Using cloud
services within a modern IT environment is inevitable for many organisations, as the benefits
of greater flexibility, agility and lower cost are proven. But CIOs need assurances they can
continue to provide the same levels of service in a mixed environment of cloud and legacy IT as
they have done by relying on advanced tools to manage their in-house systems.
At a roundtable debate hosted by Computer Weekly, in association with Oracle, IT leaders met to share their experiences of managing service assurance and systems performance in cloud and legacy IT environments.
Several delegates agreed that the key potential benefits of moving to a cloud-style
infrastructure are:
"Managers will be in front of their display and be able to provision [IT resources] themselves. However, two things are preventing me from offering self-service – the mindset is not there, although the technology is; and the business does not like the idea of being charged anything,”
“In many ways it is just a rebranding issue, and having access to spurts of power and additional CPU and storage etc,” said Gough.
Industry definitions are often irrelevant, but what is critical is the way organisations look to exploit opportunities offered by cloud services.
“When we look at trusted cloud services, we should be thinking, ‘What can I do that gives me an edge?’," said Gough.
But don't forget that it is still possible to run services cheaper in-house.
“With some licences it is cheaper to run the hundredth server than the first. If I bring services in-house, I will have better total cost of ownership over three years,” he added. “What can you do better than I can do, and what can I do better than you can do? See what’s best for the business in terms of making money."
Richard Sarwal, senior vice-president of product development at Oracle, agreed there is nothing new in the cloud, but he said improvements in networking, bandwidth and shared storage enable fast provisioning.
“You have to monitor lifecycle management if you want fast provisioning, and for deep diagnostics you must have the right tools. There is very little that is new, but what is new is the speed at which the environment can change,” he said.
Alex Lorke, head of e-business engagement and delivery at Royal Mail Group, said: “It is a question of scale. You can be better off provisioning yourself if you have got scale. Cloud is an opportunity to break down the cost model.”
He said cloud can also be used as a commercial negotiation tool.
“The contract framework can be hard to change, but cloud can be used to bring competitive pressure,” said Lorke.
“The way it presents to the user can have the biggest impact on their experience. The transit from the datacentre to where the user is and how the data interchanges between the datacentre and the customer can affect experience” he said.
This is particularly true for highly computational data, and Gough said that input/output performance is often overlooked and not seen as being as important as application delivery.
“Networking and bandwidth do impact on your performance,” he said.
IT leaders contemplating moving to the cloud are concerned that there should be no degradation of service. One delegate said the potential benefits of cloud need to be explored within the context of most people being knowledge workers.
“Knowledge is in separate spreadsheets on different databases and the challenge is trying to pull everything together. We have to shift to a cloud environment, as there is no money to spend on capital, but the fear is losing control of the systems, so service management and what you expect in terms of service delivery is vital,” he said.
The physical location where data is stored is also relevant in choosing the right cloud service as for some organisations datacentres must be in the UK.
“It is a legal issue [for some] – datacentres must be in the UK. It is an issue with US-owned cloud providers as we can’t have external law enforcement agencies executing warrants against our data,” said one delegate from a UK police force.
Manuel Restrepo, head of PEMSA service centre at insurer BNP Paribas Cardif, said location is important because data is key for banks. “Part of my role is to create innovative solutions across Europe and Russia, but the data still needs to be here,” he said.
“If you are trying to integrate applications between public and private cloud, good luck. I expect to see the majority of large companies primarily looking at private clouds for fast provisioning and chargeback in a standardised environment,” he said.
For many organisations, the reality is they are using multi-supplier services, and the challenge of the cloud is how to make it work in such a complex environment.
“Integration is not impossible, but it is hard,” said BT's Partabh.
But integration should be reversible, and exit clauses should be an important part of cloud contracts.
“You need to have somewhere else to go," said one IT leader at the event. "Can the cloud truly be a utility if we can’t use it or understand it as a utility?"
Lorke said some IT departments may see cloud as a threat. “The 'credit card moment' comes when the IT department knows services can be sold directly to the business, and this is seen as a threat because of the control and governance issues around this,” he said. “It is important to examine the IT department and what IT professionals do.”
At a roundtable debate hosted by Computer Weekly, in association with Oracle, IT leaders met to share their experiences of managing service assurance and systems performance in cloud and legacy IT environments.
- Chargeback – the ability to reclaim usage costs directly from users;
- Self-service – for users to turn resources on and off themselves on demand;
- Elasticity – whereby computing resources can be scaled up and down on demand.
"Managers will be in front of their display and be able to provision [IT resources] themselves. However, two things are preventing me from offering self-service – the mindset is not there, although the technology is; and the business does not like the idea of being charged anything,”
What cloud means for you
IT leaders agree that the cloud means different things to different people, but understanding what it means for your organisation is vital.“In many ways it is just a rebranding issue, and having access to spurts of power and additional CPU and storage etc,” said Gough.
Industry definitions are often irrelevant, but what is critical is the way organisations look to exploit opportunities offered by cloud services.
“When we look at trusted cloud services, we should be thinking, ‘What can I do that gives me an edge?’," said Gough.
But don't forget that it is still possible to run services cheaper in-house.
“With some licences it is cheaper to run the hundredth server than the first. If I bring services in-house, I will have better total cost of ownership over three years,” he added. “What can you do better than I can do, and what can I do better than you can do? See what’s best for the business in terms of making money."
Richard Sarwal, senior vice-president of product development at Oracle, agreed there is nothing new in the cloud, but he said improvements in networking, bandwidth and shared storage enable fast provisioning.
“You have to monitor lifecycle management if you want fast provisioning, and for deep diagnostics you must have the right tools. There is very little that is new, but what is new is the speed at which the environment can change,” he said.
Alex Lorke, head of e-business engagement and delivery at Royal Mail Group, said: “It is a question of scale. You can be better off provisioning yourself if you have got scale. Cloud is an opportunity to break down the cost model.”
He said cloud can also be used as a commercial negotiation tool.
“The contract framework can be hard to change, but cloud can be used to bring competitive pressure,” said Lorke.
Private cloud performance
Gough said his IT environment is nearly 100% virtual and the firm has learned that one danger of a private cloud is “lazy code syndrome” – badly written software that can degrade the user's experience.“The way it presents to the user can have the biggest impact on their experience. The transit from the datacentre to where the user is and how the data interchanges between the datacentre and the customer can affect experience” he said.
This is particularly true for highly computational data, and Gough said that input/output performance is often overlooked and not seen as being as important as application delivery.
“Networking and bandwidth do impact on your performance,” he said.
IT leaders contemplating moving to the cloud are concerned that there should be no degradation of service. One delegate said the potential benefits of cloud need to be explored within the context of most people being knowledge workers.
“Knowledge is in separate spreadsheets on different databases and the challenge is trying to pull everything together. We have to shift to a cloud environment, as there is no money to spend on capital, but the fear is losing control of the systems, so service management and what you expect in terms of service delivery is vital,” he said.
The physical location where data is stored is also relevant in choosing the right cloud service as for some organisations datacentres must be in the UK.
“It is a legal issue [for some] – datacentres must be in the UK. It is an issue with US-owned cloud providers as we can’t have external law enforcement agencies executing warrants against our data,” said one delegate from a UK police force.
Manuel Restrepo, head of PEMSA service centre at insurer BNP Paribas Cardif, said location is important because data is key for banks. “Part of my role is to create innovative solutions across Europe and Russia, but the data still needs to be here,” he said.
Barriers to the cloud
Oracle's Sarwal said the barriers to cloud adoption include regulatory compliance, data location and integration of the diverse number of applications.“If you are trying to integrate applications between public and private cloud, good luck. I expect to see the majority of large companies primarily looking at private clouds for fast provisioning and chargeback in a standardised environment,” he said.
For many organisations, the reality is they are using multi-supplier services, and the challenge of the cloud is how to make it work in such a complex environment.
“Integration is not impossible, but it is hard,” said BT's Partabh.
But integration should be reversible, and exit clauses should be an important part of cloud contracts.
“You need to have somewhere else to go," said one IT leader at the event. "Can the cloud truly be a utility if we can’t use it or understand it as a utility?"
Lorke said some IT departments may see cloud as a threat. “The 'credit card moment' comes when the IT department knows services can be sold directly to the business, and this is seen as a threat because of the control and governance issues around this,” he said. “It is important to examine the IT department and what IT professionals do.”
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