Reinventing Enterprise IT in the Age of Cloud Computing
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A profound revolution in the way we think about and fundamentally conduct enterprise IT is well underway. Sadly, the real significance of these changes in terms of the effect they have on IT and the business world is hidden by a raft of catch phrases and buzzwords.
Those terms range from the omnipresent "cloud computing" marketing idiom to the even more opaque "data center convergence" moniker. But if you take a giant step back from all the marketing language, what we're actually looking at is nothing short of the reinvention of enterprise IT.
During a recent online BrightTALK summit that can be heard at their website, industry authorities such as Anil Karmel, solutions architect for Los Alamos National Labs, Harkeeret Singh, global head of energy optimization for Thomson Reuters, and Jeff Tobolski, director of infrastructure research and development for Accenture Technology Labs, debated how the management of data centers will be perfected in the day of cloud computing in a way that not only decrease costs, but also increases IT agility.
The Essentials of Cloud Computing
As recognized during one summit session led by Zen Kishimoto, a principal analyst with AltaTerra Research Network, there are several variants of cloud computing. The most common reference to cloud computing is known as the public cloud, which essentially means running application workloads on shared IT infrastructure that is managed by a third party. The best known of these services are EC2 from Amazon and a variety of software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications such as Salesforce. But there are already hundreds of cloud service providers and we're rapidly entering a phase of overcapacity in the public cloud that sets the stage for a price war among the providers of these services.
Another type of cloud computing is known as private cloud computing. At its core, a private cloud refers to an internal IT organization leveraging virtualization technologies in order to share physical IT infrastructure across multiple applications. Accomplishing this generally requires new tools to manage the IT environment and in some instances may even demand next-generation integrated servers.
The core reasoning for investing in a private cloud is that an internal IT organization can deliver all the benefits of "cloud computing" in a more secure way that it gives a company more oversight over its IT environment.
The Nuances of Cloud Computing
If the only two options were to run application workloads on internal or external IT environments than cloud computing would fundamentally be little more than a glorified form of outsourcing. Where things start to get a little more intricate is when the concept of "virtual data centers" is added the cloud computing argument.
A "virtual data center" is a logical set of IT assets that are deployed on top of virtual machines. Since these assets leverage virtual machines, they can run in either a public or private cloud computing environment. In a public cloud computing environment, a virtual data center gives a company the security bonus of a private cloud without having to invest in acquiring its own IT infrastructure. In effect, a virtual data center renders a lot of the discussion over public vs private cloud infrastructure moot.
But just to make matters more appealing, there is this idea of "hybrid cloud computing" under which application workloads will dynamically move across public and private cloud computing infrastructure. While some are skeptical of this model, and in some cases the need for dedicated private cloud infrastructure on a customer's premise at all, others argue that an extended transition to cloud computing is going to demand some form of a hybrid approach. Conversely, some proponents of private cloud computing argue that public cloud infrastructure is going to be little more than an addendum of the internal enterprise IT. As such, public and private cloud computing platforms need to be holistically managed using a common systems management framework.
One Management to Rule All
Regardless of how you feel about cloud computing, one thing that is for certain is that the way we think about managing IT is changing. It used to be that each server, network and storage element of the data center called for various management tools.
But in the last year we've seen the rise of encompassing management frameworks, such as Oracle Enterprise Manager, which not only automate routine IT management tasks but also allow fewer IT people to manage larger sets of servers, networks and storage resources as one logical entity. This translates into a reduction in the number of tools and IT personnel necessary to handle the data center environment, as well as an overall IT environment that is easier to manage and more quick to react to altering business circumstances. This overall trend, sometimes referred to as "data center convergence" is altering the IT landscape as vendors vie for supremacy over the data center as whole, versus simply concentrating on a particular server, network or storage forte.
The Pursuit for IT Agility
The goals for cloud computing and data center convergence are virtually one in the same. On the one hand, we're trying to trim the cost of IT. On the other, we're also trying to make IT more flexible with the expectancy that if enterprise IT is easier to deploy and manage, customers will get more value from it. And if customers get more value from their IT, it stands to reason they will want to invest more in order to run additional applications that add real and instant value to their business.
But like all things worth doing, it will take years to get enterprise IT from the rigid place it is today to this new agile IT nirvana. The true test for many IT organizations is going to be not getting lost in all the hype in order to keep their eyes on the real IT prize. But when all is said and finally done, the companies that effectively ace cloud computing first are going to have a sustainable competitive business edge over rivals for years to come.
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