Rex Black

In a previous Knowledge Center article, I talked a lot about how to build quality applications, ones that work together using various techniques and processes. Another key to quality applications is the quality of the teams involved in creating and maintaining them. One tool for increasing the quality of teams is through the training of […]

How the mighty have fallen. Starting in the 1980s, Japanese companies became legendary for quality-and none more legendary than Toyota. But earlier this year, Toyota led the news due to quality problems. The situation was so severe that Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda personally appeared at a Congressional hearing, during which he said, “We know that […]

In one of my previous Knowledge Center articles, I discussed how to build quality applications by integrating multiple quality assurance activities into your process. This is important, but most of us don’t have the luxury of thinking about only one application. In today’s data center, it’s not enough to know that each application works properly […]

In some of my previous Knowledge Center articles, I’ve talked about testing as a means to build confidence in the quality of your data center’s applications. It’s good to have confidence before you turn an application loose on users, but why wait until the end of the project? The most efficient form of quality assurance […]

In the last decade, outsourcing became a powerful force in the software industry. Motivations behind outsourcing vary, but the reason mentioned most is that of cost savings. Unfortunately, all too often, previous attempts at outsourcing failed to deliver the desired efficiencies or perhaps failed to deliver anything at all. So, is outsourcing some siren on […]

In my previous Knowledge Center articles, I’ve talked about quality in the data center and how to set quality goals. I’ve mentioned that testing is important to achieving quality. As with any other activity, a major element of doing testing well is using the right people. The right test team can sometimes mean the difference […]

We’re all fascinated by Web 2.0 now, but remember Web 1.0, the dot-com boom that became dot-bomb? One major reason for the crash was poor software and systems quality-both for the Websites themselves and the hardware and software behind them. While Web 2.0 has a lot more speed and sizzle than Web 1.0 ever did, […]

Proper quality assurance (QA) of a data center is not a trivial matter. We need to ensure that our data centers are fit for the purposes to which we and our users put them. The first step in assuring quality in your organization’s data center is to make sure you understand what “fit for the […]