FlashAtlas® Overview

FlashAtlas, developed by Flashmap Systems, Inc., is a product-centric technology portfolio manager used to establish, communicate and enforce IT standards, architectures and strategies.

CIOs are currently under immense pressure to reduce spending. According to the META Group, establishing an effective technology portfolio strategy can produce estimated savings of 15 – 25% off the total IT budget. FlashAtlas contributes to these spending cuts by helping IT identify and eliminate redundancy and fragmentation. By winnowing out underutilitized products and consolidating redundant tools that offer overlapping functionality, IT not only eliminates unnecessary license and maintenance fees, but can slash support staff costs as well. To realize these savings, IT must first significantly improve the way it communicates enterprise standards and architectures.

IT is huge. IT is complex. The pace of technological change is staggeringly high. Making matters worse is the unprecedented increase in the rate of corporate mergers and acquisitions. The typical 21st century IT organization has inherited an enormously complex collection of applications and products. Most IT shops struggle when it comes to controlling and coordinating internal product usage or managing applications from a lifecycle perspective — both areas where FlashAtlas excels.

In this environment a Chief Information Officer (CIO), charged with managing their organization’s mission critical systems, needs knowledge of what products and applications are in use, by whom, and why. Regardless of whether systems are developed in-house, by a 3rd party, or purchased as a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) package, it’s the CIO’s job to oversee the installation, customization, operation, and maintenance of all IT investments.

To support and enable an effective CIO, Enterprise architects responsible for IT standards and governance need roadmaps to show people where IT's at and where IT's going. FlashAtlas provides both the knowledge base and information dissemination capability needed to effectively manage an enterprise’s IT infrastructure and applications portfolio.

FlashAtlas helps IT deliver the right information to the right person at the right time.

FlashAtlas is fast, secure, flexible, extensible, and role-based — different information can be tailored to different users depending on their business unit, geographic location, job function, computer platform, etc. FlashAtlas is easy-to-learn and easy-to-use — its navigational interface is natural and intuitive. FlashAtlas combines a tool and a taxonomy. It comes bundled with graphical images paired with tree-structured product category classification hierarchies. These infographic taxonomies are visually depicted on Roadmap wall posters.