http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHp6Q5RMMR8
In this segment of Cloud Corner, former CEO of Qoncert, and new GreenPages-LogicsOne employee, Lou Rossi answers questions around how unified communications fits into the new IT paradigm moving forward.
We’ll be hosting a free webinar on 8/22: How to Securely Enable BYOD with VMware’s Next Gen EUC Platform. Register Now!
By John Dixon, Consulting Architect, LogicsOne
Recently GreenPages and our partner Gravitant hosted a webinar on Cloud Service Broker technology. Senior Analyst Dave Bartoletti gave a preface to the webinar with Forrester’s view on cloud computing and emerging technology. In this post we’ll give some perspective on highlights from the webinar. In case you missed it, you can also watch a replay of the webinar here: http://bit.ly/12yKJrI
Ben Tao, Director of Marketing for Gravitant, kicks off the discussion by describing the traditional data center sourcing model. Two key points here:
The end result is that cloud computing can drive the benefit of a multi-sourcing model for IT, where sourcing decisions are made in close proximity to the use of services. This has the potential of enabling organizations to adjust their sourcing decisions more often to best suit the needs of their applications.
Next, Dave Bartoletti describes the state of cloud computing and the requirements for hybrid cloud management. The core of Dave’s message is that the use of cloud computing is on the rise, and that cloud is being leveraged for more and more complex applications – including those with sensitive data.
Dave’s presentation is based on the statement, “what IT must do to deliver on the hybrid cloud promise…”
Some key points here:
Dave does an excellent job of explaining the things that IT must do in order to deliver on the hybrid cloud promise. Often, conversations on cloud computing are purely about technology, but I think there’s much more at stake. For example, Dave’s first two points above really resonate with me. You can also read “cloud computing” as ITIL-style sourcing. Cloud computing puts service management back in focus. “Cloud is about IT services first, infrastructure second,” and “You won’t own the infrastructure […]” also suggests that cloud computing may influence a shift in the makeup of corporate IT departments – fewer core technologists and more “T-shaped” individuals. So called T-shaped individuals have knowledge and experience with a broad set of technologies (the top of the “T”), but have depth in one or more areas like programming, Linux, or storage area networking. My prediction is that there will still be a need for core technologists; but that some of them may move into roles to do things like define customer-facing IT services. For this reason, our CMaaS product also includes optional services to deal with this type of workforce transformation. This is an example of a non-technical item that must be made when considering cloud computing. Do you agree? Do you have other non-technical considerations for cloud computing?
Chris Ward, CTO of LogicsOne, then dives in to the functionality of the Cloud Management as a Service, or CMaaS offering. The GreenPages CMaaS product implements some key features that can be used to help customers advance to the lofty points that Dave suggests in his presentation. CMaaS includes a cloud brokerage component and a multi-cloud monitoring and management component. Chris details some main features from the brokerage tool, which are designed to address the key points that Dave brought up:
Chris then gives an example from the State of Texas and the benefits that they realized from using cloud through a broker. Essentially, with the growing popularity of e-voting and the use of the internet as an information resource on candidates and issues, the state knew the demand for IT resources would skyrocket on election day. Instead of throwing away money to buy extra infrastructure to satisfy a temporary surge in demand, Texas utilized cloud brokerage to seamlessly provision IT resources in real time from multiple public cloud sources to meet the variability in demand.
All in all, the 60-minute webinar is time well spent and gives clients some guidance to think about cloud computing in the context of a service broker.
To view this webinar in it’s entirety click here or download this free whitepaper to learn more about hybrid cloud management
By Praveen Asthana, Chief Marketing Officer, Gravitant
The concept of “Just-in-Time” was pioneered in the manufacturing supply chain as a critical way to reduce costs by minimizing inventory. Implementing a just-in-time system that can handle unexpected demand is not a trivial undertaking. It requires the confluence of a number of disciplines such as analytics, statistics, sourcing, procurement, production management, brokerage and economics.
An interesting new idea is to take this concept pioneered in manufacturing and apply it to Information Technology resources. Doing this can provide an effective way to meet dynamically changing needs while minimizing the inventory of unused IT resources across a set of cloud services platform and providers.
Case Study: Election Day 2012.
With the growing popularity of e-voting and use of the Internet as an information resource on candidates and issues, the Secretary of State’s office for one of the most populous U.S. states knew that demand for IT resources would go up significantly on election day. But they didn’t know exactly how much, and they didn’t want to buy extra infrastructure for a temporary surge in demand. Even if they could come up with a good guess for the demand, deploying the right amount of resources in a timely manner would be challenging. Given the time it normally took (months) to deploy and provision new servers, the Secretary of State’s office knew they couldn’t use traditional means to procure compute and storage capacity to meet this demand.
As it turned out, demand went up over 1000% to over five million hits on the state voting web site by noon on Election Day.
Fortunately the state had deployed a novel capability based on a cloud brokerage and management platform to seamlessly provision IT resources in real time from multiple public cloud sources to meet the variability in demand. As a result, this demand was fully met without needing to do complicated planning or buy unneeded infrastructure. I’ll actually be speaking on a webinar with Chris Ward, CTO at GreenPages-LogicsOne and Dave Bartoletti, a Senior Analyst at Forrester Research on June 12th to talk about leveraging cloud brokerage and the impact it can have on managing your IT environment.
Minutes, not months—that’s what enterprise users want when it comes to having I.T. resources available to meet changing business needs or develop new applications.
However users find this to be an extraordinary challenge—most IT departments today struggle with rigid processes, a round-robin of tasks and approvals across multiple silos and departments, and manual provisioning steps. All this adds significant time to the deployment of I.T. resources resulting in users waiting for months before the resources they need become available.
How do users respond to such delays? By going around their IT departments and directly accessing cloud services. Often termed ‘rogue IT’ or ‘shadow IT,’ such out of process actions expose the company to financial risk, security risks, and operational risk.
The Solution: Just-in-time IT with Real-Time Governance
Just-in-time IT is not merely about using private or public cloud services. It is about engineering the end-to-end IT supply chain so it can be agile and respond immediately to dynamic business needs. To achieve this in practice, you need:
The first critical aspect of real time supply chain is identifying, sourcing and procurement of best fit cloud platforms and providers (internal or external) to meet your unique business needs.
The second critical aspect of ensuring just-in-time IT is effective is real-time governance, for this is the mechanism by which you truly manage the elasticity of cloud resources and ensure that IT resource inventory is minimized. This also has the additional benefit of eliminating shadow or rogue I.T.
As I mentioned above, if you’re interested in learning more on this topic I would highly recommend registering for the upcoming webinar “What’s Missing In Today’s Hybrid Cloud Management – Leveraging Cloud Brokerage” being held on June 12th. This should be a great session and there will be time for Q & A at the end.
About the Author:
Praveen Asthana is Chief Marketing Officer of Gravitant (www.gravitant.com), a cloud services brokerage and management company. Prior to joining Gravitant, Praveen was Vice President of Marketing and Strategy for Dell’s $13B Enterprise Solutions Division.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOAuxPuB9Qw
In this video, I talk about the benefits of using vCenter Operations Management Suite. If you’ve used the suite, I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on it.
By Geoff Smith, Sr. Solutions Architect
The term “Shadow IT” has gotten more and more people thinking about the challenges we all face as we try to reign in our IT management and operations. Recently, I caught a few minutes of the movie The Matrix…now, that movie is a bit of a visual trip, but once you get past the effects, the underlying dilemma it presents is intriguing.
It seems to me that if you accept the notion that people will gravitate towards the easiest ways to get their jobs done, than you have to wonder if the tools and procedures you have in place are likely to encourage compliance, or force rebellion. As in the Matrix movies, what appears to be happening under the surface may actually be something completely different once you have peeled back the false construct you assume is reality.
It has long been known that IT people are an innovative and, well, curious lot. We will try just about anything once, and if we find something that allows us to “better” manage our environments then we may cross over from the fringe into the shadowy world of the truly obscure in search of the truly arcane. It’s almost a badge of honor to demonstrate how to solve IT challenges without relying on the industry best practices or accepted solutions.
The real question is, is this really a bad thing? If you think back to The Matrix, the false construct did have its advantages. Sure, you were effectively enslaved by machines, but at least they gave you a good fantasy to operate within. You had juicy steak and cool clothes and the slickest cars (BTW that is a 1965 Lincoln Continental with the “suicide doors” in the movie). And as far as anyone else in that reality was concerned you were as legitimate as they were. So what’s wrong with that, especially considering everyone else is in the same boat?
Shadow IT, especially as it applied to IT Management, may have its benefits, but it also carries a lot of risk. For every off-the-grid tool that performs a function within IT, or for every service you rely on that may not be fully vetted, you may have exposed your organization to potential abuses, both internal and external. Where do these tools come from? How reputable an organization was it that developed them? Does their use create security vulnerabilities? Do they violate standing policies or put at risk compliance? And is the information you’re getting reliable? How critical are they to the underlying functionality of your business systems? Who on your team really understands their purpose and use?
So if we have accepted the fact that these tools and services exist, and that in all likelihood their use is prevalent in our industry, what do we do about it? To blunt their use is to shut the door on creative innovation within our teams. And frankly it’s not that easy to stop. To lower our standards and policies and embrace their use could lead us into situations where our lack of control and enforcement results in bad things happening.
Red pill or blue pill? Do we accept the risks, and tell ourselves that those bad things are so unlikely to happen that the benefits outweigh the risks (or – hey I might just be the equivalent of a Duracell battery but since I don’t know it I’m happy)? Or do we drop into a harsh reality where getting things accomplished might be more difficult and frankly less visibly rewarding (or – I’ve traded steak for Tastee Wheat but at least I know what I’m really eating). What if there were a “purple” pill available? An alternative to the options of pure fantasy or brutal reality?
There is a purple pill, and it’s not an answer but a question. That question is why? Why does my team feel they need to “jack-in” in order to accomplish anything in our environment? Why can’t they get done what they need to with the approved tools and service already at their disposal? Why do these policies and restrictions exist in the first place, and are those reasons still legitimate?
It’s about structured enablement and inclusive decision-making. Gather your teams and work from the inside out. Start with what they feel needs to be accomplished to meet the organizational needs. Understand the gaps between how they work and the policies and procedures that are in place today. Are there areas of consolidation or elimination of steps that can be taken to improve efficiencies and render some of the shadow services useless?
As you re-architect your approaches, also look for ways to improve the working environment for your teams. Are there tasks they are required to perform that have become so rote and uninteresting that they have fallen into the shadows? If so, rather than re-populate your teams with these tasks, look to move them into a more tightly controlled environment. This may be accomplished by automation or even by out-tasking to a provider (under a strictly defined and controlled contract with full auditing and reporting). And don’t forget that these “basic” functions are the foundation of a well-oiled IT machine.
In all transparency, I have watched The Matrix a number of times, and while my attempt to tie this concept of Shadow IT Management into the movie may have fallen short, I do think it’s not whether you choose the red pill or the blue one, but it’s the fact that you have the ability to make that choice at all. There is a difference, after all, in knowing the path and walking the path. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.
By Tobi Evangelisti, Senior VP of PMO, and Craig Mullen, Engagement Manager
Project communications to the C-Suite must include as much rational objectivity as possible to provide a pragmatic update taking into consideration identification of the C-Suite stakeholder’s interest.
The importance of constructing a projects’ communications to the C-Suite, starts with conscious development of the subject line. The first couple of sentences must address directly the project status and communicate whether action (or reading is required) or that the communication is providing a summarized update. It should have detail to understand the big picture but not overly granular. C level execs will always come back if they require more.
Communications to the C-Suite are not project status reports. Do not lead off with issues, items, or ideas, unless they are strategic or business oriented. Management functions within the C-Suite typically have functional expertise, but their focus usually would be different than a department because of their focus on the larger business environment. Ideally, the project communications role to the C-Suite would be as trusted advisor. A communication should be concise and clearly outline project status, open issues requiring attention and specifics as to how the project may require assistance. If the communication is in regards to issues that may be occurring an overview of the timeline is important for the C level person to understand the magnitude and the sense of urgency. In C level communications it is important to make sure the message includes a next step or a move forward plan. This creates a confidence that you are continuing to work the issue.
There is a time and place for email communication, phone calls and in person communication:
Effective communications start with using simple words and clear thoughts. C-Suite communications is essentially the project manager’s version of the sales elevator pitch. It may help to have a co-worker proof your message, or at least make sure you re-validate the initial draft to ensure clarity, emotional tone (balanced), accuracy, and timeliness.
To learn more about how GreenPages can help you click here.
By Geoff Smith, Senior Solutions Architect
As this is the last entry in the Mind the Gap blog series, I wanted to tie up all of the loose ends from the previous posts. In those, I’ve asked all of us in IT to break out of our comfy IT management “snuggies” and look at how our world is changing. In the past, IT has been the gatekeeper to technology for the business, mainly because we were the only people who lived it every day. That is no longer true.
In nature, each generation of a species evolves in some way, adapting to changes in their environment, habitat, or position in the food chain. The same can be said for IT users. As each new workforce generation rolls into the business world, they bring with them a greater understanding of what technology is and what it can do for them. I’ve been supporting users since the early 80s, when we got the cross-eyed, “I don’t need that thing” look when you dropped their new computer on their desk and took away their Rolodex. Today, if they don’t have a new laptop every 2 years you are “inhibiting my ability to function.”
This shift, in a relatively short timeframe, is what I call the Greatest Generation Users, or GGU. The workforce today is filled with GGUs. They come out of high schools and colleges with more IT awareness than many of us did when we finished our degrees in computer science. It may not be true IT knowledge, but that makes it even more difficult to support them adequately. GGUs function in a completely different way than businesses typically do today, and in order to enable a business to take full advantage of those they hire, IT is often the one saying “no you can’t.”
Many in IT still firmly believe that if technology ideas or capabilities are not borne from IT, they must be inherently suspect. But all you have to do is look at where your innovation “cheese” has been moved to (see Mind the Gap – Consumerization of Innovation) and you will quickly realize that to keep up with the GGUs you have to shrug off the corporate technology chains and find solutions that enable the GGUs to work in the ways they want. Remember—your bosses are often GGUs as well.
Beyond these users and their knowledge and expectations lies the grey world of “usability.” Up time is a thing of the past. GGUs expect little to no latency in their technology solutions and watch out if they have to refresh a page just to get updated data. Usability equals efficiency in the mind of the business, and efficiency equals profit.
And it’s not just about mobile devices, remote access, work from home or other entitlements, it’s also about how you support these use cases, ensuring the same high standards you provide to traditional corporate users. Technology and work freedoms are rapidly becoming “perks” to hiring desirable candidates. People are now more than ever the intellectual property of most organizations, and if IT is the blocking force for enablement, you may soon be waving to the GGU who takes your spot on the roster.
The landscape of IT innovation is changing. “Back in the day” (said in my gravelly old-man voice from my Barcalounger wearing my Netware red t-shirt) companies who were developing new technology solutions brought them to the enterprise and marketed them to the IT management stack. CIOs, CTOs and IT directors were the injection point for technology acceptance into the business. Now, that injection point has been turned into a fire hose.
Think about many of the technologies we have to consider as we develop our enterprise architectures: tablets, smartphones, cloud computing, application stores, and file synchronization. Because our users and clients are consuming these technologies today outside of IT, we need to be aware of what they are using, how they are using it, and what bunker-buster is likely to be dropped into our lap next.
Sure, you can argue that “tablets” had been around for a number of years prior to the release of the iPad in 2010. Apple’s own Newton Message Pad in 1993 is often the first device defined as a computing tablet. HP, IBM and others developed “tablets” going back to 2000 based on the Microsoft Tablet PC specification. These did gain some traction in certain industries (construction/architecture, medical). However, these were primarily converted laptops with minimally innovative capabilities that failed to gain mass adoption. With the iPad, Apple demonstrated the concept of consumerization of innovation by developing the platform to the needs of the consumer market first, addressing the reasons why people would use a computing tablet instead of just pounding current corporate technology into a new shape.
Now, IT has to deal with mass iPad usage by their users and customers.
Similarly, cloud services have been used in the consumer market for over a decade. It can be stated that many of the services users consume outside of the enterprise are cloud services (iTunes, Dropbox, Skype, Pandora, social networking, etc). As a consumer of these services, the user gains functionality that is not always available from the enterprises they work for. They can select, download and install applications that address their specific needs (self-service anyone?). They can share files with others around the globe. They can select the type of content they consume and how they communicate with others via streaming audio, video and news feeds. And don’t get me started on Twitter.
And this is the Gap IT needs to close.
We have tried to show our user population and our business owners the deficiencies in these technologies in terms of security, availability, service levels, management and other great IT industry “talk to the hand” terminology. We’ve turned blue in the face and stamped our feet like a 2-year-old in the candy isle. But has that stopped the pressure to adopt and enable these technologies within the enterprise? Remember, our business owners are consumers too.
IT needs to give a little here to maintain a modicum of control over the consumption of these technologies. The tech companies will continue to market to the masses (wouldn’t you?) as long as that mass market continues to consume. And we, as IT people, will continue to face that mounting pressure and have to answer the question: “Why can’t we do that?” The net is that the pendulum of innovation is now swinging to the consumer side of the fulcrum. IT is reacting to technology instead of introducing it.
To close this Gap, we need to develop ways of saying “yes” without compromising our policies and standards, and do it efficiently. Is there a magic bullet here? No. But we have to recognize the inevitable and start moving toward the light.
My best advice today is to be open-minded to what users are asking for. Expand your acceptance of user-initiated technology requests (many of them may be great ways to solve long term issues). Become an enabler instead of a CI –“no”. Adjust your perspectives to allow for flexibility in your control processes, tools and metrics. And, most important of all, become a consumer of the consumer innovations. Knowledge is power, and experience is the best teacher we have.
At the recent GreenPages’ Summit, I presented on a topic that I believe will be key to our (for those of us in IT management) success as we re-define IT in the “cloud” era. In the past, I have tried to define the term “cloud,” and have described it as anything from “an ecosystem of compute capabilities that can be delivered upon demand from anywhere to anywhere” to “IT in 3D.” In truth, its definition is not really that important, but how we enable the appropriate use of it in our architectures is.
One barrier to adopting cloud as a part of an IT strategy is how we will manage the resources it provides us. In theory, cloud services are beyond our direct control. But are they beyond our ability to evaluate and influence?
IT is about enablement. Enabling our customers or end users to complete the tasks that drive our businesses forward is our true calling. Enabling the business to gain intelligence from its data is our craft. So, we must strive to enable, where appropriate and effective, the use of cloud services as part of our mission. What then is the impact to IT management?
There are the obvious challenges. Cloud services are provided by, and managed by, those whom we consume them from. Users utilizing cloud services may do so outside of IT control. And, what happens when data and services step into that void where we cannot see?
In order to manage effectively in this brave new world of enablement, we must start to transition our methodologies and change our long-standing assumptions of what is critical. Sure, we still have to manage and maintain our own datacenters (unless you go 100% service provider). However, our concept of a datacenter has to change. For one thing, datacenters are not really “centers” anymore. Once you leverage external resources as part of your overall architecture, you step outside of the hardened physical/virtual platforms that exist within your own facilities. A datacenter is now “a flexible, secure and measurable compute utility comprised of delivery mechanisms, consumption points, and all connectivity in between.”
And so, we need to change how we manage our IT resources. We need to expand our scope and visibility to include both the cloud services that are part of our delivery and connectivity mechanisms, and the end points used to consume our data and services. This leads to a fundamental shift in daily operations and management. Going forward, we need to be able to measure our service effectiveness end to end, even if in between they travel through systems that are not our own to devices we did not provision.
This is a transition, not a light-switch event. Over the next few blogs I hope to focus some attention on several of the gaps that will exist as we move forward. As a sneak peak, consider these statements:
Consumerization of technical innovation
Service-oriented management focus
Quality of Experience
“Greatest Generation” of users
Come on by and bring your imagination. There is not one right or wrong answer here, but a framework for us to discuss what changes are coming like a speeding train, and how we need to mind the gap if we don’t want to be run over.
Accedian Networks today announced the release of its Version 5.5 software, which is now available on its MetroNID® and MetroNODE 10GE™ solutions.
This latest release embedded in Accedian’s MetroNID and MetroNODE 10GE solutions enables operators to perform Y.1564 testing with multiple simultaneous flows from a single device directly from the cell site. By using multiple flows to different destinations, service providers can test different services at the same time and thereby save time, money and OPEX.
The addition of TWAMP-Lite as a second Layer 3 testing option provides further flexibility to the operators and allows Layer 3 performance monitoring with any standards compliant monitoring tools.
“This release validates our leadership position in the market and affirms our commitment to continually be bold and innovative,” said Patrick Ostiguy, CEO of Accedian Networks. “As consumers insatiable demand for all things mobile continues to put pressure on the network, and as carrier Ethernet is the technology of choice for mobile operators and service providers, we are pleased to deliver the most innovative and effective solution to meet, and exceed, the needs of our global customers.”
