Bespoke Infrastructures

Infrastructure developed within an organization for its own internal use can take many forms. The obvious reason for creating a bespoke solution is that it can be tailored to fit an organization´s unique needs, which offers many advantages: better performance, increased flexibility, and tactical or strategic advantages over the competition. However, such solutions are associated with a steep learning curve for newcomers, maintenance and support costs, and the risk of hijacking by groups with vested interests. Given that investment in bespoke infrastructures is a sunk cost and that these polarize the types of employees that stay in the organization, rational approaches for building an organization´s infrastructure include customizing a general-purpose solution or adopting an open source tool and improving it to address the organization´s requirements. The Web extra at http://youtu.be/n4TrVaA2VF8 is an audio podcast of author Diomidis Spinellis reading his Tools of the Trade column, in which he discusses rational approaches for building an organization´s infrastructure, including customizing a general-purpose solution or adopting an open source tool and improving it to address the organization´s requirements.