Journey to Cloud Computing via Multitanent Private Cloud

Three Stages of this journey is defined as follows:

Stage 1: Consolidation and Virtualization

Stage 2: Optimized Virtualization and Automation

Stage 3: Federation

Stage 1: Consolidation and Virtualization

Consolidation is a critical application of virtualization, enabling IT departments to regain control of distributed resources by creating shared pools of standardized resources that can be rationalized and centrally managed. Many IT departments already are consolidating underutilized computing resources by running multiple applications on a single physical server with virtualization technologies.

Virtualization technologies enable the abstraction and aggregation of all data center resources in order to turn them into a unified logical resource that can be shared by all application loads. Virtualization decouples the physical IT infrastructure from the applications and services being hosted, allowing greater efficiency and flexibility, with any effect on system administration productivity handled by tools and processes.

Enterprises that want to begin moving toward cloud computing can start with internal, self-built clouds, utilizing virtualization for consolidation and automation.

Stage 2: Automation and Optimized Virtualization

In this stage, virtualization optimizes IT resources and increases IT agility, thus speeding time-to-market for services. The IT infrastructure undergoes a transformation in which it becomes automated and critical IT processes are dynamic and controlled by trusted policies.

Through automation, data centers systematically remove manual labor requirements for the run-time operation of the data center. The ultimate goal is alignment of operations with business needs through creation of a utility computing model.

Stage 3: Federation

Creation of an open, competitive marketplace, in which IT capabilities in a utility model can be procured, allocated, and provisioned over the Internet on demand by the consumer, with self-service and metering, requires federation.

Federation-linking disparate cloud computing infrastructures with one another by connecting their individual management infrastructures-allows disparate cloud IT resources and capabilities-capacity, monitoring, and management-to be shared, much like power from a power grid. It also enables unified metering and billing, one-stop self-service provisioning, and the movement of application loads between clouds, since federation can occur across data center and organization boundaries, with cloud internetworking.

-Cheers

More Taxonomy on Cloud - Forrester

Forrester believes, Looking through the current industry hype around the cloud computing that it is sustainable, long-term IT paradigm. Underpinned by both technology and economic disruptions, the cloud will fundamentally change the way technology providers engage with customers.

However, many customers are suffering from "cloud confusion" as vendors' marketing stretches cloud across a wide variety of capabilities.

To help, they have recently developed a new taxonomy of the cloud computing markets (see graphic) to give vendors and customers clear definitions and labels for cloud capabilities. With this segmentation in hand, cloud vendors and users can better discuss the challenges and benefits of cloud computing today and in the future.

I think the Public Cloud part is very clear to many but the variants of  Private cloud and VPC are causing lot of confusion.

I also think a detailed drill down on Private cloud is required as well...

-Cheers

Cloud - Still confused or figured it out!

Recent study suggests 36% percent of companies surveyed had at least one SaaS or cloud-based application and an additional 25% planned to move a business application to the cloud.

Only 13% had no plans to add a cloud or SaaS-based project. The top reason 39% had not yet moved into cloud computing? They were unclear on the potential benefits of cloud computing.

The amount of information--and hype--about cloud computing has been so intense in the IT industry for the last couple of years that it seems almost impossible for someone in the industry to not understand the basic concept and benefits of cloud computing.

There is no source of information that can comprehensively answer whether cloud computing will be a financial benefit for a specific company or not. So, at some point, CIO(s) at companies that don't adopt new technology easily have to roll up their sleeves and figure out how a new technology does or doesn't match their requirements.

It's like buying a first car for your kid; you look at the ads, check out some deals, but you're basically going through the motions because you know you're going to buy something cheap. If you're talking about the family car, or say you want a Mercedes or something in that class, you're going to sharpen your pencil and do a little more homework on pricing and reliability and long-term finances.

-Cheers

New rules for new era...Dynamic, Open and Intelligent

Gartner sees three new rules that will be constants into the new era. CIOs are urged to apply these rules to lead their business forward. These new rules include: smart control, intelligent business, and IT dynamism.

Smart Control
Users now have access to unprecedented IT choices. They can access them how they want, where they want, on whatever device they want.

Users can achieve incredible things without the IT department, but they can only maximize their IT capabilities with the IT department. Smart control is about managing technology in tighter alignment with business goals by loosening the grip on IT.

Intelligent Business
IT leaders will be in a position to shape how intelligence will be gathered, shared, consumed, and used by everyone in their organization, as well as how that information will be turned into intelligence.

To support an intelligent business, people in the organization will need to have access to the full spectrum of information that supports questions. If IT leaders do not help, they will be locked out because employees will find the information from whatever source they can: transactions, video, mobile activity, tweets, search activity, blogs, text messaging, and social sites.

IT Dynamism
Under the old rule, IT was tasked to develop solutions that delivered a specific business function and often had a "one size fits all" mentality. IT made deep, single-vendor commitments and pushed a core application to the far edges of the organization. The residual effects of this approach are being felt now - rigid systems where change is time-consuming and costly.

In the new era, we routinely need to start projects without knowing all of the requirements, We know that if we wait we'll be too late to market. We also know that the dynamic nature of intense global competition forces us to redo previously well understood requirements at the drop of a hat. IT dynamism is the new rule because it means 'build to change'."

Role of New CIO - Gartner

Gartner analysts told an audience of more than 7,000 IT leaders, at the Gartner Symposium-2010 in Orlando:  “Firms now have different expectations of their CIO!”

"This new type of CIO won't ask first what the implementation cost is, or whether something complies with the architecture, but whether it's good for the organization," "They will train their teams to think like a business executive, asking first 'is this valuable?', and only then asking 'how can we make this work?'

The new CIO and their team will be experimenting with new ideas, working with product development, marketing and public relations to come up with ways of delivering more value directly to the external customer.

Power of Unprecedented Choice
CIOs might not recognize choice in action, when what they feel is loss of control - IT losing control of the infrastructure, control of applications, and control of devices. IT leaders should rethink whether it's really a loss of control, or whether it is choice in action.

The Wild Open World
People leave a trail of what they've done online, leaving a rich body of information about their interests, intentions and activities. The data, much of it unstructured, contains nuggets of wisdom buried in various formats such as videos, podcasts, and blogs.

Shift from Output to Outcome
For IT, outputs are measured in terms of projects completed, budget run-rate, servers deployed, network uptime, etc.

Outputs are proxies for cost and risk. Cost is important, but it is only one direction of a CIO's compass. In contrast, by focusing on outcomes, CIOs will also address value and innovation.

Cheers

News of the week and Analysis

Results – TCS, Wipro & HCL – Almost all IT services company move synchronously – Good growth QoQ and YoY, Loss due to Forex rate changes , higher attrition and margin improvements plans.

Consulting from India – IT giants like IBM, Accenture and Capgemini wants to set up large outfits to do consulting as well. What would be success formula?

IT Career – As keep the lights on would get more outsourced to the part of world from where it can be done faster-cheaper and better, enterprises are reorganizing IT departments from silo structure to

The structure which is more aligned to business and having insight into how best IT can help business while utilizing the lowest cost utility IT solutions available anywhere across the world.

Attrition (Indian IT Services Provides) – Concerned with large Wage bills and forced to contain the escalating salary costs companies are willing to let go experienced resources and ready to hire junior resources by paying them more than market rate. Experience density are being evaluated as tools along with high process orientation as optimum solution for standard run jobs.

Hiring – TCS-Infosys to hire almost 90000 resource in coming year. This is good but non-linear models of growth needs to be tapped as well.

Comments ?

Infosys Technologies Q2 Results

Infosys Technologies’ results for the quarter ended September has beat even high market expectations.

QoQ

Consolidated revenue went up 10.1% to USD 1.49 billion versus USD 1.36 billion.

Operating margins improved to 30.2% versus 28.31%.

YoY : In $ terms, Revenue went up 29.6%

Total 1,22,468 employees  on 30^th September, 2010.

Cash, cash equivalents stood at USD 3.9 billion at end-September.

FY 11 Guidance: In dollar terms, it expects revenues to grow by 24-25% at USD 5.95-6 billion.

-Cheers

The Next Generation of IT Service Megavendors...?

Look at this Gartner prediction for 2011 – We are approaching 2011 very soon….

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=741012

(Data from 2004 to 2007)

Challenges that were in 2008 –

The Indian providers will have to address the issue of moving away from resource-intensive revenue growth to a model that provides higher leverage and increases revenue without a linear relationship to head count, which is the situation that exists today. They will have to achieve similar (to the current megavendors) levels of revenue per employee benchmarks to truly achieve megavendor status. Furthermore, they will increasingly have to deal with the business constituency that is often deeply involved in these higher-end projects and develop strong relationships with the business stakeholders.

	2009				2008				2007
	Revenue	Employee	Net Margin		Revenue	Employees	Net Margin		Revenue	Employees	Net Margin
Capgemini	11.7b	90500	7.1%		12.2b	91600	8.5%		12.2b	83500	7.4%
Infosys	4.8b	92688	27.3%		4.66b	85851	27.5%		4.17b	75000	27.9%
Wipro	4.39b	97000	21.0%		4.32b	65000	21.0%		3.65b	45000	21.0%
TCS	6.4b	142000	23.0%		6.0b	110000	19.0%		5.71b	89000	22.0%
CSC	16.7b	92000	6.6%		16b	89000	2.7%		14b	79000	3.3%
Accenture	23b	180000	12.3%		25b	175000	12.9%		21b	170000	12.7%

What are challenges ahead?

-          Last three years growth has stagnated across the board or there is de-growth as well.

-          How do non linear or platform based growth achieved?

-          Low cost along with revenue growth – big challenge – At least reduce cost for customer by 20%-25% over three years.

Comments?

-Cheers

KP's comment on Business model & extending it to IT Servies

Like consumer products; Where we can use 'Freemium' and Complementary models very easily and gain marketshare, Can we use those models for Enterprises?

Will an enterprise buy free or complementary products and get hooked? (Sounds like Open Source!)

Can low cost IT Play a significant role instead of FREE or zero cost? (good idea!)

I think while Infosys and Wipro makes 21-25% operating margins, Cap Gemini makes only single digit profits (6-7%) - There is a big gap (all three have close to 95,000 employees worldwide) and there is huge scope for Indian IT to reduce price (adapt low cost IT) and get huge market share... I think we should seriously look at our options and learn from China.

(I need not ask for comments here...there would be many...!)

-Cheers

Question still remian - Can we use Cisco VBloks within PoD Design?

Saw cool demo of actual automation - orcastration of entire provisioning through self service portal.

Cisco is pushing UCS technology and next wave of utilization is going to be VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructre).

I was surprised to see that Cisco has surpassed Dell in Server sales and holds almost 5%+ market share!

Comments ?

-Cheers
PS: BMC will make lots of money ;) - One need to use almost all of their tools for achiving automation. We need light weight solution as well.

Internet Business Model and Cloud computing adaptation

Internet Business models-

The term ‘Freemium’ is coined using two powerful words ‘Free’ and ‘Premium’. It is a business model where one gives away a core product for free and then generates revenue by selling premium products to a small percentage of free users.

The basis of a ‘complementary’ business model is not new, in fact the usual example is the ability to ‘sell’ mustard to go with the purchase of a hot dog! This doesn’t work for us as we usually expect to get the mustard for free. Try going to a restaurant for a ‘fixed price meal’ that looks attractively priced and see how much you pay for drinks plus coffee or tea. That’s where the real margins are made.

Extremely good reference on Business models –

http://digitalenterprise.org/models/models.html

Cloud Computing adaptation –

If you want to make money by getting people and businesses to ‘buy’ a complementary service then you should have a way to deliver it. Delivering a full live & interactive ‘service’ that has to be able to run independently of the people/business using it as part of their process. In other words there are a whole series of major industry players need to get the Cloud Computing model in place - Apply to maximize the use of their ‘services’ and revenues!

Whether IBM or HP, Google or Amazon, Oracle or Microsoft  - They all want to create the Cloud Computing model as a way of making a better business model for them.

Reference:

http://soa.sys-con.com/node/758906

Comments?

Consistency, Availability and Partition Tolerance

Consistency, Availability and Partition Tolerance:

Why CAP is important –

One  can only guarantee 'two out of three'  -Consistency, Availability and Partition Tolerance. This is real and evidenced by the most successful websites. If it works for them there is no reason why the same trade-offs shouldn't be considered in everyday design in corporate environments.

If the business explicitly doesn't want to scale then fine, simpler solutions are available, but it's a conversation worth having. In any case these discussions will be about appropriate designs for specific operations.

Examples –

What makes following two products a great example is that they are modern designs and implementations of distributed, shared data systems but with two different philosophies regarding CAP:

Google BigTable is a CA system: it is strongly consistent and highly available, but can be unavailable under network partitions.  BigTable has no replication at the database level, rather replication is handled underneath by GFS. (Any comments on Google Fusion Tables?)

Amazon Dynamo is an AP system: it is highly available, even under network partitions, but eventually consistent.  Data is replicated within a single cluster, so even under partitions most data is available, however one node’s latest version might not match that of another, so every reader is only guaranteed to see every write eventually.

Original Presentation by Dr. Eric A. Brewers:

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~brewer/cs262b-2004/PODC-keynote.pdf

CAP Theorem (Good explanation):

http://www.julianbrowne.com/article/viewer/brewers-cap-theorem

Possible CAP Solution?:

http://guysblogspot.blogspot.com/2008/09/cap-solution-proving-brewer-wrong.html

Comments?