What is an Enterprise?

Lately, I have been part of an ongoing debate about what exactly constitutes an enterprise, so I thought I would pop over to my Google and settle this conversation quickly… Imagine my surprise when I could find no clear definition. That is not to say that I found no definitions; rather, I found many - most of which do not match each other.

Below are a couple examples of what I found searching the Internet:

“1) An enterprise server is a computer containing programs that collectively serve the needs of an enterprise rather than a single user, department, or specialized application. Historically, mainframe -sized computers have been enterprise servers although they were not referred to as server s until recently.  As smaller, usually UNIX -based servers and Wintel computers have become faster and have been provided with enterprise-wide program management capabilities, they have also  been referred to as enterprise servers.  In this usage, an enterprise server is both the computer hardware and its main software, the operating system.  Examples are Sun Microsystems' computers with their UNIX -based Solaris or Linux systems, Hewlett-Packard (HP) systems, the upper end of Windows 2000 systems, and IBM's iSeries systems (the largest of which is the zSeries 900 -formerly called the S/390 ).

2) Some companies use enterprise server to describe a ‘superprogram’ that runs under the operating system in a computer and provides services for the system administrator and for the business application programs and more specialized server s that run in the computer.  Before this usage originated, such services were sometimes considered part of the operating system itself or came in separate software packages.  Originally, many services provided by an enterprise server tended to be available only on IBM or similar mainframe computers, while less powerful computers ran specialized applications.  As these smaller "server" computers (such as those from Sun Microsystems and HP) became better adapted for business (and recently Internet) applications, the bundle of services required to manage a company-wide set of applications was renamed ‘the enterprise server.’  More specialized servers include the Web server, firewall server, database server, and so forth.”

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/enterprise-server

“Definition - What does Enterprise Computing mean?

Enterprise computing is a buzzword that refers to business-oriented information technology that is critical to a company’s operations.  Enterprise computing encompasses all the various types of enterprise software, including database management, relationship management and so on. Enterprise computing is usually seen as a collection of big business software solutions to common problems such as resource management and streamlining processes.

Techopedia explains Enterprise Computing

Enterprise computing is sometimes sold to business users as an entire platform that can be applied broadly across an organization and then further customized by users within each area. This means the analytics, reporting, database management and other applications are standard across the system, while the application packages being used and the data being accessed in each area will be different.  In this sense, enterprise computing is a departure from finding single software solutions to specific business problems, such as inventory or accounting software. Instead, enterprise computing is intended to offer integrated solutions to these problems.”

http://www.techopedia.com/definition/27854/enterprise-computing

In looking at these various definitions, it becomes apparent that enterprise can be defined in multiple ways, either as a server providing an enterprise service or as a suite of management tools (software) to manage the aforementioned servers.  So, which is it?  One or the other, both or neither?

I believe an enterprise to be a set of systems that work together to provide services to the entire organization.  I also believe that to be considered “Enterprise Level,” some sort of centralized management and monitoring needs to be incorporated into the structure.

That’s a pretty plain and simple definition; however, it also highlights a problem that we have in our industry – namely, the lack of consistent terminology.   Remember “The Cloud”?  Ask any vendor what the cloud is, and you will get a different answer from each one.  Ask a Windows admin and a Unix/Linux admin the definition of enterprise, and watch the arguments ensue.  I was told by a vendor that another vendor’s storage solution was not “Enterprise” class storage… Well, go ahead and define that for me.   Each system was designed to be highly available and redundant, so what makes one “Enterprise” and another not?  Stay tuned for continued Enterprise theme on my next blog post.