Dr Katy Ring of analyst firm Bathwick Group looks at the role being played by outsourcing firms in the Cloud Computing revolution.
In the technology sector 2009 is the year of Cloud Computing: in Q1 this year CSC, HP and IBM all appointed individuals responsible for developing strategy in this area, respectively Brian Boruff, Russ Daniels and Erich Clementi. From the customer perspective Cloud Computing is interesting and offers potential benefits but the risks associated with adopting immature offerings lend a certain air of ennui to many discussions about Cloud Computing with CIOs.
The first problem that needs to be overcome is the creation of a globally referenced definition to clarify what we are all talking about. “Cloud” is now used to describe anything involving virtualisation technologies, anything delivered as-a-service, anything that exists as a hosted service, and pretty much every Web-based application. From a supply-side marketing perspective that is great, since pretty much everything can be attached to the cloud label. From the buy-side perspective this all simply creates confusion and feeds cynicism; and that is not good for the industry.
In the US (which is where most of the vendors developing cloud products and services are headquartered) the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has produced a definition which may become the global definition. It is as follows:
Cloud Computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.
The essential characteristics of the model are:
- On demand self-service provisioning;
- Ubiquitous network access;
- Multi-tenanted architecture;
- Elasticity of usage;
- Pay per use.
NIST has also come up with four deployment models:
- Private Cloud: operated solely for the use of a single organisation;
- Community Cloud: operated for a specific community that shares infrastructure;
- Public cloud: a Cloud infrastructure made available to the general public;
- Hybrid cloud: the Cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more clouds (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability (e.g., Cloud bursting).
In terms of these deployment models it seems reasonably straightforward that classic IT outsourcing vendors such as CSC, HP-EDS and IBM will evolve their capabilities to deliver private and community clouds. Meanwhile vendors such as Google and Amazon will primarily operate public cloud services. The really interesting development lies with the operation of hybrid cloud services, and this is really where outsourcing vendors evangelising cloud services should be focusing long-term strategic development because this is the game-changing arena for outsourcing.
To date, however, both IBM and HP-EDS have chosen to focus on the evolution of their private cloud services, basically by announcing incremental progress from traditional hosted or outsourced services to private cloud services. For example, IBM CloudBurst 1.1 is an integrated workload service delivery platform that supports the IT department’s adoption of ITSM. This is an announcement that is practical, but not groundbreaking.
In contrast CSC’s Boruff is keen for CSC to play more of a thought-leadership role in the development of cloud services. Which is not to say that he is looking to sell cloud consulting services (although these are available from CSC), but rather that given CSC’s strength in the US federal sector and its defiant technology neutral stance there is a differentiated route for CSC to take in the development of standardised and trusted cloud services.
Going back to the hybrid Cloud model, which is the model most organisations will have to manage eventually, Boruff wants CSC to become synonymous with the standardised and trusted orchestration of cloud services. Partly, this will be driven by CSC’s work with US federal clients, but also by participation with NIST to determine standard interfaces for the secure and transparent management of data in hybrid clouds. CSC has already just launched its Cloud Orchestration Services which it describes as a best-of-breed approach for cloud services integration that provides clients with service level management, remote monitoring, reporting, auditing and data transparency.
In direct competition with IBM and HP-EDS, CSC has also launched its Trusted Cloud Services, which is a portfolio of private Cloud desktop, computing, storage, and network infrastructure services available on a just-in-time, on-demand basis with full security, service-level guarantees and industry-compliant services.
It will be at least five years until secure and standard interfaces are in place to ensure the trusted and transparent management of hybrid clouds. In the meantime organisations will need to solicit RFIs from vendors for private cloud provision to establish:
- in which country the data centre is located that delivers the service;
- where the data is stored;
- regulatory compliance relevant for the service you are planning to use;
- that the service provider operates cloud services according to the security and governance models your enterprise requires;
- that you will get the level of service localisation you require as many global and Indian-heritage vendors have developed services primarily for the American market.
One thing that is clear already is that Cloud Computing presents a radical shift in the delivery, management and procurement of IT services from the vendor community. Outsourcing Service Level Agreements may never be the same again…
Dr. Katy Ring is a Principal analyst with the Bathwick Group -www.bathwick.com, developing Bathwick’s new Global IT Services research programme. Highly regarded internationally as an analyst with insightful and challenging views on the development of the IT services market, Dr Ring has been in the IT industry for 21 years. During this time she has been engaged to review European business strategies in the outsourcing and managed services markets working with small executive teams in both vendor and end-user organizations. Dr Ring has also written dozens of reports on the IT software and services markets on topics including: Remote Infrastructure Management, SOA, On Demand service delivery, Software as a Service and Hosted Services.
Latterly with NelsonHall, heading their IT Outsourcing program, Dr. Ring spent 12 years at Ovum leading research into the opportunities for emerging software and services markets as well as developing the company’s Outsourcing Practice. Prior to her tenure as a Principal analyst and Practice Leader at Ovum, Katy was a journalist with publications such as Computer Weekly and Computergram, and was founding editor of Software Futures.
Dr Ring holds two degrees: an Honours degree in politics, philosophy and history from the London School of Economics and a PhD in the popularisation of science from the University of Kent at Canterbury.
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