http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDG4RiiJWjA
GreenPages-LogicsOne CEO Ron Dupler discusses the shift to the second wave of virtualization and what it means for organizations today.
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By Ben Stephenson, Journey to the Cloud
It seems like every week a new study comes out analyzing cloud computing growth. Whether it’s that Public Cloud Services Spending will reach $47.4B in 2013, Global SaaS spending projected to grow from $13.5B in 2011 to $32.8B in 2016, the public cloud services market is forecast to grow 18.5 percent in 2013, or cloud spending at Dunder Mifflin will increase 200% by 2020, the indication is that cloud adoption and spending are on the rise. But how is that relevant to you?
Does it matter to the everyday CIO that cloud spending at midsized companies west of the Mississippi is going to increase by 15% over the next 3 years? The relevant question isn’t how much will cloud adoption and spending increase, but why will it do so? It’s the “why” that matters to the business. If you understand the why, it becomes easier to put context around the statistics coming out of these studies. It comes down to a shift in the industry – a shift in the economics of how a modern day business operates. This shift revolves around the way IT services are being delivered.
To figure out where the industry is going, and why spending and adoption are increasing, you need to look at where the industry has come from. The shift from on-premise IT to public cloud began with SaaS based technologies. Companies like Salesforce.com realized that organizations were wasting a lot of time and money buying and deploying hardware for their CRM solutions. Why not use the internet to be able to allow organizations to pay a subscription fee instead of owning their entire infrastructure? This, however, was not true cloud computing. Next came IaaS with Amazon’s EC3 initiative. Essentially, Amazon realized it had excess compute capacity and decided to rent it out to people who needed the extra space. IaaS put an enormous amount of pressure on corporate IT because App Dev. teams no longer had to wait weeks or months to test and deploy environments. Instead, they could start up right away and become much more efficient. Finally, PaaS came about with initiatives such as Microsoft Azure.
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The old IT paradigm, or a private cloud environment, consists of organizations buying hardware and software and keeping it in their datacenter behind their own firewalls. While a private cloud environment doesn’t need to be fully virtualized, it does need to be automated and very few organizations are actually operating in a true private cloud environment. Ideally, a true private cloud environment is supposed to let internal IT compete with public cloud providers by providing a similar amount of speed and agility that a public cloud allows. While the industry is starting to shift towards public cloud, the private cloud is not going away. Public cloud will not be the only way to operate IT, or even the majority of the way, for a long time. This brings us to the hybrid cloud computing model; the direct result of this shift. Hybrid cloud is the combination of private and public cloud architectures. It’s about the ability to be able to seamlessly transition workloads between private and public, or, in other words, moving on-premise workloads to rented platforms where you don’t own anything in order to leverage services.
So why are companies shifting towards a hybrid cloud model? It all comes down to velocity, agility, efficiency, and elasticity. IT delivery methodology is no longer a technology discussion, but, rather, it’s become a business discussion. CIOs and CFOs are starting to scratch their heads wondering why so much money is being put towards purchasing hardware and software when all they are reading about is cloud this and cloud that.
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The spending and adoption rates of cloud computing are increasing because the shift in the industry is no longer just talk – it’s real and it’s here now. The bottom line? We’re past hypothetical discussions. There is a major shift in the industry that business decision makers need to be taking seriously. If you’re not modernizing your IT operations by moving towards a hybrid cloud model, you’re going to be missing out on the agility and cost savings that can give your organization a substantial competitive advantage. This is why cloud adoption and spending are on the rise. This is why you’re seeing a new study every month on the topic.
An Interview with Matt Mock, IT Director, GreenPages Technology Solutions
Journey to the Cloud’s Ben Stephenson sat down with GreenPages’ IT Director Matt Mock to discuss GreenPages’ recent datacenter move.
Ben: Why did GreenPages decide to move its datacenter?
Matt: Our current contract was up so we started evaluating new facilities looking for a robust, redundant facility to house our equipment in. We needed a facility to meet specific objectives around our business continuity plan. In addition, we were also looking for cost savings.
Ben: Where did you move the datacenter to and from?
Matt: Geographically, we stayed in a close area. We moved it from Charlestown, MA a couple of miles down the road into downtown Boston. Staying within a close area certainly made the physical move quicker and easier.
Ben: What were the benefits of moving the datacenter?
Matt: Ultimately, we were able to get into an extremely redundant and secure datacenter that provided us with cost savings. Furthermore, the datacenter is also a large carrier hotel which gives us additional savings on circuit costs. With this move we’re able to further our capabilities of delivering to our customers 24/7.
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Ben: Tell us about the process of the move? What had to happen ahead of time to ensure a smooth transition?
Matt: The most important parts were planning, testing, and communication. We put together an extremely detailed plan that broke out every phase of the move down to 15 minute increments. We devised teams for the specific phases that had a communication plan for each team. We also devised a backup emergency plan in the event that we hit any issues the night of the move.
Ben: What happened the night of the move?
Matt: The night of the move we leveraged the excellent facilities at Markley to be able to run a command center that was run by one of our project managers. In the room, we had multiple conference bridges to run the different work streams to ensure smooth and constant communication. We also utilized Huddle, our internal collaboration tool, to communicate as our internal systems were down during the move.
Ben: Anything else you had to factor in?
Matt: Absolutely. The same night of the move we were also changing both voice and data providers at three different locations, which added another layer of complexity. We had to work closely with our new providers to ensure a smooth transition. Because we have a 24/7 Managed Services division at GreenPages, we needed to continue to offer customers the same support during the move that we do on a day-to-day basis.
Ben: Did you experience unexpected events during the move? If so, what were they and how did you handle them?
Matt: With any complex IT project you’re going to experience unexpected events. A couple that we experienced were some hardware failures and unforeseen configuration issues. Fortunately, our detailed plan accounted for these issues, and we were able to address them with the teams on hand and remain on schedule.
Ben: You used an all GreenPages team to accomplish this, right?
Matt: Correct. We did not use any outside vendors for this move – all services were rendered by the GreenPages team. Last time we used outside providers and this time we had a much better experience. I’m in the unique position where I have access to an entire team of project managers and technical resources that made doing this possible. In fact, this is something we offer our customers (from consulting to project management to the actual move) so our team is very, very good at it.
Ben: What advice do you have for other IT Directors who are considering moving their datacenters?
Matt: Detailed planning and constant communication is critical, having a plan in place for every possible scenario, and having an emergency plan ready so that in the middle of the night you’re not scrambling with how to address those unforeseen issues.
Ben: Congratulations on the successful move. See you Monday after the Patriots crush your Steelers.
Would you like to learn more about how GreenPages can help you with your datacenter needs?
By Chris Ward, CTO
Journey to the Cloud’s Ben Stephenson recently sat down with Chris Ward, CTO of GreenPages-LogicsOne, to get his take on what the top 5 fears of a CTO are.
Ben: Chief Technology Officer is obviously an extremely strategic, important, and difficult role within an organization. Since it’s almost Halloween, and since you’re an active (and successful) CTO yourself, I thought we would talk about your Top 5 Fears of a CTO. You also have the unique perspective of seeing how GreenPages uses technology internally, as well as how GreenPages advises clients to utilize different technologies.
Chris: Sounds good. I think a major fear is “Falling Behind the Trends.” In this case, it’s not necessarily that you couldn’t see what was coming down the path. You can see it there and know it’s coming, but can you get there with velocity? Can you get there before the competition does?
Ben: Do you have any examples of when you have avoided falling behind the trends?
Chris: At GreenPages, we were fortunate to catch virtualization early on when a lot of others didn’t. We had a lot of customers who were not sold on virtualization for 2-4 years. Those customers are now very far behind the competition and are trying to play catch up. In some cases, I’m sure it’s meant the CTO is out of a job. We also utilized virtualization internally early on and reaped the benefits. Another example is our CMaaS Brokerage and Governance offering. We recognize the significance of cloud brokerage and the paradigm shift towards a hybrid cloud computing model. In this case we are out ahead of the market.
Ben: How about a time when GreenPages did fall behind a trend?
Chris: I would say we fell behind a trend when we began our managed services business. It was traditional, old school managed services. It definitely took us some time to figure out where we wanted to go and where we wanted to be. While we may have fallen behind initially, we recognized change was needed and our Cloud Management as a Service offering has transformed us. Instead of sitting back and missing the boat, we are now in a great spot. This will be a huge help to our customers – but will (and does already) help us significantly internally as well.
Ben: How about fear number 2?
Chris: Fear number two is not seeing around the bend. From my perspective as the CTO at a solutions provider, things move so fast in this industry and GreenPages offers such a wide variety and breadth of products and services to customer – it can be very difficult to keep up with. If we focused on only one area it would be a lot easier, but since we focus on cloud, virtualization, end user computing, security, storage, datacenter transformation, networking and more it can be quite challenging. For a corporate CTO you are allowed to be a market follower, which can be somewhat of an advantage. While you don’t want to fall behind, you do have partners, like GreenPages and others out there, that you can count on.
Ben: That makes sense. What about a 3rd fear?
Chris: Another large fear for CTOs is making a wrong turn. CTOs can get the crystal ball out and there may be a couple of things coming down the road…but what happens if you turn left and everyone else turns right? What happens if you make the wrong decision or the decision to early?
Ben: Can you give us an example?
Chris: A good example of taking a turn too early in the Cloud era is with the company Nirvanix. Cloud storage is extremely important, but what happens when a business model has not been properly vetted? This is one of the “gotchas” of being an early adopter. To be successful you need a good mix. You can’t be too conservative, but you can’t jump all in any time a new company pops up – the key is balance.
Ben: Do you have any advice for CTOs about this?
Chris: Sure – just because you can doesn’t mean you should!
Ben: I’ve heard you say that one before…
Chris: For example, software defined networking stacks, with products like Cisco Insieme and VMware NSX are very cool new technologies. I personally, and we at GreenPages, think this is going to be the next big thing. But we’re at a crossroads…who should use these? Who will gain the benefits? For example, maybe it makes sense for the enterprise but not for small businesses? This is something major that I have to determine – who is this a good fit for?
Ben: How about fear number 4?
Chris: Fear number 4 revolves around retaining my talent. I want my team to feel like they are always learning something new. I want them to know they are always on the bleeding edge of IT. I want to give them a world that changes very quickly. In my experience, most people that are stellar employees in a technical capacity want to be challenged constantly and to try new things and look at different ways of doing things.
Ben: What should CTOs do to try and retain talent?
Chris: Really take the time and focus on building a culture and environment that harnesses what I mentioned above. If not, you’re at serious risk of losing top talent.
Ben: Before I get too scared let’s get to number 5 and finish this up.
Chris: I’d say the fifth fear of mine is determining if I am working with the right technologies and the right vendors. IT can often be walking a tightrope between vendors from technical and business perspectives. From my perspective, I need to make sure we are providing our customers with the right technology from the right vendor to meet their needs. I need to determine if the technology works as advertised. Is it something that is reasonable to implement? Is there money in this for GreenPages?
Ben: What about from a customer’s perspective?
Chris: The customer also needs to make sure they align themselves with the right partners. CTOs want to find partners that are looking towards the future, who will advise them correctly, and who will allow the business to stay out ahead of the competition. If a CTO looks at a partner or technology and doesn’t think it’s really advancing the business, then it’s time to reevaluate.
Ben: Thanks for the time Chris – and good luck!
What are your top fears as an IT decision makers? Leave them in the comment section!
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By John Dixon, Consulting Architect, LogicsOne
Last month, I had the special privilege of co-presenting a breakout session at VMworld with our CTO Chris Ward. The session’s title was “Key Lessons Learned from Deploying a Private Cloud Service Catalog,” and we had a full house for it. Overall, the session went great and we had a lot of good questions. In fact, due to demand, we ended up giving the presentation twice.
In the session, Chris and I discussed a recent project we did for a financial services firm where we built a private cloud, front-ended by a service catalogue. A service catalog really enables self-service – it is one component of corporate IT’s opportunity to partner with the business. In a service catalog, the IT department can publish the menu of services that it is willing to provide and (sometimes) the price that it charges for those services. For example, we published a “deploy VM” service in the catalog, and the base offering was priced at $8.00 per day. Additional storage or memory from the basic spec was available at an additional charge. When the customer requests “deploy VM,” the following happens:
This sounds fairly straightforward, and it is. Implementation is another matter however. It turns out that we had to integrate with vCenter, Active Directory, the client’s ticketing system, and client’s CMDB, an approval system, and the provisioned OS in order to automate the fulfillment of this simple request. As you might guess, documenting this workflow upfront was incredibly important to the project’s success. We documented the workflow and assessed it against the request-approval-fulfillment theoretical paradigm to identify the systems we needed to integrate. One of the main points that Chris and I made at VMworld was to build this automation incrementally instead of tackling it all at once. That is, just get automation suite to talk to vCenter before tying in AD, the ticketing system, and all the rest.
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Self-service, automation, and orchestration all drove real value during this deployment. We were able to eliminate or reduce at least three manual handoffs via this single workflow. Previously, these handoffs were made either by phone or through the client’s ticketing system.
During the presentation we also addressed which systems we integrated, which procedures we selected to automate, and what we plan to have the client automate next. You can check out the actual VMworld presentation here. (If you’re looking for more information around VMworld in general, Chris wrote a recap blog of Pat Gelsinger’s opening keynote as well as one on Carl Eschenbach’s General Session.)
Below are some of the questions we got from the audience:
Q: Did the organization have ITSM knowledge beforehand?
A:The group had very limited knowledge of ITSM but left our project with real-world perspective on ITIL and ITSM
Q: What did we do if we needed a certain system in place to automate something
A: We did encounter this and either labeled it as a risk or used “biomation” (self-service is available, fulfillment is manual, customer doesn’t know the difference) until the necessary systems were made available
Q: Were there any knowledge gaps at the client? If so, what were they?
A: Yes, the developer mentality and service management mentality are needed to complete a service catalog project effectively. Traditional IT engineering and operations do not typically have a developer mentality or experience with languages like Javascript.
Q: Who was the primary group at the client driving the project forward?
A: IT engineering and operations were involved with IT engineering driving most of the requirements.
Q: At which level was the project sponsored?
A: VP of IT Engineering with support from the CIO
All in all, it was a very cool experience to get the chance to present a breakout session at VMworld. If you have any other questions about key takeaways we got from this project, leave them in the comment section. As always, if you’d like more information you can contact us. I also just finished an ebook on “The Evolution of the Corporate IT Department” so be sure to check that out as well!
By John Dixon, Consulting Architect, LogicsOne
Corporate IT departments have progressed from keepers of technology to providers of complex solutions that businesses truly rely on. Even a business with an especially strong core competency simply cannot compete without information systems to provide key pieces of technology such as communication and collaboration systems (e.g., email). Many corporate IT departments have become adept providers of technology solutions. We, at GreenPages, think that corporate IT departments should be recognized as providers of services. Also, we think that emerging technology and management techniques are creating an especially competitive market of IT service providers. Professional business managers will no doubt recognize that their internal IT department is perhaps another competitor in this market for IT services. Could the business choose to source their systems to a provider of services other than internal corporate IT?
IT departments large and small already have services deployed to the cloud. We think that organizations should prepare to deploy services to the cloud provider that meets their requirements most efficiently, and eventually, move services between providers to continually optimize the environment. As we’ll show, one of the first steps to enabling this Cloud Management is to use a tool that can manage resources in different environments as if they are running on the same platform. Corporate IT departments can prepare for cloud computing without taking the risk of moving infrastructure or changing any applications.
In this piece, I will describe the market for IT service providers, the progression of corporate IT departments from technology providers to brokers of IT services, and how organizations can take advantage of behavior emerging in the market for IT services. This is not a cookbook of how to build a private cloud for your company—this instead offers a perspective on how tools and management techniques, namely Cloud Management as a Service (CMaaS), can be adopted to take advantage of cloud computing, whatever it turns out to become. In the following pages, we’ll answer these questions:
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By John Dixon, Consulting Architect, LogicsOne
If you’ve ever tried your hand at auto racing like I did recently at Road Atlanta, you’ll know that putting up a great lap time is all about technique. If you’ve ever been to a racing school, you’ll also remember that being proactive and planning your corners is absolutely critical in driving safely. Lets compare IT operations to auto racing now. Everyone knows how to, essentially, drive a car. Just as every company, essentially, knows how to run IT. What separates a good driver from a great driver? Technique, preparation, and knowing the capabilities of your driver and equipment.
The driver = your capabilities
The car = your technology
The track = your operations as the business changes
Preparation
Lets spend a little bit of time on “preparation.” As we all know, preparation time is often a luxury. From what I have seen consulting over the past few years, preparation is not just installed in the culture of IT. But we’d all agree that more preparation leads to better outcomes (for almost everything, really). So, how do we get more preparation time? This is where the outsourcing trend gained momentum – outsource the small stuff to get more time back to work on strategic projects. Well, this didn’t always work out very well, as typical outsourcing arrangements moved large chunks of IT to an outside provider. Why didn’t we move smaller chunks first? That’s what we do in auto racing – the reconnaissance lap! Now we have the technology and arrangements to do a reconnaissance lap of sorts. For example, our Cloud Management as a Service (CMaaS) has this philosophy built-in – we can manage certain parts of infrastructure that you select, and leave others alone. Maybe you’d like to have your Exchange environment fully managed but not your SAP environment. We’ve built CMaaS with the flexible technology and arrangements to do just that.
Technique
| Auto Racing | IT Operations |
| Safety first! Check your equipment before heading out, let the car warm up before increasing speed | Make sure your IT shop can perform as a partner with the business |
| Know where to go slow! You can’t take every turn with full throttle. Even if you can, its worth it to “throw away” some corners in preparation for straight sections | Know where to allocate investment in IT – its all about producing results for the business |
| First lap: reconnaissance (stay on the track) | Avoid trying to tackle very complex problems with brand new technology (e.g., did you virtualize Exchange on your very first P2V?) |
| Last lap: cool down (stay on the track) | An easy one, manage the lifecycle of your applications and middleware to avoid be caught by a surprise required upgrade |
| Know where to go fast! You can be at full throttle without any brake or steering inputs (as in straight sections), so dig in! | Recognize established techniques and technologies and use them to the max advantage |
| Smooth = fast. Never stab the throttle or the brakes! Sliding all over the track with abrupt steering and throttle inputs is not the fastest way (but it IS fun and looks cool) | Build capabilities gradually and incrementally instead of looking to install a single technology to solve all problems today. |
| Know the capabilities of your car – brakes, tires, clutch, handling. Exceed the capabilities of your equipment and see what happens. | Take the time to know your people, processes, and technology – which things work well and which could be improved? This depends greatly on your business, but there are some best practices to run a modern IT shop. |
| Improve time with each lap | This is all about continuous improvement – many maneuvers in IT should be repeatable (like handling a trouble ticket), so do it better every time. |
| Take a deep breath, check your gauges, check your harnesses, check your helmet | Monitoring is important, but it is not an endgame for most of us. Be aware of things that could go wrong, how you could mitigate risk, which workarounds you could implement, etc. |
| Carry momentum around the track. A high horsepower car with a novice driver will always lose to a great driver in a sedan | Technology doesn’t solve everything. You need proper technique and preparation. |
| Learn from your mistakes – they aren’t the end of the world | With well-instrumented monitoring, performance blips or mistakes are opportunities to improve |
Capabilities
A word on capabilities. Capabilities are not something you simply install with software or infrastructure. Just as an aspiring racecar driver can’t simply obtain the capability required to win a professional F1 race with a weekend class. You need assets (e.g., infrastructure, applications, data) and resources (e.g., dollars) to build capabilities. What exactly is a capability? In racing, it’s the ability to get around a track, any track, quickly and safely. In IT, this would be the ability to handle a helpdesk call and resolve the issue to completion, for a basic example. An advanced IT capability in a retail setting might be to produce a report on how frequently shoppers from a particular zip code purchase a certain product. Or, perhaps, it’s an IT governance capability to understand the costs of providing a particular IT service. One thing I’ve seen in consulting with various shops is that organizations could do a better job of understanding their capabilities.
Now picture yourself in the in the driver’s seat (of your IT shop). Know your capabilities, but really think about your technique and continuously improving your “lap times.”
As always, feel free to reach out if you’d like to have a conversation just to toss around some ideas on this topic.
Now for the fun part, a video that a classmate of mine recorded of a hot lap around Road Atlanta. The video begins in turn 11 (under the bridge in this video).
By Ryann Edwards, PMP, Resource Specialist, LogicsOne
A few years ago, we made a change at GreenPages-LogicsOne to streamline how we handle the resource scheduling process. It’s a good thing too, because so far in 2013 there have been close to 400 engagements that have used this new process. While scheduling a large group of resources may sound easy, at times it feels like it takes a team of highly skilled scientific specialists and analysts to get it right. Ok, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but there is actually a bit of a science to it.
I should begin with the disclaimer that the process hasn’t always been so efficient. In fact, most of my new hire trainings begin with the “back in the day” spiel because it brings to light the lessons we’ve learned. This in turn leads to where we are today. So where did we begin? We were slightly blind. Our services team of Account Executive, Solutions Architects, and Project Managers were working in silos when it came to choosing and selecting resources for our services engagements. Everyone involved had the best of intentions: to find the right resource for the project, meet our customers’ deadlines or requests, schedule the project, and implement a highly successful engagement. The problem came when multiple Project Managers had “just the right project” for “just the right Consultant” who, yes, happened to be just the same person. Needless to say, as our professional services organization has grown and matured over the years, the need became strong for a streamlined scheduling system. That brings us to present day where we now have a Resource Specialist team to handle scheduling requests.
As I mentioned above, there is quite a bit of thought and strategy (“science” may have been pushing it) that plays out behind the scenes when it comes to the scheduling of service projects. It is imperative that at the forefront of it all is our customers’ best interests, including special requests and internal deadlines. While some might joke that we should just throw darts at a board of names to figure out who to schedule, I assure that you that we really don’t. In fact, we look at each Statement of Work and scheduling request that comes in to our queue in great detail. From researching the background and history that Consultants may already have with a client, to looking at geographical location, travel, availability, customer dependencies and deadlines; there are a lot of considerations.
At the end of the day, our objective is always the same: to make sure we are looking at the big picture and are doing everything we can to keep our internal and external customers satisfied. Our top priority is making sure the resource(s) assigned to a project are a good match for all parties involved, so the outcome is a successful professional service engagement for our customers. Believe it or not, our customers can help in this process. Here are some things that help us ensure a successful engagement:
Streamlining the scheduling process has allowed members of the services organization to focus on other important aspects in the project lifecycle; project planning, managing, and executing. Having a team dedicated solely to resourcing has improved efficiency in scheduling, increased visibility into utilization of the solutions team, and is a key piece of the puzzle for successful project delivery.
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By Chris Ward, CTO, LogicsOne
I wrote a blog on Monday summarizing the opening keynote at VMworld 2013. Checking in again quickly to summarize Tuesday’s General Session. VMware’s COO Carl Eschenbach took the stage and informed the audience that there are 22,500 people in attendance, which is a new record for VMware. This makes it the single largest IT infrastructure event of the year. 33 of these attendees have been to all 10 VMworlds, and Carl is one of them.
Carl started the session by providing a recap of Monday’s announcements around vSphere/vCloud Suite 5.5, NSX, vSAN, vCHS, Cloud Foundry, and vCHS. The overall mantra of the session revolved around IT as a Service. The following points were key:
After this, came a plethora of product demos. If you would like to watch the presentation to be able to check out the demos you can watch them here: http://www.vmworld.com/community/conference/us/learn/generalsessions
vCAC Demo
NSX Demo
The conversation then turned to storage. They covered the following:
IT Operations:
Let me know if there are questions on any of these demos.
Last week, I met with a number of our top clients near the GreenPages HQ in Portsmouth, NH at our annual Summit event to talk about successful adoption of cloud technologies. In this post, I’ll give a summary of my cloud adoption advice, and cover some of the feedback that I heard from customers during my discussions. Here we go…
The Market for IT Services
I see compute infrastructure looking more and more like a commodity, and that there is intense competition in the market for IT services, particularly Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS).
I think that the first data point here is absolutely stunning, even considering that it covers a time span of 11 years. Of course, a simple Google search will return a number of other similar quotes. How can Amazon and others continue to drop their prices for IaaS, while improving quality at the same time? From a market behavior point of view, I think that the answer is clear – Amazon Web Services and others specialize in providing IaaS. That’s all they do. That’s their core business. Like any other for-profit business, IaaS providers prefer to make investments in projects that will improve their bottom line. And, like any other for-profit business, those investments enable companies like AWS to effectively compete with other providers (like Verizon/Terremark, for example) in the market.
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With network and other technologies as they are, businesses now have a choice of where to host infrastructure that supports their applications. In other words, the captive corporate IT department may be the preferred provider of infrastructure (for now), but they are now effectively competing with outside IaaS providers. Why, then, would the business not choose the lowest cost provider? Well, the answer to that question is quite the debate in cloud computing (we’ll put that aside for now). Suffice to say that we think that internal corporate IT departments are now competing with outside providers to provide IaaS and other services to the business and that this will become more apparent as technology advances (e.g., as workloads become more portable, network speeds increase, storage becomes increasingly less costly, etc.).
Now here’s the punch line and the basis for our guidance on cloud computing; how should internal corporate IT position itself to stay competitive? At our annual Summit event last week, I discussed the progression of the corporate IT department from a provider of technology to a provider of services (see my whitepaper on cloud management for detail). The common thread is that corporate IT evolves by becoming closer and closer to the requirements of the business – and may even be able to anticipate requirements of the business or suggest emerging technology to benefit the business. To take advantage of cloud computing, one thing corporate IT can do is source commodity services to outside providers where it makes sense. Fundamentally, this has been commonplace in other industries for some time – manufacturing being one example. OEM automotive manufacturers like GM and Ford do not produce the windshields and brake calipers that are necessary for a complete automobile – it just isn’t worth it for GM or Ford to produce those things. They source windshields, brake calipers, and other components from companies who specialize. GM, Ford, and others are then left with more resources to invest in designing, assembling and marketing a product that appeals to end users like you and I.
So, it comes down to this: how do internal corporate IT departments make intelligent sourcing decisions? We suggest that the answer is in thinking about packaging and delivering IT services to the business.
GreenPages Assessment and Design Method
So, how does GreenPages recommend that customers take advantage of cloud computing? Even if you are not considering external cloud at this time, I think it makes sense to prepare your shop for it. Eventually, cloud may make sense for your shop even if, at this time, there is no fit for it. The guidance here is to take a methodical look at how your department is staffed and operated. ITIL v2 and v3 provide a good guide here of what should be examined:
Assigning a score to each of these areas in terms of repeatability, documentation, measurement, and continuous improvement will paint the picture of how well your department can make informed sourcing decisions. Conducting an assessment and making some housekeeping improvements where needed will serve two purposes:
When and if cloud computing services look like a good option for your company, your department will be able to make an informed decision on which services to use at which times. And, if you’re building an internal private cloud, the processes listed above will form the cornerstone of the way you will operate as a service provider.
Case Study: Service Catalog and Private Cloud
Implementing a Service Catalog, corporate IT departments can take a solid first step to becoming a service provider and staying close to the requirements of the business. This year at VMworld in San Francisco, I’ll be leading a session to present a case study of a recent client that did exactly this with our help. If you’re going to be out at VMworld, swing by and listen in to my session!
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