Clouded judgment, slip in the rain

He was one proud adopter of cloud technologies and had moved almost all applications to the public cloud. It was a case study written about and discussed in forums and publications. He was hosted, flown across cities by the provider to talk about his experience and give advice on why everyone should consider the cloud. His stature had grown and he advocated the use of clouds for scalability, lower TCO, variability of cost, almost like the poster boy that the industry was looking for and had found one in him.

I met the CEO of that company last week and engaged him in some small talk on the business and how my cloudy CIO friend was doing ? The CIO had reverted all applications back to the on-premise data centre in a hurry. One fine day the cloud provider declared an outage and it just happened to be the day when the load was high; the revenue impact was substantial. The CEO had then warned the CIO to take care of such eventualities. Then of all things the hosted gate pass application stopped working.

Last week was one with unseasonal rain which surprised everyone with every falling drop. Across multiple discussions with different groups in formal and informal settings, adoption of cloud was omnipresent. How many of you have adopted the cloud for your workloads ? Which apps would you move to the cloud in the future ? Why is manufacturing so averse to adopting the cloud ? Even ERP is now available on the cloud ! Vendors in some discussions offered to conduct a “Cloud readiness assessment”.

On the table were many views on all kinds of cloud: highly virtualized data centres masquerading as private clouds, to Infrastructure, Platform and Applications as a service. All flavours of solutions and orchestration engines including a couple which promised to manage hybrid clouds. Voices raised incidents of hybrids not working effectively or seamlessly, leading to clouds not working with random and frequent outages, leaving the CIO smarting with no real recovery option except to wait it out.

In a discussion, taking examples from Sales Force Automation and some ecommerce applications doing well, CIOs from manufacturing were challenged to find business cases within their industries and organizations. None forthcoming, the vendors provoked the group to stop hugging servers and let go. Chastened the group retaliated and one CIO raised a question to a hardware vendor: “Have you move your ERP that runs your factory and supply chain to your Cloud ?” Sheepishly the answer came “no”.

Many vendors will sell the cloud with financial metrics that belie any rational thought; cost of variable fractional CPU saved and hundreds of MB of storage across 17 applications adds up to some cost, or the additional hour spent by the engineer over a weekend to ensure that the full backup was successful. Do we really pay that way such that we can apply microeconomics to calculate real savings ? I have yet to come across anyone who did and saved big bucks. Decision between capital investment and operating expense is a CFO call.

Coming back to the gate pass application, why is it such a critical application ? Entry and exit of every person, vehicle and goods from the factory premises depends on it. It was the most innocuous and the most critical application for continued operation of the factory. Amidst the lot of hue and cry, the CIO had no option but to come down to terra firma. He admitted that he should have been pragmatic in his approach and not moved everything to the cloud. DR to the cloud was not envisaged and there too laid his folly.

Everyone is experimenting and exploring the cloud in some shape, form or avatar. Many have moved non-critical workloads or external apps; not many references of other kinds of legacy or ERP type apps for largely centralized enterprises. Hybrids remain experimental for now while start-ups are enjoying the benefit of no upfront investments. Pure play technology companies find clouds viable, the rest of the old and large businesses continue to tread cautiously and take a step-by-step approach to the cloud.

You don’t slip in the rain that way !

CIOs beware, CIOs rejoice

The hall was brimming with people, hardly a seat empty and many standing with their back to the wall. Safe capacity of the premises was pegged at 5000; if there were more, no one paid heed. The session was to be broadcast live and streaming media on screens across the venue. It was not a show on how to get rich quick, nor the speakers had a magic formula on how to lose weight, the speakers were global IT industry icons and leaders who draw crowds when they get on stage with their charisma and speeches.

The audience comprised of CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, in fact CXOs across countries, industries, global and local companies, big and small; many were accompanied by rising stars from their teams. It was a big event spread over 4 days that makes it one of the largest. Partners, system integrators and consulting companies invest their time and money annually to network with customers, solicit new ones and also hear about new offerings that typically get announced in such events. As a bonus, you get to see what competition is up to.

We got off to a great start with a few announcements and partnerships between past adversaries which was a significant milestone that helped the industry and customers. The star speaker did not show up, but most stayed put. The session however took a direction that had many in the audience surprised. The collective energy level suddenly dropped and to bring up the intellectual level in the room, many started playing with their smartphones. A few dozed off which was quite expected, but there were many who listened attentively and took notes.

The speakers had started explaining the step by step process on how to provision a virtual server on the cloud with various options; how to migrate from one platform to another, how to upgrade a few technology components, and how to benefit from the new offerings. The people awake and taking notes were not all IT folks, a large number were users with no technical background or past experience in technology. Were they trying to help their IT folks back home or had a sudden urge to learn cloud server management ?

I met some of them post the session and many more during the evening drinks seeking to unravel the mystery behind their new found love for an IT back office activity which is mostly outsourced. What motivated them to take active interest in something that many CIOs shy away from. I cannot say that the answer surprised me, what did was the extended outcome. The context determines how you view an event and its impact. What would happen when users start provisioning IT infrastructure and services themselves ?

Typical response, how can we allow them to do that ? It’s our job ! They do not know technology, they don’t understand the interdependencies and lack the skills; they should stick to what they know best and come to us when they need something. The IT Relationship Managers will understand the holistic big picture and then get the stuff done. There have been so many instances when they bought some solutions and came running to us when something broke or the project had challenges which were out of their league.

Alternate view, it is good that they are getting into self-service. With interfaces getting idiot proof and general awareness improving, there is no reason for them not to do it. Most of these tasks are easily done by anyone. It takes away a chore from us and gives us time to focus on what matters. Some of the IT team can now move to other value added activities. We are always there in case something was to fail or require deeper expertise or require escalation with the service provider or integration with other solutions.

Which view do you endorse ? The first believes that technology should remain within the IT domain and IT will service requests or provision based on project requirements. The alternate view encourages giving up and offers independence to everyone. The federated model with adequate controls does not necessarily free up many IT resources but creates a perception of self-reliance. Applicability of the model is dependent on enterprise IT maturity and partnership between business, IT and vendors.

Do Clouds really save money ?

The beginning of the monsoon season in Mumbai inspired me to push the boundaries again in quest of the silver lining in the Cloud. Recent events around outages and security across multiple global Cloud pioneers poses doubts on the movement of even non-mission critical applications outside of the corporate data centres. We are not just talking about Infrastructure or Platform as a service, but everything that is the manifestation of the Public Cloud.

Over the last couple of years every offering saw two shifts, first it had to have a Cloud flavour and second around social networking (that is another story); some termed this new euphoria as bubble 2.0 tinted by valuations achieved in recent IPOs. So everyone justified how this time it is different and why it is sustainable. Many large and small enterprise found efficiencies (at least short term), in moving field functions like sales and service, and collaboration on the move, to the Cloud.

 

Leaving aside the debate between public, hybrid and private clouds, the real issue is about the promise of the Cloud irrespective of the vendor, type of cloud offering, or engagement model. The big benefit that every type of Cloud offered was savings, real quantifiable savings or better Total Cost of Ownership. CFOs would agree that TCO is always a good measure for any financial model if all other dimensions remain unchanged.

 

Cloud service providers financial models are contingent on multiple customers adopting their base solutions which give them the efficiency of scale and repeatability. As the number increased, beyond a threshold they start making money. Non-concurrency improves yields, but prices remain the same for customers. So the financial models attempted to capture some efficiency based gains making them look attractive to the prospects.

 

Most discussions got off to a good start with worksheets providing easy decisions. The newness of the paradigm left some questions unanswered, but during the slowdown, these were brushed aside. Some of these were 

1. What happens if the SLA is not met ?
2. Is my data as secure as it is in my current state ?
3. Can I move off to another Cloud if I don’t like something ? How easy is the transition going to be ?
4. As I upgrade internal systems, how do I ensure integration with the external systems does not break ?
5. What recourse do I have if the Cloud Service Provider goes bust ? ...

I will stop here, the list is a bit longer, but you get the point.

 

Business impact due to recent outages and security breaches for some of the smaller customers was significant. Some of them just had to wait and watch with no option. A few had spread the risk across and thus the impact was limited. The big enterprise shrugged and moved on. How does one balance the adverse business impact against the cost savings ? To me this is a bad compromise as everything is subservient to business interest.

 

Weather predictions and the CIO: enough of Cloud Computing

Last month, I was part of a two day gathering (attended by a little less than 100 CIOs) at a great beach resort in the wonderful locales of Goa. It had stopped raining after 20 days of incessant rain, said the lady at the Reception while welcoming us. The next few days were expected to be cloudy, with some sunshine bringing smiles—the CIOs were looking forward to rewind, relax, and network while exploring some serious thoughts on IT during the day. Weather stayed faithful to the prediction—apart from the occasional showers, the sun played hide and seek with the clouds. I could recognize cirrus, nimbostratus and cumulus.

As the conference progressed, it was evident that every IT services and product company (irrespective of what they had to offer), created some connect with cloud computing. We had power management, data center hosting services, servers, virtualization, software, telecom services and some of the global top five IT companies—all talking about cloud computing as the essence of IT. This herd behavior had resonance with hype seen in the late ‘90s around the Web and Internet. Words from the past echoed, “Any company who does not have a Web strategy will be dead in the next decade”. We all know that most of the companies which had only a Web strategy fell off the cliff into the chasm of oblivion. Predictions and promises of the cloudy set mirror the irrational exuberance that was pervasive in the dotcom era.

Do you know what cloud computing is? A rhetorical question; the speaker did not wait for the answer and began his 30 slide presentation starting with what is virtualization. The next speaker added to the misery with green data center and energy efficiency, while acknowledging that IT contributes to only 2% of the carbon emissions. If everyone did their bit, carbon emissions would come down by 0.4%. And, if all of us moved our entire infrastructure to the cloud, maybe that figure will go up to 0.7%. Save the world, move to the clouds. Over the next day, almost everything (from basic definitions to use case models and in between) was pushed down on the hapless audience, which braved the frontal attack while wistfully looking at the sunny sky outside.

Out of courtesy to the speakers and organizers, CIOs continued to field the inane presentations as well as panel discussions on clouds, clouds, clouds, and some more clouds. A resurgent CIO challenged the vendor’s wisdom (on stage) about treating the audience like kindergarten kids. They were challenged on solutions for the enterprise’s current ailments or help for the CIO’s real life problems; not just talk about irrelevant solutions. CIOs broke into spontaneous applause which would bring a politician pride, but evinced no answers from the speaker—again, like the politician. Sections of the audience wandered away after every break, leaving behind a thinning crowd for subsequent speakers. The sun too teasingly invited captives to come out, as the waves’ murmur tortured the spirit. The CIOs saw merit in discussing cloud formation in the skies—no connection with the conference room’s discussion.

With the ecosystem yet to evolve and create meaningful cloud transition strategies for enterprise users, the IT vendors will do a favor by not increasing the hype and aligning to reality. Privately, most vendors acknowledge the fact that clouds are as yet mature, since the concept is surrounded by a lot of questions that require hard answers like security, geographical data residency, privacy, licensing, and many more. Their organizational compulsions prevent them from being honest in a public forum—lest it be seen as them not toeing the party line. Thus, vendors and consultants will do well to listen to their customers before charging ahead on their favorite subject for now, cloud computing.

As the conference was coming to an end, a tweet escaped the room, “Cloud in the sky, cloud in the room, my mind is cloudy too after listening to so many speakers on cloud computing”. Personally, I enjoyed counting the clouds outside than the utterances inside.

It's monsoon time again and raining clouds

Yes, it’s raining, and the country is covered with rain clouds for which everyone is thankful; after a year when everyone was worried. It’s as if the economy’s slowdown and lower budgets had a link with the reduced rainfall. You must be now wondering about the relevance of monsoon for a CIO. Please have a bit of patience for the ‘Oh I See’.

Someone is launching a book on the support models and delivery on a specific cloud (amongst the oldest service offerings globally before the term ‘cloud computing’ was coined). This book is derived out of thousands of support threads from customers, analysis of response times, efficacy of the model, and the pitfalls in putting your business on the cloud. No, the book is not about cloud bashing, but more about the reality of what customers faced—either in their ignorance, or due to lack of definitions and omissions.

With enough being said about why everyone (CEO and CFO included) should go cloud watching or about CIOs being beaten to death about adoption of cloud computing, the proponents of this disruptive technology are growing. This often leaves the CIO wondering about why he doesn’t get it and looks up for insight from Almighty—only to see some more clouds!

Recently, I met up with a cloud evangelist from the world’s largest cloud company. He was patiently explaining to the CIOs in a step-by-step way—on how to get started, where to get started from, and what to realistically expect. Now that made everyone sit up and listen with attention! Following the discourse getting into a debate with selected CIOs, the reality dawned on everyone that various XaaS models (where X = application, platform, and infrastructure, for now) do have limitations and challenges for any large enterprise to function in a hybrid model using cloud and internal capability.

Almost everyone who has adopted the cloud has used it for non-critical applications, test and development environments. In many cases, organizations use the cloud on fringes to connect road warriors or partners. Concerns remain around security, manageability, data retention, geographical statutes, service levels, and the evolving experience around how clouds behave. One point that had me jumping out of the chair after reading the above mentioned book’s synopsis was the gap between perception (and reality) around turnaround times for issues, patching and security management in an IaaS model. With 20+ hours to resolve issues and no patch management service, I would not even bet my test or development environments to the cloud.

Every industry evolution goes through the hype curve, and for now, cloud is still on the rising edge. With the number of companies announcing cloud based services (which do require large investments), I wonder if the future will see a cloud burst akin to the dotcom bubble burst that we experienced a decade ago.

I would stay cautiously optimistic until then, and learn to live in the rain !

Clouds bring hazy weather and El Nino is a worry

Over the last few months, I have been asked to participate in many surveys and discussions on Cloud Computing. Everyone is attempting to find when will enterprise customers start adopting this new technology which promises to change the world of IT. There have been debates about public clouds and private cloud infrastructure, as more recently heterogeneous clouds. The first time I gained some insight about Cloud Computing, it was when I read the wonderful book "Big Switch" by Nicholas Carr. I thought I understood what he talked about, and then I met so many vendors and consultants. Every time I look at the sky, see the Clouds, but the picture remains hazy.

The term itself has become a kind of misnomer with vendors and consultants twisting it around to suit their reality and service/product offering. Based on various reports and anecdotal references across the web, it would appear that tapping the wonderful world of Cloud Computing is as simple as buying a subscription to a public cloud service and your computing woes will disappear before you could utter (what else) "Cloud Computing" ! Software vendors want you to believe that their SaaS offerings are an offering of cloud infrastructure. Almost all the big IT vendors, be it red, blue or any other color have announced investments into clouds. PE funds are asking startups to create services around clouds. Optimism over understanding and reality ?

In my context which is validated with many other peers in the industry, the reality for every enterprise is the heterogeneous nature of the current computing fabric comprising many operating environments, databases and middleware running across all types of hardware. Bandwidth is as yet pricey in the Indian context and not yet ubiquitous. Data privacy concerns as yet remain unaddressed. So the context of leveraging public clouds as yet remains challenged not to forget the paranoia about the data being hosted on shared infrastructure.

What does this mean for the CIO ? Simply put, listen to every view and opinion on how your enterprise can leverage the wonderful world of Cloud Computing. Look at your current reality and then set forth to leverage what you have with a mix of the standard and now maturing technologies like virtualization and clustering (or grid) to create your own "private cloud" which will definitely bring you efficiency within your existing investments.

As the marketplace matures and vendors begin to understand how enterprises consume computing power, the traction is likely to improve and we will start seeing real life scenarios of how this technology can start driving efficiencies within IT organizations as well as deliver better TCO and ROI.