The platform for business innovation

Q
The current move to the Cloud seems like the IT ‘endgame’.
Do you think that’s right, or are we just in the next phase of the
endless IT cycle?

A
It’s probably not an ‘endgame’ as something else always comes along. In some ways, it depends where you are starting from. Some newer businesses were born on the cloud and here I can point, as an exhibit, to the recent IBM acquisition of SoftLayer, which leverages a unique set of technologies to deliver applications in a cloud-model that is both public and private, virtual and bare-metal.
Other businesses have legacy systems that could mean an end state that’s a mixed or hybrid cloud that would need a careful migration. Why? Because IT is keeping the lights on as it goes – performing the operation of migrating business workloads to the cloud whilst the patient is awake so to speak.

Q
What’s different about this IT revolution, compared to previous
IT milestones?
A

I see a move in the operational balance of businesses, we’re moving the IT centre of gravity of resources from the back office to the front office: ecommerce, CRM, mobile, social, analytics. Meanwhile Cloud helps to automate the back office as much as possible whilst we re-orient the business to deliver the extended and agile cloud-centric front office capabilities.
Q
Where do end users start when it comes to trying to understand
what’s possible and what’s practical in the Cloud world?
A
A few years ago the trend was to look at cloud by function. For example moving email to a cloud environment as it was faster and more cost. When utilised effectively, cloud capabilities offer numerous opportunities to drive business innovation. Recent technology and social connectivity trends have created a perfect storm of opportunity for companies to embrace the power of cloud to implement business models that optimise, innovate and disrupt.
Q
In general terms, what is the likely impact on end users’ data
centres – should they be prepared for ‘gentle’ changes, or
massive upheaval?!
A
The data centre will change, and the people and process changes required will be more dramatic. The workload for mobile and social business applications is much more variable than traditional IT services and demands faster development lifecycles. Consequently greater flexibility in workload placement is needed to match provisioning of IT capacity to meet peak workloads. This in turn demands greater standardisation of IT hardware and software platforms, virtualisation and automation to respond to changes in workload and rapid delivery of new services. The technology silos within IT will disappear as operations staff work across the multiple technology domains of compute, storage and networking. There still needs to be servers somewhere to run your cloud – rules will define where and how that needs to be delivered.
Q
How can end users hope to cope with running their legacy
IT infrastructure alongside the introduction of Cloud/managed
services?
A
Hybrid computing is a natural consequence of cloud adoption for all of our clients. What end users will have to decide upon quickly is if they want to manage relationships with multiple cloud service providers themselves, or delegate this responsibility to a single trusted third party. This role is increasingly referred to as a cloud service broker or cloud aggregator and it is becoming a popular choice for business. The challenge we see is if these third parties are only going to support service acquisition or are also going to offer a single point for support or even liability.
Q
Indeed, what is the best approach to dealing with the
challenges and opportunities of Cloud?
A
Many technology companies position cloud computing as THE answer to all IT challenges. The client presents a problem in its server environment and the answer is “cloud.” While cloud technologies are playing an ever-more-important role in enterprise IT environments, not all workloads are suitable for cloud migration, so there will remain a part to be played for a traditional on-site, non-virtualised computing stack. In order to deal with the challenges and opportunities of cloud, a business will need to have a clear view on what it wants to achieve. Rather than teaming with a company that considers cloud to be the solution to virtually all computing problems, engage with a third-party provider that offers you a choice in the areas of scope, service levels and deployment. Your provider should offer deep expertise in developing a strategic vision and in cloud migration. This expertise is necessary to provide you with an educated and honest view of which workloads are suitable for cloud migration and which should remain in their traditional, physical state. You can then minimize the challenges and maximize the opportunities that cloud can bring to your business.
Q
Specifically, is it easy for end users to work out if they should be
going the Public, Private or Hybrid Cloud route?
A

I don’t think it’s necessarily about the definitions but more about what is right for the business. Broadly, my advice is for end users to work with providers that offer the full spectrum of options – whether that is private, public, hybrid, SaaS, PaaS, IaaS - because that way they can guarantee that the solution will meet their desired business outcomes. If you go to a public cloud only provider the answer will be public cloud, which may not be the best fit for the demands of the business.
Q
What do end users need to consider when looking at Cloud/
managed services?
A
The Cloud Standards Customer Council (CSCC) is one body leading efforts to educate users and consumers about the aspects to consider when adopting cloud services. The CSCC has released several papers that cover areas such as security, what to look for in services contracts, patterns of adoption with various case studies.
Q
How should they set about addressing the challenges of
integrating existing IT infrastructure with outsourced IT?
A
Integration is an issue that I don’t believe the industry has truly faced up to yet. We are seeing plenty of examples of point-to-point application integration between on-premise IT and cloud services, IBM’s own WebSphere Cast Iron being a great example. But take this approach to its natural conclusion with multiple providers and you’ll need to focus on master data management as well as consistent data access controls, federated identity management and hybrid service management. IBM is in a very strong position to apply its deep expertise in Service Oriented Architecture to solve some of these tough problems.
Q
What are the potential pitfalls to look out for when migrating
applications from in-house to the Cloud?
A
Cloud is undoubtedly a better fit for some workloads than for others. IBM has a comprehensive workload analysis technique it uses with its clients, which scores systems for their suitability for cloud-based delivery. There is then a rapid migration service which can move typically around 50% of a client’s server estate without the need for reinstallation or replatforming.
The sweet spots, however, are obviously new workloads that capitalise on the new business opportunities presented by mobile, social and big data analytics where demand profiles are difficult to ascertain and where new skills are missing or not justifiable to provide yourself.
Existing systems which are difficult to virtualise or have extreme non-functional requirements are certainly not going to be a good fit. One reassuring trend is the substantial increase in the number of our clients who are prepared to put sensitive and production data onto our shared services, showing that cloud is no longer just for development and test. We’ve had to put a lot of effort into reassuring clients about the security controls and policies we put in place for our services to achieve that, but it appears to be paying off.

Q
Open technology seems vital to ensure the success of the
Cloud? Is this something that Cloud/managed service providers
are embracing, or do end users need to be aware of those
proprietary ‘tweaks’ that will lock them in?!
A

IBM considers open standards and solutions to be essential to the development of the cloud services eco-system as it enables creation for an open marketplace, simplifying adoption, enabling innovation and delivering value for the consumer. The market for cloud services is relatively young, and the potential for lock-in to particular technologies and APIs is still as present as it was in the data centre. Lock in to a particular supplier is a subject that users need to consider carefully, balancing the benefits against the risks. As the market develops, portability of services will become feasible and to this end IBM is closely involved with associations to define standards for portability and interoperability.
Another growing concern is inherent within public cloud vendors, whilst it’s easy to sign-up and run workloads in a public cloud environment, and thus agile in many dimensions, the reverse also holds true, you can only move in the strategic direction of that vendor and ultimately that may restrict your business flexibility.
Q
BYOD seems to be an accepted approach to IT, but what
challenges does this place on the data centre?
A

The two main challenges I see for the data centre are enablement – having the appropriate applications and supporting the wide range of devices available and of course, security. In a sense an easy way to consider this is that you have extended the edge of your DC to the myriad of devices and edge technologies in your IT landscape. How much control do you have over those devices, their state and shared usage with the end-user/owners preferred applications, some of which may have known/unknown vulnerabilities?

Not a day goes by without some headline, e.g.: http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/04/android-security-hole/ but then, we are often piggybacking our employee generosity aren’t we?

Often they bought the device, they insure it, they pay for airtime/data and they even charge the devices outside of the corporate utility bill or carbon footprint!
Q
In particular, how does the IT department go about deciding
how it retains control of the overall environment at the same
time as enabling employees to ‘do their own thing’?
A
It’s important to make a distinction between allowing employees to bring their own devices, and giving them access to business systems. Allowing employee choice of device is good – it can reduce costs while increasing user satisfaction – but enterprise applications need to be controlled, governed and secured to ensure that only the right users have access to the right content, and all data is protected from loss or theft of the device.
Q
Security and compliance seem to be major BYOD issues?

A
Security is probably the biggest issue when it comes to extending enterprise data onto mobile devices, there are so many ways in which mobile devices can be compromised and data lost. But there are also proven, mature solutions that provide capabilities such as mobile device management, secure mobile applications, remote wipe, and secure tunnel to data, etc. So compliance can be enforced and security ensured, even for data on employee-owned mobile devices. It’s important to start with a clear policy on mobile device usage with a good understanding of the threats, and then apply the technology to ensure compliance with this.

Q
Similarly, budgeting is difficult in a dynamic, BYOD environment?

A
I don’t think budgeting has to be difficult – you need to make some decisions up-front, e.g. whether the company contribute to the cost of the handset, and who pays for the contract, data and calls – but after you’ve established the basic costs associated with the device and put in place mobile device management technology, it should be relatively straightforward to estimate how this will change as user numbers increase or decrease.
Q
If you could start with a blank sheet of paper, what would the
next generation data centre look like to best enable the world
of Cloud and BYOD?
A

If I was starting with a blank sheet of paper then the question for me would be how does the next generation data centre best enable the ‘Internet of Things’?
I think it’s fair to say that we are well and truly in the world of digital convergence and that means the data centre needs to be able to manage the vast quantity and speed of information that comes from this convergence – mobile, social, analytics and cloud.
Cloud will empower the Internet of Things (IoT) by providing elastic computing power, storage and networking. The huge amount of data generated from IoT, its volume, variety, velocity and veracity, can be analysed in the cloud with big data solutions to gain insights and patterns of usage and behaviour of machines and humans. This business intelligence in turn allows us to predict forthcoming growth in data demand and deploy additional resources accordingly.
A good example of this is how IBM manages the four grand slams, especially Wimbledon. Cloud resources are being shared and provisioned to meet peaks in demand efficiently and rapidly, while at the same time, new dimensions are being added to the fans’ experience through interactivity and analytics-based services.
Q
There seems to be very little suspicion of Cloud and BYOD – is
this right, or are there disasters waiting to happen – providers
going out of business/being targeted by hackers etc.?
A
BYOD is happening, often whether organisations like it or not. Similarly even with corporate owned desktops, often employees are using “free cloud apps”. Our own CIO office has policies prohibiting the use of DropBox, Skype, etc…in a sense, it’s moved past a question of whether to allow it, onto the challenge of how to
effectively manage, secure, enhance and extend what mobile users can do.
I think you’re right that there’s not much suspicion, but there are
major security concerns and a lot of uncertainty about which approach makes most sense for business. It’s an area that’s still moving fast with some interesting technology advances that are
really helping. A challenge for the organisation is to ensure that it provides suitable collaboration facilities and understands what its employees want in this ‘new world’. At IBM we have new online training courses that all our employees undertake to ensure they understand how to work in the digital world.
Q
Is it really efficient to try and upgrade an existing data centre
infrastructure to deliver business benefit from Cloud and BYOD,
or is it not simpler (and less expensive) in the long term to start
from scratch?
A
The answer is different for the data centre compared to the IT infrastructure it hosts. New data centres are designed to be far more energy efficient than even those built 10 years ago. However, building new data centres is expensive and renovation remains the primary choice for many users. What we are seeing is clients closing older, less efficient data centres and consolidating workload into fewer, more efficient data centres.

For IT, the story is different in that existing infrastructure is usually highly customised to support the service level requirements of the applications it supports. In this case users are typically deploying new standardised and modular infrastructures that provide greater flexibility and are designed from the outset with the automation necessary to support the new more agile workloads.
Q
What are the compelling reasons to keep the data centre
in-house?
A
There are many workloads that are too challenging to be hosted by external providers. Examples include highly customised applications with tight integration between multiple application components and business processes, where service requirements cannot be met by providers, or where compliance and audit requirements require in-house delivery.

Q
What are the compelling reasons for outsourcing?
A
One of the compelling reasons to adopt public cloud services is to tap into the innovation and breadth of business capabilities now being offered as services. New business services can be piloted easily: quickly evaluating if the test worked or failed – or testing the emerging new channels to engage with clients rapidly created to develop new income streams.

Q
Are you able to share one or two examples of how IBM has
helped a customer to take advantage of the Cloud world?

A
TP Vision is using cloud to make its smart television service better for its consumers in a converged world. There is a strong emphasis on making the end-user experience simpler, for example in how software in the TV set is managed. The approach has a dynamic benefit in making it more economic and flexible to create new services for viewers.
UniCredit is transforming its IT infrastructure that supports all of its commercial and private banking activities in Europe. As a result of this transformation, UniCredit will gain dramatic efficiency and flexibility with the introduction of new service models and a cloud-based infrastructure for its data centres.

As a result, UniCredit clients will be able to access new and innovative services that meet the growing demand for sophisticated financial services in Europe. Cloud analytics will make it possible for UniCredit to better predict and understand trading in financial markets, manage spending and provide innovative customer solutions.
Q
Any other comments?
A
I’d like to really draw out here that cloud has revolutionised the way organisations can operate. It has driven incredible new efficiencies, made collaboration easier and has been the platform for new business innovation.
Take Sunderland City Council for example, who are providing a city-wide cloud computing platform that will not only meet the Council’s own needs, but will also stimulate economic growth for the benefit of the whole city by reducing the technological investment
barriers experienced by start-ups and local companies wishing to expand operations. This is a whole new ecosystem way of working – thanks to the cloud.
The temperature of business is changing. It’s possible to metabolise new data pretty quickly and keep the blood pumping to the parts of the company that need it most. Open standards and open architecture help in this flexibility of rooting resources to where they are required the most.

Those companies that are embracing change will work in an agile way; revisit their business strategies and partner for their success. Cloud isn’t an IT ‘endgame’, cloud enables the game of business to be played.