and PBX systems will either get replaced by IP based phones and digital systems or get replaced by alternate mechanisms like Desktop Communicators which will get more mainstream for all voice communication.
Business Process Modeling: Business process modelling is the process of representing both the current business processes and the future business processes to be. For example in a typical insurance company, to handle a claim, an insurance claims process, taking as input a scanned image of a paper claims form, would pass the form electronically from the mailbox (or worklist) of one claims specialist to that of another, mimicking the traditional movement of interoffice mail from desk to desk. This would a set of business processes that need to be followed.
Metadata Management: Metadata management is a critical part of an organizations information management. Metadata is the description of the data itself. For example Metadata for a word document could be the author information, description of the document and content category. As the volume of data keeps growing across the world the need for effective Metadata for the data itself is becoming critical for effective data management. Retrieving the data in a more effective way, finding related data are all aspects that Metadata critically impacts. The key focus areas in terms of Metadata management is around , abstraction and semantic reconciliation of metadata to support reuse, consistency, integrity and share ability.
Virtualization 2.0: Virtualization ins the process where an existing single hardware can be converted multiple virtual machines, each running their own OS and applications effectively able to optimize on hardware resources. Virtualization technologies as a process can improve IT resource utilization and increase the flexibility needed to adapt to changing requirements and workloads. The focus of virtualization going forward is based on automation technologies with service-level, policy-based active management resource efficiency can improve dramatically, flexibility can become automatic based on requirements, and services can be managed holistically, ensuring high levels of resiliency.
Mashup & Composite Apps: Web mashup combines data from more than one source into a single tool, the data could be integrated from multiple web applications like Google Maps, Web Feeds, or other APIs from providers like Google, Microsoft, YouTube and other such providers. The Mashup site itself should provide a different service using the different data sources that have been used to build the mashup.
Web Platform, Software as a Service, SOA: Software as a service (SaaS) is becoming one of the top models for architecting and delivering services in which applications are hosted by a vendor or service provider and made available to customers over a network, typically the Internet. SaaS is becoming an increasingly prevalent delivery model as underlying technologies that support Web services and service-oriented architecture (SOA).
Social Software: With the overall growth of social networking applications has brought the social web to the center of attention across the world wide web. The next wave of social network adoption is expected to be drive by integration of these social networks into other commercial applications and building more "social network aware" applications.
Two other areas that are being talked about are Computing Fabric and the Real World Web. We will possibly talk about this in a future post. Check out BE Projects, MCA Projects - Peepaal Campus for BE Projects, MCA projects and ideas around top technology trends.
Do let me know your thoughts and comments on these technology trends, post your comments against this blog. I would also be keen to know if any bright ideas that spring to your mind in each of these areas.
