Hybrid IT A Low-Risk Path from On-Premise to ITaaS

SOLUTION WHITE PAPER Hybrid IT A Low-Risk Path from On-Premise to ITaaS Increase your options by finding the right mix of on-demand and on-premise IT management tools Bruce Campbell, Principal Solutions Marketing Manager, BMC Software Tony Myers, Senior Product Manager, BMC Software

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 SAAS AND THE JOURNEY TO ITaaS 1 IT SERVICE MANAGEMENT: A CRITICAL PART OF HYBRID IT 2 HYBRID IT IN THE REAL WORD 3 Software 3 Food 4 Medical Devices 4 HOW TO KNOW IF HYBRID IT IS RIGHT FOR YOU 4 A strategic goal to be more current on applications 4 Many distributed users 4 A need to reduce data center management 4 Minimal on-premise data management or monitoring tools 4 A desire to shift budget and spending to OpEx 4 CONCLUSION 4

INTRODUCTION IT as a Service (ITaaS) offers transformative benefits for enterprises. As an entirely service-oriented approach to IT operations and service delivery, ITaaS gives IT the flexibility to choose the ideal solution for each problem, the agility to deploy it more quickly than ever, and the operational and cost efficiencies to maximize its value. The vision for ITaaS is compelling; the way to achieve it can be less clear. Pivoting rapidly from fully on-premise IT to a fully cloud-based model would be tremendously challenging, and disruptive, and in any event it simply isn t possible yet, as many of the IT management tools necessary for full ITaaS are currently available only on premise. Instead of this big-bang approach, leading organizations are using a more rational and gradual approach, adopting cloud technologies in strategic areas as stepping stones to ITaaS. This Hybrid IT strategy lets you gain the best of both worlds by keeping some services on-premise where necessary, and expanding your leverage of SaaS and the cloud over time. The right Hybrid IT strategy will make strategic use of the cloud in the near term while allowing for changing needs in the future in the event of shifting organizational priorities. IT service management (ITSM) tools, which play a crucial role in managing today s more diverse enterprise environments, offer a natural starting point for Hybrid IT. BMC Remedy supports Hybrid IT by allowing customers with traditional, on-premise ITSM deployments to move that strategic application set to SaaS with Remedy OnDemand. Bi-Directional Portability, a unique capability of the BMC Remedy ITSM suite, allows full flexibility and minimizes risk by giving you the ability to move your ITSM suite back on-premise, and back again to the cloud, as needed to meet changing business requirements. In some situations, you can can even move some elements of your ITSM platform to Remedy OnDemand and keep others on-premise. For example, an organization can deploy the Service Request Management (SRM) module quickly through the SaaS model for a rapid and significant impact on the business. In this way, you can: Accelerate the cost, flexibility and functional benefits of the cloud and provide a clear path to ITaaS while continuing to work seamlessly with on-premise ITSM elements Upgrade the components in SaaS independently with your on-premise implementation to fit specific business requirements Explore new ITSM functionality freely via SaaS to adapt the solution to changing organizational, business and technology requirements Minimize risk through Bi-Directional Portability, a unique BMC Remedy capability which allows you to move your ITSM processes from on premise to the cloud and back again depending on business conditions in a way that leverages and protects existing investment and data models This paper discusses how combining cloud and on-premise elements within a single solution can position companies to achieve Hybrid IT now, as a stepping stone to ITaaS tomorrow. We also explore strategies for reducing risk as your organization moves to Hybrid IT. SAAS AND THE JOURNEY TO ITaaS The cloud is reshaping the way IT delivers digital services. Instead of focusing solely on building and maintaining onpremise solutions, IT is gaining new flexibility to identify the best way to solve each problem, whether on-premise or through a third-party provider of SaaS or other services. The advantages of this approach are driving rapid adoption according to Gartner, by 2016 cloud computing will consume the bulk of new IT spend in the enterprise. Moving to SaaS helps IT address key priorities such as easing maintenance and administration, enabling seamless scalability and extensibility, and accelerating deployment. More than just changing the way apps are delivered, this transition also allows IT to shift resources from developing and managing enterprise solutions to acting as a service provider for the business. In a SaaS context, this means brokering individual apps provided via the cloud. ITaaS represents the culmination of this strategy, extending the service-oriented approach to encompass all aspects of IT operations, from business and operations apps to analytics to security. All IT services are delivered via the dynamic infrastructure of the cloud, with simple, self-service provisioning for users based on their desired function, capacity, cost, and agreed level of performance. The expected benefits of this approach are considerable. 1

Improved IT agility IT can shift from developing and managing enterprise solutions to acting as a broker for IT services both internal and third party. Standardized processes help IT achieve better agility to support emerging business needs quickly and effectively. Greater financial flexibility and cost efficiency Costs can be shifted or shared between capital and operating budgets. Increased transparency into consumption, SLA management, costs and chargeback help optimize IT for more efficient consumption. Closer alignment between business and IT IT employees can better align their efforts with services that the business finds valuable. Business customers can self-provision and consume IT services on a simple, consumerstyle model. Some experts predict that by 2020, 60 80 percent of IT will run in the cloud as private data centers gradually disappear. At present, though, ITaaS remains a vision for the future rather than a realistic strategy. For one thing, some elements of IT are not yet ready to be moved to the cloud, with technical requirements or the relative immaturity of the available SaaS solutions dictating on-premise deployment for the time being. While most of the infrastructure stack is available via the cloud today, including compute, networking and storage, other essential operational functions such as monitoring and discovery still require on-premise software for best results. For IT, the journey to ITaaS can begin with Hybrid IT, a strategy to make selective use of SaaS where it makes the most sense for your business. Blending on-premise computing with private, hybrid and public cloud computing, Hybrid IT positions enterprise IT to act as both a solution provider and a service broker as appropriate for each use case. As Gartner analyst Tim Bittman said in a recent webinar, Hybrid IT is the mission and the operational model for IT infrastructure and operations in a cloud computing world. This model is quickly gaining ground; a Gartner Data Center Conference Poll conducted in December 2012 found that 58 percent of respondents already plan to pursue an internal Hybrid IT strategy by 2015, with only 10 percent currently ruling out the approach. IT SERVICE MANAGEMENT: A CRITICAL PART OF HYBRID IT ISTM plays a central role in helping IT manage the diverse vendors, services, internal and external cloud connections, virtual apps and desktops, and other elements of today s enterprise environment. To keep pace with this rapidly changing environment, IT needs ITSM tools that are fully mature, powerful and up-to-date, with ample options to address emerging needs in an agile and flexible manner. By rapidly deploying the elements of ITSM via SaaS, organizations can more quickly realize its benefits to: Optimize costs by introducing and delivering services more efficiently Enable complete visibility into IT costs Reduce risk through the automation of controls and compliance processes Assure quality of service and reduce downtime For companies that have already deployed ITSM, a shift to SaaS-based ITSM can offer more predictable costs, faster time-to-value for new features and upgrades, and the ability to offload infrastructure, updates and availability to the service provider. On a strategic level, moving ITSM to the cloud can be a major advance toward fully cloud-based data center operations to deliver ITaaS. At the same time, though, while some elements of an ITSM platform are clearly well-suited for SaaS deployment, such as helpdesk, incident management, problem management and change management, some organizations may find elements such as discovery and monitoring more operationally sound on-premise due to the proximity of the infrastructure. Other enterprises might make their own different determinations about which elements should move to SaaS and which should remain on-premise. Wherever that line is drawn, it remains essential for all elements of the platform to be fully integrated to function as a single unified solution. BMC Remedy allows the flexibility for IT to move seamlessly between on-premise deployment and Remedy OnDemand delivery based on business needs for a risk-free approach to Hybrid IT. Functional and code consistency between Remedy OnDemand and on-premise Remedy deployments greatly simplifies this migration, from support for 2

application dependency mapping to process and workflow creation, automated change and release management features, and user experience management. Another crucial innovation makes it possible for organizations to leverage the cloud without risk: Bi-Directional Portability. Simply put, Bi-Directional Portability means the ability to seamlessly move elements of the Remedy product line from on-premise to on-demand and vice versa. This portability applies to both licensing and technology. Seamless portability of licensing If you shift from on-premise Remedy ITSM to on-demand delivery, your perpetual licenses can be frozen, with unused pre-paid maintenance applied to subscription costs. If at any time you want to move from the cloud back to on-premise, your perpetual licenses can be unfrozen without requiring back maintenance to be paid; unused prepaid subscription fees can be applied to maintenance moving forward. Seamless portability of data model Data can be moved from on-premise to on-demand and back again without full migration of the product. All customer data and the application meta data is stored in the database and easily transportable between deployment models. The importance of Bi-Directional Portability can t be overstated. Without this capability, an organization can be stuck with either an on-premise or a SaaS model with no simple way to change between the two, greatly limiting your options. With Bi-Directional Portability, you gain the flexibility to address and adapt to future needs as they emerge, from M&A activity to shifts in IT strategy, user needs and business requirements. This should be a primary focus of your conversations with vendors: whether they offer a licensing and data model that supports an easy transition between deployment models for their ITSM tools. Applications that can be moved to a SaaS model are typically implemented in phases. This highlights the need for a solid integration mechanism to enable solutions in this hybrid environment to communicate effectively, including between OnDemand and on-premise systems as well as across SaaS-to-SaaS integrations. This architecture provides ITSM in a hybrid deployment while evolving towards ITaaS. As a result: You can begin moving some or all of your ITaaS solutions to the cloud today instead of waiting for every element of the IT stack to become available in a SaaS option to realize the cost, flexibility and functional benefits of SaaS, while continuing to work seamlessly with on-premise elements. ITSM is an ideal first candidate solution to move to a SaaS model as you begin your journey. You can upgrade parts of the ITaaS solutions at different times, allowing more flexibility and broader options to fit specific business requirements. In situations where you want to adopt only a portion of the ITSM suite, such as the BMC Service Desk module, you can easily start using new ITSM functionality freely via the SaaS model. This allows you to adapt the solution to changing organizational, business and technology requirements, and position yourself to move additional elements into the cloud or not as needs dictate. As the trend toward ITaaS continues, a Hybrid IT deployment will position you far ahead of competitors, with greater agility, responsiveness and viability than those taking a more conservative approach to the cloud. HYBRID IT IN THE REAL WORD As the cloud takes hold even in highly regulated industries like pharmaceuticals and finance, large enterprises are already adopting Hybrid IT models by implementing Remedy ITSM either partly or entirely via SaaS. Software A large software manufacturer in silicon valley employs a Hybrid IT organization to delivery digital services to its employees. They live by the creed that whoever can deliver the services best should deliver them, whether IT or an outsourced vendor. The company has deployed much of the BMC product line on-premise but chose to deliver ITSM via Remedy OnDemand because it suits their need for reduced data center footprint and operational transference. 3

Food A major food manufacturer in the Midwest moved its ITSM platform from on-premise to the cloud to avoid having to deal with the operational complexity of hosting the solution themselves. The company uses out-of-the-box functionality with little customization so they can concentrate on making food rather than more IT. IT now devotes less budget and other resources to system maintenance, and the staff is free to focus on innovative ways to support the business. Medical devices An international provider of medical instruments and devices completed the migration to Remedy OnDemand in a matter of weeks. The change has reduced costs for IT operations while helping IT optimize business service delivery. Employee satisfaction with IT has increased dramatically HOW TO KNOW IF HYBRID IT IS RIGHT FOR YOU While most organizations can benefit from a more SaaS-oriented approach to IT, the characteristics below can indicate that you are especially well suited for Hybrid IT. A strategic goal to be more current on applications A SaaS architecture will help organizations leverage the latest vendor innovations more quickly and efficiently. Many distributed users Centralized data centers that are infrastructure-optimized for hosted services in a SaaS model may be able to support a widely distributed enterprise more efficiently than a private infrastructure. For example, a SaaS security provider can detect patterns of regional threats and can send out alerts or update its solution to respond. A need to reduce data center management As enterprises mature in their ITSM processes and practices, more demands may be placed on the data center infrastructure, including hardware, compute, storage, and network layers. By accessing critical ITSM applications in a SaaS model and having someone else manage your day-to-day data center best practices, you can redirect your focus to higher-value innovation. Minimal on-premise data management or monitoring tools If you don t already have deep expertise in the management or monitoring of your data or data centers, accessing this service via SaaS can yield rapid value without the need to invest more capital or hire and train additional staff. A desire to shift budget and spending to OpEx In many organizations, capital expenditures for software, along with perpetual licensing and annual maintenance models, are falling into disfavor. SaaS service models typically make use of operations budgets. CONCLUSION A service-oriented approach to IT, whether SaaS today or ITaaS tomorrow, is crucial for responding more quickly, effectively, and cost-efficiently to new requirements. As IT organizations continue their evolution into service providers for the enterprise, they need a way to realize the benefits of the cloud while seamlessly addressing ongoing needs, as well as to maintain complete flexibility to shift direction should their strategic, business, or technology requirements change. IT can keep its options open to shift Remedy ITSM elements from one model to another with seamless portability of both licensing and data model. As a result, IT can deliver the value of hybrid IT more quickly, without risk, while taking an important step toward ITaaS. BMC, BMC Software, and the BMC Software logo are the exclusive properties of BMC Software, Inc., are registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and may be registered or pending registration in other countries. All other BMC trademarks, service marks, and logos may be registered or pending registration in the U.S. or in other countries. UNIX is the registered trademark of The Open Group in the US and other countries. Tivoli and IBM are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. IT Infrastructure Library is a registered trademark of the Office of Government Commerce and is used here by BMC Software, Inc., under license from and with the permission of OGC. ITIL is a registered trademark, and a registered community trademark of the Office of Government Commerce, and is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and is used here by BMC Software, Inc., under license from and with the permission of OGC. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 2013 BMC Software, Inc. All rights reserved. *94X03*