Ebook Review - Hybrid Cloud: Driving a Business

Transcription

1 Hybrid Cloud: Driving a business Shifting away from manual management 4 ebook

2 Stuck in first gear The time and budget IT managers devote to maintaining infrastructure continues to grow. Often, servicing immediate needs comes at the expense of offering long-term business solutions. Today s business can t afford to continue operating like this. Automating some of the process makes managing an infrastructure simpler so that IT leaders can take a more proactive approach to meeting business needs. Effectively managing a hybrid cloud solution will help you add value to and for the business. In this ebook, we will uncover the specifics of how a hybrid cloud solution can transform IT management so that you can become the leader your business needs. We will compare traditional and hybrid requirements with respect to three critical areas: how you ll govern the system, the management you ll need, and what your management opportunities will be. page 2 of 27

3 A traditional infrastructure isn t enough Businesses rely on IT infrastructure. It is the backbone of our e-commerce sites, communication applications, database storage solutions and so on. Enterprise solutions that are exclusively on-site may offer the highest level of security and control of the data within your infrastructure, but these types of solutions have their limitations. As more and more of your budget is tied up in supporting your existing system, technology has grown more advanced. We are asking our infrastructure to work harder and faster with greater constraints. Resources are more precious than ever. We need a new solution. Cloud computing, when connected to your own physical infrastructure, gives you the best of both worlds a hybrid cloud. page 3 of 27

4 HR IT OPS MKT Speaking up is a value opportunity Many line-of-business (LOB) leaders have leapfrogged over IT managers and have begun pursuing their own infrastructure purchases. They then assume that they can simply thrust the resulting patchwork of technology onto you. But because LOBs don t have a deep understanding of the technology, these purchase decisions are proving ineffective and costly in the long run. It s important that you as an IT leader steer the ship and set a cloud plan early on to ensure a smooth transition to a hybrid environment. How often is IT left out of the conversation? BACK TO introduction page 4 of 27

5 HR IT OPS MKT CLOSE X Speaking up is a value opportunity 36% of business leaders manage cloud services on their own, without IT. 1 Many line-of-business (LOB) leaders have leapfrogged over IT managers and have begun 36% pursuing their own infrastructure purchases. They then assume that they can simply thrust the resulting patchwork of technology onto you. But because LOBs don t have a deep understanding of the technology, these purchase decisions are proving ineffective and costly in the 1 long Source: IBM run. Center It s for important Applied Insights, 10/01/2013. that you as an IT leader steer the Under cloud cover: How leaders are accelerating competitive differentiation ship and set a cloud plan early on to ensure a smooth transition to a hybrid environment. How often is IT left out of the conversation? BACK TO introduction page 4 of 27

6 strategy 5 considerations for forming a strategy Goals Operation Transition Processes Metrics 03 5TIPS page 5 of 27

7 strategy 5 considerations for forming a strategy Goals Operation Transition Processes Metrics Goals Constructing a framework What is it that your business is trying to achieve? If the goals aren t clearly defined, this is an opportunity for you to participate in creating a vision for your business. Are there particular areas that are currently inefficient or are there new spaces that you want to participate in to reach your customer? Your framework should be based on reaching these business outcomes. Focus on enabling applications that support your business. page 6 of 27

8 strategy 5 considerations for forming a strategy Goals Operation Transition Processes Metrics Transition Get the necessary people involved Take a holistic look at what the transition will mean across your organization. How the cloud support things like data platforms, applications and new business models? Knowing this will help you understand which other units need to be involved in the deployment process. page 7 of 27

9 strategy 5 considerations for forming a strategy Goals Operation Transition Processes Metrics Metrics Set up some milestones Set targeted and associated metrics that you will use to evaluate progress towards your business goal. Take an incremental, success-driven approach. What you want is a road map where you can use your metrics to call out the milestones towards successful cloud adoption. page 8 of 27

10 strategy 5 considerations for forming a strategy Goals Operation Transition Processes Metrics Processes Lighten your load Establish the processes and policies that will help manage a hybrid cloud environment. Old procedures might not be applicable to this new environment, since many of them may now be automated or dropped altogether. You should ask yourself which processes in the cloud still need to be done manually. Delegate the nonessential ones to a cloud service provider. For more on this topic, download the Why wasn t IT consulted? page 9 of 27

11 strategy 5 considerations for forming a strategy Goals Operation Transition Processes Metrics Operation Allocating pieces of your cloud Take a look at organizational management concerns. In terms of demand management, the flexibility of cloud means that you can easily reshuffle computing resources if a group isn t making use of it. You can manage capacity more easily by taking advantage of a hybrid cloud s on-demand scalability. If a particular group needs more capacity, you re not bound by a finite set of resources. You can simply purchase more or less capacity as needed and give it to them. A hybrid cloud s interoperability also means that managing changes is simpler because they can be partitioned so that each development environment is unaffected by a change to another. Use this insight to determine which cloud capabilities make the most sense for your business. page 10 of 27

12 It s up to you now get the right mix of support As you become an IT leader, it ll be your responsibility to ensure that the technology choices provide the right level of reliability, scalability, and integration with the existing infrastructure. No longer will you just fulfill LOB requirements. Instead, you ll be a proactive service developer. This doesn t mean you won t need some level of organizational support. You ll still want to collaborate with LOBs and encourage their participation in selecting the right technology mix. They ll help you make selections that are consistent with their business priorities. They ll also help you identify the requirements and metrics for. It s also a good idea to involve your security and compliance group. They ll make sure company policies, as well as industrial and government regulations, are all met. page 11 of 27

13 Moving towards a purchase decision Eventually, you ll need to specify the parameters that will influence your purchase decision. A good starting point is assessing whether the cloud service provider is truly able to partner with you in executing a businessbased strategy. From there, take a look at how effective and seamless the service management will be. Investigate what the automation options are: are there preexisting libraries or catalogs of deployment patterns? Know whether cloud deployment assessments and are available. Make sure there is a consistency with open platforms and standards. And finally, compare the costs not just acquisition costs, but also maintenance, subscription and scaling costs over the long term. If you can lead the purchase decision, you can also lead the of the technology and what it can deliver. page 12 of 27

14 Automation isn t self-reliance You still have to operate. When everything is in-house, all of the responsibility is on you. Your team has to account for, and deliver, all of your infrastructure needs. In a hybrid cloud environment, however, you share some of that responsibility with a cloud service provider. This removes some of the more tedious management requirements from the hands of your own IT team. In turn, you must become proficient in a new set of that allow both your public and private clouds to operate seamlessly. BACK TO page 13 of 27

15 Tools for cloud 01 Management Tool 03 Developer Tool 02 Builder Tool 04 Intermediary Tool Filling your toolbox Building operating proficiency will help streamline business decisions. So as you deploy a hybrid cloud solution, look for operating that make your daily requirements much lighter than a traditional setup. page 14 of 27

16 Tools for cloud 01 Management Tool 03 Developer Tool 02 Builder Tool 04 Intermediary Tool 01 Management tool To see it all on one dashboard Start with a platform that has a way of viewing traditional services such as incident, problem and change management through a single pane of glass. page 15 of 27

17 Tools for cloud 01 Management Tool 03 Developer Tool 02 Builder Tool 04 Intermediary Tool 02 Builder tool To automate the nuts and bolts Look for a tool that automates both provisioning and application management along with their associated software, infrastructure components, relationships, policies and service levels. You want to have some connective tissue to your system that ll help everything work together. page 16 of 27

18 Tools for cloud 01 Management Tool 03 Developer Tool 02 Builder Tool 04 Intermediary Tool 03 Developer tool To churn out applications in short order You ll need a management tool that enables seamless movement of different parts within the software development lifecycle. The benefit will be increased flexibility for application developers. page 17 of 27

19 Tools for cloud 01 Management Tool 03 Developer Tool 02 Builder Tool 04 Intermediary Tool 04 Intermediary tool To be your helping hand Find intermediary software that can act as a gatekeeper between you and your cloud service provider. It should assist you in a handful of tasks: choosing the right platform to best suit your organizational needs, deploying and integrating apps across multiple clouds, and providing you with a choice of competing services, giving you the freedom to move between platforms. page 18 of 27

20 A new script Your will simplify and streamline the management process. As a result, you ll reduce the need for your people to do tedious maintenance work. Beyond learning the skills to use these, though, you will also need to develop scripting skills that allow you to perform drive automation and new pattern identification. This will be a bit of a departure from the mind-set that you re used to in dealing with infrastructure. It will require deeper procedural analysis in conjunction with an appropriate workflow tool. Mastering these and abilities will increase your value in the long run. page 19 of 27

21 The new IT landscape and you As keeping the lights on becomes a more automated and simplified process, transitioning to a hybrid environment makes sense for a business trying to be more agile and cost efficient. Your role as an IT manager will change in a positive way for both you and your organization. You will be able to be proactive in implementing the appropriate architecture to solve larger business problems. BACK TO page 20 of 27

22 Cloud in the real world Having an IT leader at the helm of a hybrid cloud can benefit a wide array of industries. Typically, what you ll find is that these challenges revolve around cost flexibility and infrastructure optimization. The possibilities aren t limited to what is covered here. This is just a sampling of the kinds of things a hybrid cloud can help you pursue. Apply what we ve discussed so far, and remember to be proactive when it comes to evaluating your own opportunities. page 21 of 27

23 01 Challenge Adding short-term capacity The Wimbledon tennis championship, for all of its prestige and draw, is put on by a small business, the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC). They needed a new and exciting way to engage with fans. That meant placing heavy demands on their infrastructure to support nearly instant analysis of player performance and match statistics on the grounds, on their web and across their social properties. Since the demand, of course, is limited to the short window of the tournament, any additions to their on-site technology would sit wastefully dormant for most of the year. But because of its scalable environment and accelerated service delivery, AELTC s IT leaders strategically deployed a hybrid cloud with a customized set of. The solution was able to accelerate service deployment by 50%, and millions of customers around the globe had a new way to experience every serve Challenge Getting up to speed quickly A retail business needed to supplement its compute capacity on demand without investing in additional on-site equipment. Supplementing their existing infrastructure with physical units would have been more costly and would have slowed down development time. Instead, the company s IT team rapidly deployed a cloud solution. They were then able to perform heavy, nightly analytics on their transactions almost immediately after deploying in the cloud. This helped them drive inventory and boost sales. 03 Challenge Sharing data outside of your own firewalls An automotive business needed a way to run data and analytics applications that could be shared externally. What they wanted to do was pull data from electric cars and share it with automotive dealers and insurance companies. The company s IT leaders were able to store data in an enterprise-grade hybrid cloud that had the appropriate security in place to allow safe sharing with their partners. This not only gave them a much more connected ecosystem to operate in, but also led to a more innovative relationship. 2 Source: IBM Software Case Study. Wimbledon Championships enriches fans online and social media interaction, page 22 of 27

24 04 Challenge Creating ways to collaborate internally A manufacturing company was able to add value to their business through storing appliance data on the cloud. IT leaders wanted to improve their customer service offerings. They deployed a cloud solution to track and predict failures by analyzing data from tens of thousands of appliances. Working with their marketing team, they were able to use the insight they gathered to provide better customer support and improve both their sales and marketing efforts. 05 Challenge Securing data and developing applications A financial services firm that was sensitive to security concerns wanted to find a way to create a richer experience for their customers. Their IT leaders proactively combined on-premise customer data with cloud-based social media data to better understand customer sentiment, preferences and needs. From there, they were able to respond with new applications created in the cloud, as well as with targeted offers and impactful customer support. page 23 of 27

25 The managerial net-net The important takeaway is that your new managerial role will revolve around looking for new opportunities to add value to your organization. Is cloud management a serious concern? Of course, you will still need to know what is going on with your systems on a deeper level. But the benefit of a hybrid cloud is that you don t have to do all of the heavy lifting yourself. Instead of worrying about the lack of manpower and saying, We can t do that, you can feel empowered to suggest, Why don t we do this? You ll know that you have the technological resources to achieve a faster response to builds, analytics and workload demands. Best of all, the day-to-day work becomes a lot more manageable for all of your people. And that is reason enough to consider deploying a hybrid cloud. page 24 of 27

26 CLOSE X 56% of infrastructure organizations see the cloud as a means to reduce manual effort and operational costs. 3 56% 30% see it as a means to improve speed to market. 3 3 Source: Corporate Executive Board, published 10/03/2013. Is cloud management a serious concern? The managerial net-net The important takeaway is that your new managerial role will revolve around looking for new opportunities to add value to your organization. Of course, you will still need to know what is going on with your systems on a deeper level. But the benefit of a hybrid cloud is that you don t have to do all of the heavy lifting yourself. Instead of worrying about the lack of manpower and saying, We can t do that, you can feel empowered to suggest, Why don t we do this? You ll know that you have the technological resources to achieve a faster response to builds, analytics and workload demands. Best of all, the day-to-day work becomes a lot more manageable for all of your people. And that is reason enough to consider deploying a hybrid cloud. page 24 of 27

27 Separating the leaders from the rest A successful hybrid cloud means that IT leaders can be far more responsive, providing much-needed applications and services to internal and external customers in a matter of hours or days as opposed to weeks or months. Businesses can scale to meet demand while keeping infrastructure costs in check. And they can understand the customer through new channels and share insight in ways that weren t possible before. IT leaders can now help sense and respond to customer needs, adding richer value to the success of their business as you can to yours. While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to deploying or managing a hybrid cloud, the reality is that many IT leaders depend on a number of customizable solutions. Shifting management will allow you to tackle your own set of challenges. But staying rooted in conventional infrastructure will only keep your business in the cycle of trying to catch up to internal demands, to your competition and to your customers needs. As you continue to develop your cloud expertise, your business can race to the front of the pack. BACK TO Introduction page 25 of 27

28 For more information on other cloud topics, visit: The Steps to Cloud Expertise Series at ibm.com/cloud/expertise page 26 of 27

29 Copyright IBM Corporation 2014 IBM Corporation Software Group Route 100 Somers, NY Produced in the United States of America November 2014 IBM, the IBM logo, and ibm.com are trademarks of International Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the web at Copyright and trademark information at ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml Java and all Java-based trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. This document is current as of the initial date of publication and may be changed by IBM at any time. Not all offerings are available in every country in which IBM operates. THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED AS IS WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND ANY WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF NON-INFRINGEMENT. IBM products are warranted according to the terms and conditions of the agreements under which they are provided. The client is responsible for ensuring compliance with laws and regulations applicable to it. IBM does not provide legal advice or represent or warrant that its services or products will ensure that the client is in compliance with any law or regulation. page 27 of 27