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Mon, Aug 25, 2008 12:39 EDT

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Posted by: Bernard Golden in News Topic: InfrastructureBlog: The Open Source
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Gartner released a report last week on 2008 IT spending that spotlights the next big thing: "per-use service-based models." This is a catch-all term that subsumes both cloud computing and SaaS. According to Gartner, "The projected shift to cloud computing, for example, will result in dramatic growth in IT products in some areas and in significant reductions in other areas."
What Gartner elides is that cloud computing represents a fundamental shift in the role of IT: it removes from IT much of its daily work, but, and this is a big but, presents it with a different -- and more important -- set of tasks.
Cloud computing outsources much of the dogsbody plumbing that has been IT's lot in life: provisioning servers, keeping the network up, providing 24/7 infrastructure monitoring. Crucially, it gets IT out of the physical data center business -- no more special purpose space buildout, no more power calculations, A/C maintenance.
As Gartner notes, all this is outsourced to someone like Amazon. For those who are reluctant to trust their infrastructure to a bookseller, HP, IBM, and Sun are all active in this area as well. And let's face it, if you're a CIO for a medium-sized midwestern manufacturer, who's likely to be better at managing IT infrastructure, you or a technology company? In fact, this situation could be worse than I've just described: I recently talked with a financial services IT executive (financial services is generally considered the most technology-capable sector of the US economy), and he complained that his company couldn't hire A-level talent for traditional IT positions. Top talent wants to work for technology companies, according to him.
So, on the one hand: crucial infrastructure that is challenging for IT shops to do well. On the other: technology experts ready to turn a labor- and capital-intensive activity into an outsourced, pay-by-the-hour service. To my mind, it's too logical not to come to pass.
In this estimation, Gartner echoes Nick Carr, whose last book, The Big Switch, predicted the rise of utility computing. Carr, who has long viewed IT with a jaundiced eye, predicted that IT would abandon running their own IT infrastructures, much like early manufacturers quickly stopped running their own electrical generating plants when electricity providers came into being. Carr offers an example of the future by noting what a colleague of his did: snapped together online blogging software, flickr photo hosting, free wiki sites, and even more to create his site. All of this required no capital investment and no IT expertise.
So hats off to Carr for limning the trend, presciently predicting it before Gartner made it a centerpiece of their analysis of the future of IT. I think he (and they) are onto something that will, thankfully, get rid of lots of thankless work for IT organizations.
On the other hand, I think Carr is only half-validated by Gartner. He oversimplifies the world of IT when he compares it to snapping together online components to create an application. What his colleague did is fine for that person's purpose: to publish content. For example, I'm drafting this posting in Google docs and will publish it on the CIO website, which is powered by Drupal. No need for me to manage any computers or run a mini-datacenter.
However, IT organizations exist to manage process,
There was a time when IT was referred to as "data processing" and that is still at the root of all significant systems. It's about capturing and processing the data that a company runs on and turning the data into information that makes the company more competitive.
The technology, however fancy, is only the enabler - the underlying complexity of processing the data efficiently remains.
The real skill of IT people is figuring out what data is generated and how it should be processed. SaaS is fine as long as the data generated by the company is handled in an appropriate manner. Where the data is physically held is of less importance.
Unfortunately both SaaS and SOA are often being promoted without due regard to the inherent complexity of "data processing".
I agree — IT is facing a sea change. The data center may be outsourced to collocation providers, but the on-premise network infrastructure will remain. Business users will still need to connect to their services and this requires a reliable and secure network infrastructure.
IT organizations will shift their focus to managing service levels, changes, and access using frameworks such as ITIL. Because Internet connections are even more critical for SaaS applications, IT must address the "last mile" issues with redundant, multi-sourced wired and wireless WAN technologies to provide adequate, always-on Internet bandwidth.
Wireless networks will become the preferred method for workstation connectivity. Security issues will become more complex and require specific expertise and technology to manage and protect corporate networks and data assets.
No, IT organizations won't have it easier, and IT will not become the dominion of the business users. Information technology is evolving and IT organizations will need to address these changes to meet the new business demands. For more thoughts on cloud computing, read this blog entry.
Harry Hiles
HBH Technology LLC
www.hbhtech.com
blog.hbhtech.com
I think the risks of outsourcing all of ones' IT plumbing are continuously being overlooked in this cloud hysteria. First of all, you become beholden to a third party (who, when you call them btw, will probably then transfer you to a first line support drone in a call center) when something breaks and require them to both diagnose and fix the problem. Second, the more popular the cloud provider you choose becomes, the more you are susceptible to mass outages (where you could become part of a resolution queue of thousands of customers). You also lose the ability to customize with the degree of granularity you want (you can only choose based on the options that THEY give you, vs. having infinite ability to make your choices). The worst case scenarios of outsourcing all of your IT are pretty scary, and I'm sure that there will be many instances where a cloud computing customer reflects fondly on the the days where they could run some of their own diagnostics and troubleshooting instead of waiting on hold for 20 minutes with Barry Manilow musack.
I think this cloud hosting makes sense for *some* organizations, but there are too many contrived articles and blog postings that are basically advertising it as if it is THE solution.
Also - I am pretty sure that Sun's "the network is the computer", Grid Computing, On Demand, and several thousand other individuals and companies got to the idea of "plugging into IT as a service" (in their various incarnations of the concept) well before Nick Carr.
We've been following the cloud computing "evolution" for a whil now. I suppose as long as it has been in development. The aspect that really interests all of us around here is just how it will affect the plethora of online degree earning opportunities? The smart money is that given the lowered cost of entry as well as overall lowered cost of operating, we'll see more schools taking their curriculum online. And should this happen, there will be ever more opportunities to get real degrees and certifications from "real schools".