Monthly Archives: May 2013

CIO, cloud brokerage, Cloud computing, Featured, Rogue IT

Cloud Computing and the Changing Role of IT

By John Dixon, Consulting Architect, LogicsOne

On Tuesday April 29th, I participated in another tweetchat hosted by Cloud Commons. As usual, it was an hour of rapid fire conversation and discussion amongst some really smart people. This time, the topic was based around “cloud computing and the changing role of IT,” and there were some great takeaways from the dialogue.  Below are the six questions that were asked during the chat as well as a quick summary of my thoughts and the thoughts of the group as a whole.

  1. How is cloud computing changing the role of IT?
  2. Besides cloud, what other trends are influential in changing the role of IT?
  3. What steps should the IT department take to become a trusted advisor to the business?
  4. How should the IT department engage with the business on cloud purchases?
  5. Should the IT department make reining in rogue cloud services a top priority?
  6. How can the CIO promote innovation in the era of lower IT spending?

 

Question 1: How is cloud computing changing the role of IT?

  • The main point I wanted to get across in question one was that corporate IT is no longer just a provider of technology, but, rather, they are a provider of IT services.
  • IT needs to be relevant to the business. They can do this by developing valuable service products
  • IT now needs to be extremely proactive. No more sitting around waiting for something to go wrong… instead get out in front of demands from the business – understand the business’s specific issues, and proactively evaluate emerging technology that may be of benefit
  • All in all, I’d say most of the group was on the same page for this answer

 

Question 2: Besides cloud, what other trends are influential in changing the role of IT?

  • The most popular answers from participants were: big data, analytics, virtualization, mobility, BYOD, and DevOps. It seemed like every answer had at least one of these included in it.
  • A couple others I threw out were distributed workforce and telecommuters, social media, and the overall increased reliance on IT for everything

 

Question 3: What steps should the IT department take to become a trusted advisor to the business?

  • The key here is that IT should not try to ALIGN to the business’s demands…IT should PARTNER with the business
  • Another point I brought up was that IT needs to show the business that IT is another provider in a competitive market – corporate IT needs to shows that they deliver more value than alternative providers. After giving this answer, I got a couple questions wondering why IT should compete with 3rd parties rather than leverage them? My point was that cloud opens up competition in the market for IT services and that the business now has a choice of where and how to procure services. At this point it’s a reality, corporate IT is just another competitor in a cloud world.
  • A great answer from Jackie Kahle (@jackiekahle) was to tell the business something they don’t know about their customers by providing data-driven insights. In her opinion, and I agree, this will encourage the business to turn to cororate IT more often.
  • Another good answer from George Hulme (@georgevhulme) was to give users and the business viable alternatives with clear risk/reward/benefits delineated.

 

Question 4: How should the IT department engage with the business on cloud purchases?

  • My first answer was that IT should source their products and services with the “provider of best fit.” I got the following reply: “that implies choosing best of breed vs. integrated. Cloud practically makes best of breed a foregone conclusion.” The point I was trying to make, and the answer I provided, was that there are varying levels of cloud providers out there so IT departments still need to choose wisely.
  • Andi Mann (@AndiMann) suggested departments need to honestly evaluate their own ability to deliver. He stated in-house IT is not always best and that organizations need to proactively look for cloud to do better. Again, a point I agreed with.

 

Question 5: Should the IT department make reining in rogue cloud services a top priority?

  • No! Enable and harness their creativity by asking them to use a cloud portal sponsored by corporate IT!
  • IT should treat the business like a customer.
  • The majority of the group agreed that embracing rogue IT was the correct strategy here…not attempting to rein it in.

 

Question 6: How can the CIO promote innovation in the era of lower IT spending?

  • Ah, the CIO’s favorite saying…”Doing more with less”
  • Provide a means for “safe” Rogue IT (more on that in my summary)
  • Another concept that was echoed by some members of the chat was the idea of adopting a fail-fast culture. Cloud can enable faster deployments, which allows you to try more things quickly, and if you do fail, you can move on. This increases the pace of innovation by enabling the business to take on more “risky” projects – the software development projects that are great ideas but may not have a clear ROI.

 

My summary

Especially during the past year, in tweetchats and various other forums, consensus on the use and benefits of cloud computing is gaining unanimity. The most significant points:

  • Corporate IT should be a provider of whole IT services “products” and not just technology – and cloud computing can enable this
  • Cloud opens up the business to a competitive market for IT services, of which traditional corporate IT is only one option (thus the role of corporate IT evolves from technology center to order-taker to broker of services)
  • Rogue IT is not necessarily a bad thing; some of the best solutions may come out of rogue projects

 

GreenPages has been having internal discussions, and discussions with customers, around the concepts highlighted in this tweetchat for some time now.  Because of where the market is heading (as voiced by the thought leaders who took part in this chat) we have developed our Cloud Management as a Service (CMaaS) offering. The product addresses the top issues that are now coming to light – transforming corporate IT into a provider in a competitive market, allowing for a safe place to innovate without being encumbered by policy and process (addressing rogue IT), and, going a step further, enabling consistent management across cloud environments. The premise behind CMaaS is to turn cloud inside out – to manage your internal environment as if it was already deployed in a cloud environment. Glance at this whitepaper I wrote about the concepts behind cloud management as a service and let me know what you think. I’d be very interested to hear people’s takes on whether or not a product like this can address some of the needs in the marketplace today.

 

If you would like to learn more about CMaaS, fill out this form and someone will be in touch with you shortly.

 

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Cloud computing and the changing role of IT

By John Dixon, Consulting Architect, LogicsOne

On Tuesday April 29th, I participated in another tweetchat hosted by Cloud Commons. As usual, it was an hour of rapid fire conversation and discussion amongst some really smart people. This time, the topic was based around “cloud computing and the changing role of IT,” and there were some great takeaways from the dialogue.  Below are the six questions that were asked during the chat as well as a quick summary of my thoughts and the thoughts of the group as a whole.

  1. How is cloud computing changing the role of IT?
  2. Besides cloud, what other trends are influential in changing the role of IT?
  3. What steps should the IT department take to become a trusted advisor to the business?
  4. How should the IT department engage with the business on cloud purchases?
  5. Should the IT department make reining in rogue cloud services a …
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Why Cloud Computing Is Booming

That boom you hear? That’s the cloud.
Cloud computing is experiencing serious growth – even the Department of Defense is joining the party. However, some people are a little concerned about giving up hard copies and going completely virtual. Getting on this bandwagon is a great idea that can save money and time (assuming the cloud server chosen has a solid reputation). Here are some reasons, posted on an article on HuffingtonPost.com, cloud computing is gaining in popularity.
It Saves Money (and the Environment)
Keeping paper copies, updating them, making more copies to distribute, shredding them, ordering more paper and ink – it’s a vicious cycle. Many companies waste serious cash on this process, not to mention the leg work of employees whose sole responsibility is to keep up with the filing. Switching to cloud computing can save a lot of money and trees, which is why many companies are going green and upping the bottom line at the same time.

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The Spring of 2013 Is Off to a Cool Start

Even though today’s crowning ceremony in Amsterdam enjoyed some modest sunshine, the temperatures across Europe are at an all time low. A more reliable indication that spring has started, are the annual Cool Vendor reports being published.
For the first time this series includes a note dedicated to cloud activity in Europe. The “Cool Vendors in the European Cloud Computing Market, 2013” note describes four European vendor making a difference in the local and global cloud market. The report also points to several other European cool vendors featured in other notes. Such as in the “Cool Vendors in Cloud Services Brokerage Enablers, 2013”, “Cool Vendors in Cloud Services Brokerages, 2013” and “Cool Vendors in Cloud Management, 2013”.

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Java, Java Platform Enterprise Edition, M&A Activity, Rapid Application Development, SocialTwist, VMware, WaveMaker

VMware Sells Some WaveMaker Assets to Pramati

Pramati has acquired certain assets of WaveMaker from VMware. WaveMaker, acquired by VMware in March 2011, is a visual Rapid Application Development (RAD) software platform that will be used to grow and enhance Pramati’s cloud-based Java development capabilities. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

WaveMaker simplifies the process of building enterprise Java applications to boost both developer productivity and quality, without compromising flexibility. WaveMaker applications are cloud-ready, highly scalable, multi-device, and backed by a strong developer community that has doubled to 35,000 active monthly users over the last two years. With its long heritage of mission-critical Java application development, Pramati expects to accelerate this growth going forward.

“The acquisition of WaveMaker is integral to Pramati’s ongoing strategy to efficiently bring together skills, capital, customer relationships and leading technologies that can quickly take advantage of market opportunities,” said Vijay Pullur , President of Pramati. “WaveMaker elegantly enhances our existing Java and cloud development capabilities. Over the years, Gartner and other respected voices have recognized us as a leader in Java technologies. The WaveMaker acquisition uniquely allows us to extend our leadership, while extending the reach of Java to non-expert developers and users.”

WaveMaker uniquely helps its users build standard enterprise Java applications using a visual drag-and-drop paradigm that streamlines development time, significantly reducing written code.

“WaveMaker was designed to bring high-quality Java applications to market quickly and efficiently,” said Charles Fan , senior vice president of R&D, Storage and Application Services, VMware. “Pramati is an established technology company with expertise in cloud and Java technologies. We are delighted that WaveMaker customers are in good hands.”

The addition of WaveMaker underscores Pramati’s support for Java standards in the cloud computing era. The Pramati portfolio of companies includes SocialTwist, a social referral marketing platform focused on customer acquisition and retention, and Imaginea, a technology services company that offers advisory, strategy, product development, and implementation services.

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A Roadmap to High-Value Cloud Infrastructure: Data Storage Expansion

As discussed in our prior installment, while there is no “one-size fits all” path to cloud infrastructure adoption, a roadmap can ease and simplify the transition to cloud while minimizing IT disruption. More importantly, a phased approach (as shown in the figure below) enables organizations to take advantage of on-demand infrastructure sooner than later, leveraging scalability, cost advantages and rapid deployment capabilities of cloud.
Data storage expansion may be one of the easiest ways to leverage cloud infrastructure, which is why we list it as phase 1 of our roadmap. Besides the simple integration path, storage is a foundational building block of a cloud-based IT strategy – once data is in the cloud, more cloud services can be rolled in. Need another reason to begin with storage? Storage is growing rapidly, with the digital universe set to exceed 40,000 exabytes (40 billion terabytes) by 2020. With a data explosion looming, nearly every organization needs to formulate a plan for dealing with storage capacity sprawl.

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Cisco, Control Panels, Parallels Plesk Panel, Security Updates

Parallels supports Cisco researcher assessment: “website operators and administrators must keep systems up-to-date.”

 

Recently, a Cisco security research analyst used an old Parallels Plesk Panel vulnerability as an example of why it is important to patch servers that may be running old software. His point is valid, and Parallels agrees fully that “the active exploit of this year-old vulnerability serves as an important reminder that website operators and administrators must keep systems up-to-date.”

 

It turns out the exploit this researcher was referring to was (a) for Parallels Plesk Panel 9.3 and earlier – products from 2009 and earlier that are now at end-of-life, and (b) in the 3rd party Horde webmail component, not in the Parallels Plesk control panel itself. A patch was promptly issued by Parallels in February 2012.

 

This reported vulnerability – which certainly is not anything new (considering the patch has been out for over a year), was later confused in some subsequent blogs and comments with another vulnerability in Parallels Plesk 10.3 and earlier versions (products from summer 2011 and earlier) also discovered and fixed in February 2012. Though the current version of Parallels Plesk Panel at that time, 10.4, did not have this vulnerability, Parallels immediately issued a security advisory and patches in February 2012 for all prior impacted versions and advised partners about actions to take. Additionally, Parallels created a comprehensive page on securing Parallels Plesk Panel and a Malware Removal Tool, responding quickly and thoroughly to these exploits.

 

For Parallels partners who install patches and reset passwords, Parallels Plesk Panel is not subject to this vulnerability. Customers running Parallels Plesk Panel 10.4 and 11 never had this vulnerability in the first place.

 

Parallels agrees that the point of the Cisco researcher is still very valid: “The active exploit of this year-old vulnerability serves as an important reminder that website operators and administrators must keep systems up-to-date. This is especially urgent with vulnerabilities that are remotely detectable. This means not just the operating system, but every program and add-on for those programs also needs to be kept up-to-date. A vulnerability left unpatched in any one of them can lead to total system compromise.”

 

We strongly encourage our customers to subscribe to our support e-mails by clicking here, subscribe to our RSS feed here and add our KnowledgeBase browser plug-in here.

 

Parallels Plesk Panel 11 and the upcoming 11.5 are the most secure versions ever, and we strongly encourage our Partners and customers to upgrade to these versions. In Parallels Plesk Panel 11, all Security Updates are clearly reported in the panel. Partners can force Security Updates when they choose. The option to turn on auto-upgrades is also highly recommended for anyone on Parallels Plesk Panel 10 or above.  It is the best way to keep you fully secure.

 

– The Parallels Plesk Panel Team