- Industry: Consulting
- Number of terms: 1807
- Number of blossaries: 2
- Company Profile:
Gartner delivers technology research to global technology business leaders to make informed decisions on key initiatives.
Asset performance management (APM) encompasses the capabilities of data capture, integration, visualization and analytics tied together for the explicit purpose of improving the reliability and availability of physical assets. APM includes the concepts of condition monitoring, predictive forecasting and reliability-centered maintenance (RCM).
Industry:Technology
Assemble-to-order strategy allows a product or service to be made to specific order, where a large number of products can be assembled in various forms from common components. This requires sophisticated planning processes to anticipate changing demand for internal components or accessories while focusing on mass customization of the final products to individual customers.
Industry:Technology
A wide-ranging discipline of computer science that at its core seeks to make computers behave more like humans. The term was coined by John McCarthy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1956. Artificial intelligence (AI) attempts to resolve problems by “reasoning,” similar to the process used by the human mind. AI involves the capability of a machine to learn (to remember results produced on a previous trial and to modify the operation accordingly in subsequent trials) or to reason (to analyze the results produced in similar operations and select the most favorable outcome). Today, applications of artificial intelligence include voice recognition, robotics, neural networks and expert systems (i.e., systems that can make decisions an expert would otherwise have to make to, for example, forecast financial performance, or diagnose illnesses).
Industry:Technology
Architecture is defined as:
In reference to computers, software or networks, the overall design of a computing system and the logical and physical interrelationships between its components. The architecture specifies the hardware, software, access methods and protocols used throughout the system.
A framework and set of guidelines to build new systems. IT architecture is a series of principles, guidelines or rules used by an enterprise to direct the process of acquiring, building, modifying and interfacing IT resources throughout the enterprise. These resources can include equipment, software, communications, development methodologies, modeling tools and organizational structures.
Industry:Technology
AMD is the most sophisticated end of the SOA modeling spectrum. It focuses on quality, performance and reuse. It comes in two “flavors”: AMD composition and AMD development. AMD composition presumes that the needed services exist and can be “assembled” into an application (business service), possibly with a new user interface (generally portal-based, using Web services). Organizations can generally use AMD composition models to generate the specifications for use by workflow orchestration technologies in the runtime environment.
AMD development assumes that new organizations need to develop software services prior to composition. AMD development tools can reuse the same business models developed by those doing AMD composition. But, generally, IT personnel refine these into more detailed models to generate as much of the code as possible ― 70% to 100% ― depending on the service type. AMD also includes the set of methods that promote “executable” models (that is, where there is no explicit transformation to implementation).
Industry:Technology
Architected rapid application development (ARAD) has developed from object-oriented analysis and design tools, and incorporates analysis and design patterns and frameworks. Typically, organizations can generate 50% to 70% of source artifacts from the patterns, frameworks and (optional) models. Increasingly, organizations are blending traditional iterative methods used with ARAD with agile principles and practices to create a hybrid approach.
Industry:Technology
An application-specific standard product (ASSP) is an integrated circuit (IC) dedicated to a specific application market and sold to more than one user. A type of embedded programmable logic, ASSPs combine digital, mixed-signal and analog products. When sold to a single user, Gartner defines such ICs as “application-specific integrated circuits”
Industry:Technology
An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) is a chip on which the pattern of connections has been set up exclusively for a specific function.
Industry:Technology
Applications portfolio analysis (APA) is a tool to divide current and proposed applications into three categories — utility, enhancement and frontier — based on the degree to which they contribute to the enterprise’s performance. The utility category is essential but does not enhance the enterprise’s performance (e.g., payroll); the enhancement category contains applications that improve the enterprise’s performance based on the use of established technology (e.g., documentation automation); and the frontier category is aimed at greatly improving enterprise performance (e.g., through aggressive use of rule-based decision support) but usually entails substantial risk. The management issues for each category are, respectively, cost, opportunity identification and innovation. The planning process should consider the best balance among the three categories to gain optimal future performance and the appropriate value from the application of IT.
Industry:Technology
Applications outsourcing is an outsourcing arrangement for a wide variety of application services including new development, legacy systems maintenance, offshore programming, management of packaged applications and staff augmentation. While this form of outsourcing generally involves a transfer of staff, the use of the term has recently broadened to include arrangements where this is not the case, as in staff augmentation. It does not include system integration activities.
Industry:Technology
