By Peter Krass

Gaining a 360-degree view is the theme of this, our fourth issue of Smart Enterprise. Our cover story package, written by veteran reporter Larry Lange, shows how IT leaders at oil-pipeline operator Enbridge, Florida's Pinellas County and systems integrator Satyam Computer Services are working to achieve a 360-degree view of their businesses — and the benefits they're already enjoying. A companion article, penned by business and technology writer Alan Joch, explores the four leading solutions — incident and problem management, change and configuration management, IT asset and financial management, and dynamic and virtual systems management—that can help CIOs move closer to this 360-degree view today.

Our case study focuses on CIBER Inc., a $1 billion (revenue) international system integration consultancy. Long-time reporter John W. Verity shows how and why Matthew Calhoun, Chief Technology Officer of the company's IT outsourcing division, has turned to configuration management database (CMDB) technology—a keystone of the 360-degree view—to simplify the company's growing IT complexity and lower its IT costs.

Smart Enterprise also explores the resurgence of the mainframe, best practices for "green" data centers, why CIOs should care about the latest release of the IT Infrastructure Library®, and the best continuing-education courses available today. Overall, Smart Enterprise, published by CMP Technology in conjunction with CA, aims to be true north for CIOs. How accurate are our directions? Let us know.

Peter Krass
Editor in Chief
editor@smartenterprisemag.com