Collection 2 of great posts

It's time for my second collection of great posts. These four are, according to me, connected to each other in two ways: career and orchestration. I will link each post up, give you a short break out and add a short comment of mine.

First, when reading; think about how you can be a part of future IT, in the cloud, in hybrid solutions. Customers, whether to an IT department an ITO, MSP or appl operator,  need support from someone they can trust, their IT need to be orchestrated not only techy, its needed to be orchestrated on all levels

Post about the ZDNet post 'Cloud in five years' time'

My post where I explain why the post Cloud in five years' time is important has to wait until next week. I will try to publish it on another site than In Max Mind.

Great weekend!

/Max

Comment to comment & post

My comment to the @cloud_zone comment and the post Cloud computing : Aggregating trust, broker or bust? on ITProPortal by Matthew Finnie.

Short break out from the post:

"An organisation’s ability to ’try before it buy’s with cloud services, in theory, meant that there is no longer the need to employ a consultant to decide which service would work for them. When the confusion around cloud is lifted, the future of the cloud broker may morph again, or even become extinct. If the issue

Orchestration

Read a new post (Cloud Orchestration starts to play its tune!) on 'how to build a cloud' about orchestration pointing on the systems named or aimed as orchestrators. Interesting and wise read. I recommend the site (orchestrated ;) by @BuildaCloud) for those who like to read about cloud and trends.

Short break out:

"Think of cloud orchestration as an amazing CTO with a wand standing at the front of the IT room directing his team of IT people through the symphony of 24/7 consumer facing IT service. The difference is no amount of people and no size wand is ever going to direct the symphony as well as a nice tidy piece of software specifically written for the job.

Orchestration of your cloud is only part of the puzzle, a big part granted but there is more cool stuff I like to see in my clouds, specifically around reporting and billing so I’m going to stick with cloud enablement as my main catch phrase until such time I find something better!"

As you might know I focus more on the assignment than systems when I talk about orchestration so my comment to this was:

Comment to the post 'Are ‘Cloud Hubs’ the Way of the Future?'

Commented the post 'Are ‘Cloud Hubs’ the Way of the Future?' by Sarah Rich on Government Technology.

Short break out:

"The pressure of moving government applications into a cloud-computing environment is rapidly building as government agencies look to cut IT costs. According to a new report, the concept of “regional community cloud hubs” among government entities will greatly change the way state and local government procure cloud services."

Comment to the last post

Hopefully my comment won't disappear now. If, here you go:

"Thanks for a good read. I so agree.

Reproduced and a bit changed (my first one disappeared):

Of course there are concerns about security, who to blame if it fails etc. And no doubt; cloud services should be secure, reliable and available. But my opinion is that cloud won't get people out of work. It's not like the IT is a decreasing market. Technicians are so needed even if adopting cloud services. We should see it as a possibility to evolve; it might end up in a different direction and role. Companies need to have technical experts, they need policies and trusted advisors, and they need orchestrators to wrap up the complete IT delivery.

It seems like discussions often end up in two teams; the tech team vs the management team. We have to silo and come closer; business to tech and tech to business. Just look at the change of the CIO-role the filter to tech and business. CIOs has an important role, has to be strong and should focus to meet the core business needs to a given budget. Some services will be cloud, and some not.

Cloud is in some way a change in IT delivery and we have to adopt some the services sooner or later, or maybe sooner than later.

Fighting a good reliable, secure and available solution is good. Fighting cloud just because you dont like it or just love the way you designed it might be read like retrogressive.

Also; think about working at a cloud service provider quite techy indeed."

'Cloud computing: why all of the vehemence?' by Dan Kusnetzky

Good read: 'Cloud computing: why all of the vehemence?' by Dan Kusnetzky.

Short break out:

"It would be wise of IT and facilities practitioners to focus on where and how new technology or new approaches can be of use to the organization rather than trying to fight them. Mainframes, minicomputers (now called midrange systems), distributed computing, client/server computing and the like are still found in nearly all medium to large organizations. They didn’t go away when a new approach or a new application was adopted."

I did comment it but it seems like the comment was removed. Really don't know why, it really wasn't controversial. Well, it might appear again later. Sometimes it takes a couple of hours.

2012. How about my predictions?!

On Sunday morning 2012 hits us. A lot of lists and posts prevail about predictions in and about IT, cloud, Internet and more. I will give you some of my thoughts. They are based on my experience, things I read and hear off. The text itself is based on my trend notes written in TeleComputing’s Q4 newsletter and is now translated and in some places modified. I’m focusing more on some short basic to think about’s and reminders more than specifics like cloud, Big Data, Eco systems, BYO or social networking. Mine last longer than 2012 and point especially to service providers and the C-series.

A lot of things happening on the IT-market; what’s present, will increase and evolve in the future? Service provider’s needs to better listen and understand its customers core business and the C-series needs to better understand IT and how it can support the companies’ core business. We all have to be better prepared and plan for the future in time.

It’s very important that techniques to deliver IT as a service is secure, reliable and available because the service should be ditto. It also has to be modular, scalable and flexible to be able to support services from different ISV and sources, also through different techniques to different type of devices because of the consumerization trend BYO (Bring Your Own). Though; techniques are ”secondary”, don’t misunderstand me. Techniques are very important for the IT-department, the service provider (Cloud or not). To the customer it is the support to core business, functionality and availability that is important. This creates demand on the actors on the service provider market and IT departments; simple, functional and reasonable invoicing processes have to exist, and most important; the soft services like Service Desk, change management, perceptiveness, coordination and governance have to be excellent. The Orchestrator role is so important. It’s in these areas the settlement of being an actor on the service providing market or not.

Bullets;

The actor is either a service provider or an IT manager/-department. As a CxO; use it like a check list.

• The actor must be able to describe how a service brings benefits for the customer and how it kills the customers’ pains. Customer: “What’s in it for us?”
• The actor must be able to describe and motivate why underlying old techniques need to be upgraded or replaced to meet the future.
• The CIO role is more business- than technique oriented. The technique is the actors pleasant ”concern”, and it should be transformed to the CIO as business.
• The actor should be the customers’ market listener and whisperer. The actor should be a part of and contribute to increase the customers’ efficiency and productivity.
• CxO, not only CIO; you have to understand what IT can do for your business. You have to understand; availability and service hours are not for free.
• The actor should support the customer to be an attractive employer. People, especially young people, now a days looks of what the employer can do for them to succeed. Without good employees you as an employer won’t succeed in the future. Providing an attractive IT environment and policy is an important ingredient to attract the best.
• The actor should be the trusted adviser. Some might say it’s a buzz word but partnership between the customer and the actor is a very important key to successful IT as a Service. But never forget, it happens to often and the service provider wakes up with a horse head in the bed; it really takes two to tango!
• Standard becomes customized, customized becomes standard.
  My prediction is that standard services will increase and customized decrease. Because of economic and integration reasons this change will come, it is too expensive and complex to customize. Companies will customize their organization to the service opposite to the reverse, it’s a change but it has to be done. At the same time the standardized services become more customizable with standardized interface to integrate two or more systems /services.

This is my last post 2011 and I will be back 2012.

May your service provider be good to you next year too.

 

Happy New Year!

BYOD 2 – A possibility for "the cool guys"

In the first part (BYOD 1 – What is, why trend) I wrote about some basics about what BYOD is and why it has become a trend. We also got some information about what vendors, analysts and journalists say and think about it. Now let's look into for whom is BYOD good for: BYOD 2 - a possibillity for the cool guys.

First; I won’t further discuss this but employers who are having a policy which says “here you have some money, go by your own” is to me a employer who don’t have an attractive device policy. They are just struggling to be an attractive employer and have a weak policy and management level, which is controlled by the employees. It will only create an administrative mess. Just think about simple thing like if the employer buys a device not good enough, who’s responsible to return or upgrade it? And when someone ends their employment after 1 month or 1 year, before the depreciation time ends, should the employer give the “so personal” device to someone else? Just skip this way of BYO, its buy your own and it’s not good for anyone more than the hardware vendor. Let’s focus on the BRING your own.

For vendors of pads and smartphones it’s definitely worth pushing BYOD. But this market will increase whether or not BYOD-model will be implemented by the employer.

For vendors of virtual desktops it will be a continued golden era. My opinion is that virtual desktops (VD) have a, undeserved, bad reputation, this because of bad tradition of lazy communication links and old versions of VD’s. Virtual desktops are a really good way to connect to the employer’s palette of services. With the newer versions from Citrix, VMware, Microsoft and all the others you can get a really nice employer and employee user experience. I will get back to VD’s in a later post.

For vendors of management software the development have to proceed with or without the BYOD. The market of pads and smartphones + the market of VD’s increases and companies have to orchestrate and provide desktops/apps to many different devices.

Fine, the business seems to grow for the main segment of vendors to BYOD solutions…with or without BYOD.

But – if you look at the BYOD trend in general, not on pads, VD’s and management systems, how big is this market and for whom is it for? Sorry, but I think we expect too much of BYOD. I am not going to tear every good reason of freedom down. I am sure I have more than 10 killer reasons why not BYOD. Neither I will embrace why you should allow and implement BYOD. I will focus on some basic reasons why it might be complicated for BYOD to grow and become a legacy standard in delivering IT. Also, and probably the main reason, why it will be difficult to see wins for both employees and employers.

People, by nature, will try to save money so they will try this, they will claim it is a working tool. And - who wouldn’t?! In Sweden and many other countries you do a yearly income declaration. In some cases you are able to withdraw private costs for clothes and tools you need to use in your work. How will tax authorities handle this? I’m quite sure the tax authority will say no no pointing “your employee agreement doesn’t say you should bring your own and we expect your employer should provide you with the device you need.”

Some industries will never ever support own devices. Banks, defense, audit, research in medical and technique etc. Just think about the rigorous security programs and policies companies have to secure their business from attacks, industrial espionage etc. The effort to achieve a secure BYOD-program is too high both from a risk and a cost perspective.

In the first part I talked about Apple being the guys to thank for BYOD. Windows still has a devastating majority of all the professional desktops around the world. But many employers now more do allow, or start to implement, Mac in their standard device portfolio. And when this is implemented at a reasonable level many Mac users most probably want a client the employer pays for instead of bringing their own.

The reason I started to think about BYOD was for this reason; who are the BYOD targeted people and what happens when the bringing becomes an employer demand? I will talk about the employer demand in part 3, so first; who are the targeted people? The people I think about works in areas like IT, market and sales. Not seldom talented with creative skills. Not seldom young. Not seldom with a quite nice salary. The privileged people, the cool guys. How about all the others? Where the absolute mass of people reside = where the margin and all the easy money resides. Note! I haven’t done any research. I am struggling to find other users but it’s difficult, and don’t think I haven’t thought about this. How many are there in industries like industry, health care, general offices – all the “normal” people, the mass, the money? No, they won’t bring their own devices to work – they won’t. If a nurse was allowed to use his/her iPad to read journals on the round he/she wouldn’t – it’s in the walls.

To me BYOD is something for the cool guys. Success stories should include easy money, easy money won’t be found at the cool guys’ level– they are far too few to give big business. Save the BYOD campaign money to something better.

Until part 3 remember; if you bring your own you own it and are responsible for it!

#CloudWisdom 9

Services and systems integrate. Ask yourself: can you or your provided service handle integrations or know how to answer if you/it can't?

I have a dream

Have you ever build your car or just for fun the car of your dreams with a web app? Several of the biggest company offers this service. I’ve tried several of them and the best one, according to me, is the one from Audi (build your car web app).

I have a dream;

What if someone could build an application that was able to put a complete IT outsourcing app? An app who could handle sourced private clouds, public clouds etc. Choosing Service B Service A becomes NA. Choosing Cloud service A “forces” you to choose Communication Service A, B or C where C might be the customers’ existing WAN. And so on… During the end of the configuration session you have to pass some questions; how about customer specific applications, options suitable for the solution etc. When finished you get an overview to verify. Click print and you have a proposal for your customer.

If the proposal gets accepted you open the solution again and choose to create an agreement.

I know this is complex but wouldn’t it be nice? This would be thee app for the Orchestrator.

#CloudWisdom 6

Private, public, hybrid, community and etc Clouds. On-prem, outsourced to an MSP or outsourced on-prem. Never forget; it is important for the one who delivers and puts it together but it is never important for the Management group - for them it should fulfill a need, unease a task and increase productivity with less spending. Habla deutsch - speak the same language as the customer.

#CloudWisdom 1-5

#CloudWisdom is my own hash tag on Twitter and, from now, her on my blog. The purpose is to share my basic thoughts and ideas about easing up the Cloud in a short and easy and, never the less, important way. They shall give the novice basic “aha’s” and “don’t be afraid-info”. They should trigger the experienced to ask themselves; do I tell my story easy enough? They shall give you wisdom about the Cloud.

To get better tracking, following and attention I will from now on publish them on both Twitter and here on the blog.

Published #CloudWisdoms at Twitter:

1. Those who understand the customers´ pains and needs and who can act the organizer to meet these have an excellent position.
2. Know your position and become the trusted advisor.
3. On-premise solutions are not all things bad; they are important and sometimes indispensable - integrate them with the Cloud.
4. A service in the Cloud is a service like any other service; don't make it difficult when explaining for the non-enlightened.
5. Cloud is not a prefix to “everything”. Misuse will kill the good and correct use. The market will get tired before adopting.

Hopefully – please feel a bit wiser.

/wiseguy ;)

the Orchestrator

Orchestration is one of my favorite topics to preach. I will come back to it many times.

The cloud market increases. Public boxed clouds will continue to emerge and some systems will not be available for local installations. There will be systems and services that never will be able to put in the sky. So hybrids already exist and will continue to exist. Customers, on-premise and/or outsourced, will need help in this matters. I mean it is not possible for customers to have the competence to organize hybrids without a strong IT department or together with a partner. Here MSP and SP and IT departments have an opportunity and an important role to take because I think customers really need help with this. We need to bring best possible value to the customers; IT will be far too complicated for the customers and the Cloud to scary.

The role to take is the Orchestrator role.

Orchestration: an arrangement of events that attempts to achieve a maximum effect

First; know and/or take your position. Then, even if you’re an internal IT department; take the key role as a trusted advisor and organizer. Know how to combine on-premise (or outsourced) systems with public boxed and private cloud services - become a unified service provider, be thee partner. Customers should have only one contact in all IT related matters; evolve the SPOC to SPoSP – Single Point of Service Provider. You should be the primary contact to all of your customers systems and services. One should also know which services the market offer, you should be able to propose new and other services that will affect the customers IT in a positive way. Know well known issues, advantages and disadvantages of services – know the Cloud.

Become the Orchestrator!

Orchestration by TeleComputing

Premium is to be able to integrate several services and their provisioning systems in to a single provisioning system with a friendly user interface which also the customer can use.

One issue that might cause trouble is that the end customer has to sign the agreement with the service provider, even in the cloud. This might cause legal and invoicing issues. Microsoft has the syndication program but it’s only available for really large SP’s. The market, including Microsoft and other large ISV’s have to dig in to this, it has to become easier.

Please engage me if you want to know more about how I reason.