THE AGILE IT PLATFORM

Cloud Scars: Lessons from the Enterprise Pioneers

June 28, 2011

Dave RobertsVice-President, Strategydave.roberts@servicemesh.com@sandhillstrat@servicemesh

ServiceMesh Background Enterprise provider of a governance, security, and automation platform that enables a

Continuous Software Delivery Lifecycle. The results is faster software cycle times, reduced complexity, and lower cost to get from conception to production.

Customers include some of the world’s largest and most sophisticated companies in: Financial services Health care Consumer Other IT-intensive industries

Global presence with headquarters in Los Angeles and offices in Austin, London,New York City, Sydney, and Washington D.C.

3X revenue growth in 20103rd consecutive year of profitability

Seven Common Self-Inflicted Cloud Wounds

1. Failure to recognize the scope of organizational change2. Leaping before looking3. Failure to simplify4. Failure to understand attorneys and vendor management5. Taking vendors at face-value6. Cloud addiction7. Failure to take policy into account

1.Failure to Recognize the Scope

of Organizational Change

“Cloud” is not a technology problem.

It’s a people problem.

Typical Cloud Starting Point

IT Department

Limited Offerings

IT Department

Self-Service Portal

Create service offerings

Developer

Business units are tempted to bypass IT.

IT Department Reality

IT Department

Com

pute

Net

wor

k

Stor

age

Really Need to Examine the WholeSolution Delivery Lifecycle

IT DepartmentCustomer Sales Marketing BusinessAnalyst

Developer

Business Unit

Optimize the overall Solution Delivery Lifecycle

Solution: Embrace Collaboration

IT Department

Developers ApplicationArchitect

ProductManager

2.Leaping Before Looking

Often, companies decide that if cloud is “good,” they should jump in

with both feet from the start.

Do you have a cloud strategy?

Does it have phases?

You’re going to learn a lot.

Your organization is going to need time to adapt.

You’re going to have to choose service providers and that will

take time.

You’re going to need to evaluate your current application portfolio and develop a remediation strategy.

3.Failure to Simplify

Modern applications have a lot of dependencies throughout the

lifecycle.

BuildingMonitoring

SecurityOperating Systems

HardwareBackup

Etc.

Many of these dependencies aren’t cloud-compatible.

Use cloud as an excuse to simplify moving forward.

Standardize.

Standardize ruthlessly.

X8610 Gbps Ethernet

NAS and iSCSI

Eliminate everything else that adds complexity.

Replace systems that can’t be automated or scale.

“Stateless boot” through app configuration.

Standardize (ruthlessly) up the stack, towards PaaS.

Two Benefits

1. Simplicity enhances probability of success.

2. Contestability lowers costs.

4.Failure to Understand Attorneys

and Vendor Management

Enterprises don’t run(for long)

on credit cards and expense reports for critical services.

At some point, contracts must be negotiated.

That will take time.

It will take a long time.

It will take far more time than you ever thought possible.

6 months

5.Taking Vendors at Face Value

Lots of products.

Cloud Washing

Many existing tools cannot make the jump to cloud.

Too low-level

No sense of chargeback

Low-level automation only

IT Operations Automation≠

Business Agility.

Lots of services, too.

Beware cost claims.

Machine arbitrage is thin.

vs.

Beware cloud providers bearing management tool gifts.

Beware management tool vendors bearing cloud gifts.

Thar be lock-in lurking everywhere.

6.Cloud Addiction

When you buy a new hammer,

suddenly everything looks like a nail.

Some applications aren’t suitable.

Some may never be suitable.

Some applications may be cost effective in external clouds for a

while…

…but then become more expensive as they scale.

The typical issue is network charges.

But this applies to any billed resource that can’t be predicted

well or limited.

Hybrid cloud with mobility is a winner here.

Most think about scaling out to external cloud…

… But the right answer might be to scale up to internal cloud.

Mobility is key.

Constantly review and monitor.

7.Failure to Take Policy Into

Account

Self-Service Portal

+Orchestration

Diverse User Base with Hybrid Clouds Creates Governance Holes

Development

Operations

Hybrid Clouds

ProductPlanning

Simple role-based access control is not enough.

ProductPlanning

Development

Operations

Advanced Policy Management

1 Create policies

2 Enforcement and Audit

Hybrid Clouds

IT SecurityAudit /

Governance

Seven Common Self-Inflicted Cloud Wounds

1. Failure to recognize the scope of organizational change2. Leaping before looking3. Failure to simplify4. Failure to understand attorneys and vendor management5. Taking vendors at face-value6. Cloud addiction7. Failure to take policy into account

Dave RobertsVice President, Strategy

Email: dave.roberts@servicemesh.comWeb: http://www.servicemesh.com/Company Twitter: @servicemeshPersonal Twitter: @sandhillstrat

Thank you