ITIL the cornerstone of decent cloud services

ITIL has been around for about 10 years now and was the best practice for the IT operations. Many years it has been seen as something new with the goal of imoroving productivity, quality of service and reduce costs.

As the ICT industry is transfroming itself through the cloud, ITIL becomes more and more a toolset and is a minumum requirement to build a decent cloud service.

Cloudplatforms embed ITIL into the IT service, automating all processes of a cloud Service Lifecycle into a Cloud orchetsration platform.

All aspects of ITIL are faced when building and delivering Cloud Services. From service conception, over service transition and delivery, problem and change management until service decommisioning.

　

In fact Cloud Service are about 20% to do with technology and anout 80% with automating all ITIL processes.

This implies more people with ITIl based skills in IT organizations which can implement service catalogs, define ITIL processes and learn how to deal with capaticy management, more than setting up servers, as this is done automatically in the cloud.

Supprized ? I am not.

BYOC

The summer holidays brought, besides a well-deserved break, also back an old hobby of mine, which is playing around with microcontrollers… It was a while ago and I must say a lot changed since last time…

The term BYOC got a new dimension for me this summer. Instead of ‘Buy your own computer’ or device, why not just build it…, especially when the price is as low as $25 …

More than a year ago, I saw some posts about the Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi is low cost single chip PC made by the university of Cambridge, where they had the idea to build a low cost computer mainly for education purposes, based on a Linux OS. After some delay in production, they managed to start delivering it as from beginning 2012. The delivery in the beginning was a problem as a lot of people where waiting to order one (I suspect they used the same strategy as apple, as the production was low in the beginning and the demand higher than expected, it created even more attention…, it certainly worked for me J )

I managed to get hold on one in May, because of lack-of –time; it was waiting on me until the second part of my holiday.

After walking through some forums and docs, I managed to put a Linux image on it and in less than 1 hour my TV became an internet browser. I read already some positive things about it, but still I was amazed by how easy it was to make it work. Soon the device was taken over by my kids... so I was thinking about the possibilities this device bring us.

Already working with thin client infrastructure such as citric technology as from ’97, I stayed a fan of the thin-client concept, even up to now… So I was wondering if I could not turn this into a Thin-Client device. As a matter of fact the only thing what is missing is the Citrix receiver on it.

Before I started to think how to put a Linux Citrix client on it, I started googeling looking if someone out there had maybe the same idea. And yes, I found some links about Raspberry Pi Thin client project (

http://rpitc.blogspot.be/2012/03/raspberry-pi-citrix-client.html) .

AS Service provider we deliver a shared Citrix XenApp infrastructure environment to customers, so within less than 30 minutes I managed to prep the Raspberry Pi and fire off a Windows desktop on it.

Not only did is support HTTPS and CAG Web interface connection without any doubt (which is not always the case for the commercial Thin clients J ), it also performed amazing well. I try to post some you tubes later on…

This opens new perspectives… I can’t wait to put my Windows 8 VDI on it… The only thing that is missing is a nice case around it, 3d printing will do the job…

So the term BYOC stands from now on for 'BUILD YOUR OWN PC !'

Office 365 versus Microsoft Hosting Providers

Is Microsoft Office365, the successor of BPOS,  going to replace the Microsoft Hosting solution of existing Service providers ? I don’t think so…

Office365 is the successor of BPOS (Microsoft’s Business Productivity suite). The Office365 suite tends to have a more success as the BPOS suite, which certainly in Europe did not break any records. Office365 is built on better products, supporting real multi-tenancy . Not only the exchange offering but also the Sharepoint and Lync are now fully cloud services at a very interesting price.

So why is Office365 not going to replace the Microsoft offerings from existing hosting providers ?

Well first-of-all, organization still base their choice of products and service on advice from their partners. Don’t forget that a lot of customers candidate of collaboration cloud solutions are not IT –aware and they follow in most cases the advice of their ‘current’ IT partners.

As the Office365 business model is still mostly built on a commission based model (except for the happy few which could sign up for an aggregation contract) IT partners will tend to go for a model which gives the complete control, thus also the financial, of their customers.

Second, The Office365 offering only delivers a part of an IT solution for small and medium businesses.  For a large group of them, once they have made up their mind to move to the cloud, they also want to outsource the rest of their IT demands into the cloud.  Solutions such our CloudPlaza brokerage cloud allow customer to outsource their complete IT demand into the cloud with integrated security. This  is not possible with just Office365. Even if customers start-off with Office365, they will migrate to fully managed service providers in the future.

Third reason has to do with functionality and availability. Office365 is on it’s own a great product but have some limitations. The version for small and medium enterprises only allows to send e-mails towards maximum 500 recipients ! This could be a problem for them. Also Microsoft demand that you migrate your DNS management to them, but what if you have important websites or e-commerce ? do you want do depend on them for your DNS records ?

We see Office365 more as an enables then as a competitor. The sales and Marketing of Microsoft will help customers take the move to the cloud. Customers will want more from the cloud which drives them to solutions such as our CloudPlaza Borkerage cloud, which is made for, and supported by, our partners, delivering the same services as they are used to do, the only difference is the way how it is done and invoiced.

The Future of IT

IT systems and how we use them is changing rapidly. In one of my previous blogs, I already referred to the consumerization of IT. Each day new ‘gadgets’ appear on the market. Take for example this ‘android’ watch  which is an extension of your mail and calendar or the ‘intelligent’ nest  thermostat  which combines smart intelligence with design.  All of these, If well thought out and engineered,  are made to make our life’s more comfortable and enjoyable.

This is one of the facets cloud computing can bring to your ‘business’ IT. Instead of static, difficult to manage and complex system which demand a lot of operational costs and effort, cloud computing can bring you an agile and intelligent Business  solution, if it is well thought and engineered.

As I already posted in previous blogs, the key to a well thought and engineered Cloud computing solution is not only a bunch of servers in one or more datacenters but an intelligent system which communicates and integrates with all components of a cloud solution and automates the business and operational processes which will make our work more comfortable and enjoyable.

At Thinfactory we try to build such systems, even as we are a small company compared to others we can differentiate by our design and intelligence, just as the ‘nest’ thermostat, which differentiates by looking different towards a solution, addresses current topics such as ‘energy saving’ and simplifies the control of it.

By using clever design and intelligent systems, each day, we deliver IT systems to customers through our partners without any human intervention from our engineers. This is a dream come true…

This opens new perspectives for us and our customers, which can profit from more agile computing systems, simplified IT, more efficient and at lower cost.

As the economic climate in Europe suffers from one crisis to another these solutions will help us to differentiate and make more clever and intelligent solutions which will support us in a new way of working and living increasing quality life for all of us.

The Green Cloud

The Green Cloud

When you ask people if Cloud computing is an ‘eco’ solution, you get Pro’s and Con’s. Some say that most cloud solutions run in energy inefficient datacenters spending a lot of unnecessary energy power, which must always be ‘on’. The others camp says that cloud computing delivers important energy savings thanks to the consolidation possibilities of virtualization technology, which is used on a large scale in cloud computing.

But what if you do as Colt does ? Make a modular datacenter and ship it to island. Island has unique power sources  based on  geothermal and hydropower. Cooling is just for free with fresh air from outside, the whole year long. 

Combined with a cloud computing solution where it does not matter where your data resides, your organization could really benefit from a dual source energy and cost saving solution.

This is one of the advantages of cloud computing. Cloud computing allows a true eco partnership where datacenters can be most efficient used in Island, development of new technologies in emerging countries such as Serbia or Roemenia and teams can work around the globe.

http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/10/building-a-data-center-that.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

The Consumerization of IT

Organization such as Citrix are talking on their Synergy event about the ‘Cosumerization of IT, but what does it really mean ?

Up to a few years ago, IT was used to optimize all business processes and to optimize and simplify the work of employees. So IT automated about all business processes, except IT processes itself.

As a result, it is not so strange that IT has been seen for a long time as ‘a thing’ for geeks, which no one could understood what they actually where doing to make IT work.

If we look for example at the telecom industry, than we see that telecom services are already some decades a ‘commodity’ for all of us. Who is thinking what’s behind the 333 Hz tone when you pick up your phone and wants to dial a number ? Or what happens when you by a new SIMM card for a mobile phone and less than 1 hour later you can phone everyone in the world and everyone can reach you using your unique number and at the end of the month you receive a detailed invoice ?

I guess no one is thinking about the complexity of the systems behind the scenes, we all find it evident. It just works out of the box, that’s what we can call ‘Consumerization of technology’. It just works…

If people talk about the ‘Consumerization of IT’ it’s just that. You activate an IT service and it’s immediate available. To achieve this goal you need to build even a more complex system than current OSS/BSS* systems which are used in the Telecom industry to turn the telecom service into a commodity. It’s much more than installing technical systems by some geeks. It’s about building service oriented systems which are extreme scalable and have automated business logic allowing self service provisioning of the services.

This is what we have been building for the last couple of years allowing people to activate and use IT services, just as activating and using a mobile phone, or tapping water from the tap.

Using these services Anywhere, Anytime and allowing people to choose there own device, no matter if it’s a PC, Mac, IPAD or IPhone.. It just Works…

* OSS/BSS : Operational and business support systems

What does an IT Cloud Take ?

I hear some people say, "Cloud computing, it’s just a new buzzword for Internet servers, no?" - Wrong! The Internet, of course, is an important element of cloud computing, but cloud computing is much more than that. You can compare the Internet with the electrical distribution grid connecting all businesses and homes, but without the power plants, you cannot deliver energy (or, in the cloud computing scenario, a service) to the many connected businesses and homes.

This is an easy to work with metaphor, one can compare cloud computing with these power plants. Power plants provide you with ‘electricity as a service’, cloud computing, in turn, provides you with IT as a Service. The Internet, in turn, acts as a distribution grid. This concept is eloquently described by Nick Carr in his book ‘The Big Switch’.

To build such an ‘IT’ power plant, it takes more than just staging a set of servers into a datacenter somewhere around the globe. In fact, the metaphor of a power plant provides many convenient analogies for comparison to cloud computing. Both must be scalable and flexible so that they can respond to peaks in demand which evolve rapidly. The users of both demand little or no up-front investment, they wish to simply connect and begin using the infrastructure, billed on the basis of usage, paying monthly fees which may vary depending on the consumption pattern and engagements.

During the Industrial revolution power plants and distribution systems were competitive differentiators; the more power you had, the more machines you could run, and the more you could produce. Today, these power systems and distribution systems are just a commodity for most companies. The same transition is well on its way in IT as well, and is especially visible in cloud computing. Computing resources are becoming commodities, with the Internet assuring transparent and universal delivery of these resources to businesses and homes.

Some companies may indeed still generate power in some small way - typically as backup in the event of outages or as part of a co-generation setup, but you will find little argument that mainstream power requirements are best met by the electric utility. ‘The Big Switch’ argues that computing is on a similar trajectory.

Another fundamental requirement to build a cloud computing service is the existence of a platform. A platform which allows you to provide, automate, provision and bill in real time the services you will offer on to the market. This platform must be able to support multiple technologies, offer them as a ‘service catalog’ and provision these service in real-time to its users, offering them elasticity and flexibility to scale up and down with their requirements. The platform should be able to support different contract and billing options, such as a flat subscription based model and a ‘usage based’ model.

Such platforms should also allow interconnection between them, much in the same way the distribution grids and power plants today, across countries, deliver electricity to each other in order to cope with peaks and cover maintenance windows. Cloud service providers find themselves in the same place, having to interconnect with each other in order to deliver the necessary peak capacity their users might require and orchestrate introduction of cross-service offerings to the market.

These requirements, in turn, necessitate the existence of a powerful business and automation platform. Such a platform is the only mandatory element in order to survive in the ‘cloud computing’ industry. Without such a platform, all the infrastructure elements of cloud computing are commodities. Without such a platform, you are not going to survive in the marketplace. Imagine, for instance, an electricity supplier without a platform to measure the load on the grid, the production capacity of the plants, without an automated billing system - even if power generation and distribution elements are in place, without a platform through which to monitor, provision, and bill for those services - the entire ecosystem collapses.

That’s why, over the last few years, we have invested heavily in our CloudFactory, serving as the true heart of a vibrant cloud computing marketplace offering, and allowing us to provide real value. And with the recent introduction of initiatives such as CloudFoundry by major vendors, in this case VMWare, its encouraging to see that the industry as a whole is beginning to agree with our vision.