why we fail: how an architect learned to stop worrying and love the cloud
DESCRIPTION
Private cloud has been the “up and coming” trend for several years. You would think this would mean we’re all running clouds inside our firewalls by now. In reality, this hasn’t happened. Why? Where are all the clouds? All the technical skills that the IT folks need to get this done are normally in house or easily accessible to them. So you would think that private clouds would be super common. Turns out they are not. Only a very small minority of IT organizations have deployed successful internal Private Clouds. There are notable exceptions, but they’re just that, exceptions. Why is this so hard? Why can’t folks get this done in their sleep? In this book, we will explore the reasons why we fail and how to overcome these obstacles to success in our private cloud deployments.TRANSCRIPT
(or how an architect learned to stop worrying and love the cloud)
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Alex [email protected]/in/ajauch
Why Am I Giving This Presentation?My Background is Enterprise IT
12 Years at MSFT
Role Owner for Architect Career Path
Founder of Catalyst, Precursor to MCA
Lead Architect for NetApp’s MSFT Private Cloud Solution
Last Two Years on Private Cloud Space
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What is A Cloud?The Term “Cloud” has little meaning in practice
However, everyone wants “Cloud”
IT Organizations Seek to Implement “Cloud”
Definitions Vary
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So What? Gartner: 78% of Enterprise IT
Shops will Deploy a “Private Cloud Computing Strategy by 2014”
CIO.COM: 62% of all IT Projects Fail
Cisco: 52% of Cloud Projects Driven Top Down
Only 30% Driven by Customer Requirements
A high percentage of all IT projects fail. Combine this with the likelihood that most IT shops will deploy private cloud and the complexity of cloud means a high likelihood that most IT shops will fail at cloud.
The NIST Cloud Definition Framework
DeploymentModels
Service Models
EssentialCharacteristics
Common Characteristics
Software as a Service (SaaS)
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Resource Pooling
Broad Network Access Rapid Elasticity
Measured Service
On Demand Self-Service
Low Cost Software
Virtualization Service Orientation
Advanced Security
Homogeneity
Massive Scale Resilient Computing
Geographic Distribution
Community CloudPrivate Cloud Public Cloud
Hybrid
Clouds
The NIST Cloud Definition Framework provides a simple way to define what cloud is. This is hugely important for architects. We must first define what it is we are building if we are to increase our chance of success.
Why We Fail
The essential element of “cloud” is a customer centric business model, not technology.
The Majority of IT organizations approach private cloud as a technology problem.This is a failure in Architectural practice.
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What Is Architecture?
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Architecture is the intersection between business and technology. When given business requirements, the architect produces functional specifications; when given technical capabilities, the architect produces solutions.
Reducing Your Risk
There are two types of risk: Business and Technical. Most of us focus the majority of our time on technical risk. However, the primary risk to cloud implementations is not technical, it’s business. This lack of focus causes failure due to inattention.
Which Column Are You In?
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IT Creates and Manages Budget
End User Departments Create and Manage Budget
IT Sizes Solution End User Sizes Solution24-48 Hour SLA for Provisioning
5-10 Minute SLA for Provisioning
0 RPO/15 Minute RTO 15 Minute RPO/24 Hour RTO
Guest Patching Policy No Guest Patching Policy
Defined List of Applications
Unlimited Applications
Advanced Capacity Planning
On-Demand Capacity
Strict Performance SLA Loose Performance SLAStrict Security Policy Loose Security PolicyLeast Privilege Model Full Privilege ModelIT Supported VM’s End User Supported
VM’s
Before designing and deploying a cloud, you must first ask yourself if you want to be in the cloud business or not. The column on the left describes a typical legacy IT environment where IT exercises control to protect the business from technical risk. The column on the right describes a typical cloud business such as EC2 or Azure.
Legacy IT Doesn’t Work
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Why build a freeway if you don’t have any cars?
That’s what North Korea does.
Capitalism is MessyThe reality is that centrally planned economies just don’t work. Consumer focused economies work. We know this from the last fifty years of history. Communism (or rather totalitarianism) failed completely. Why do we run our IT shops as centrally planned economies? It’s because capitalism is messy. As architects, we need to accept the occasional useless program or project to allow the market to dictate where precious enterprise resources are best used. This goes against our grain but is vital for success in cloud.
Customer Centric IT
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Traditional IT Customer Centric IT
Sets IT Standards Supports Business Requirements
Focus on Operations Excellence
Focus on Customer Satisfaction
Engineering is key skillset
Consulting is key skillset
Sets Policy Seeks Input
Focus on Large Projects Focus on Smaller Projects
Organized by Technology
Organized by Customer
Technology Focus Business Value Focus
Delivers most projects in house
Brokers external vendors as needed
In order to receive the full benefits of cloud, we must adopt a “Customer Centric IT” mandate. This means moving away from centrally planned standards driven organizations and towards services driven organizations that support the end business directly.
IT Portfolio Management
Strategic High Potential
Investments that are critical to achieving the future business strategy.
Investments which may be important in achieving
future success.
Investments which are essential to remain
competitive.
Investments which are valuable and deliver
improved performance, but are not critical to
success.
Key Operational Support
Co
ntr
ibu
tio
n t
o
bu
sin
ess
futu
re
Business dependence on current solution
One way to do this is to ALIGN the IT Portfolio to the business. This exercise, taken from the CranfieldSchool of Business, helps to ensure that IT is working on the right things and managing programs based on how they affect the business.
For More Information
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This presentation was excerpted from my book, “Why We Fail” which is available on Amazon.com: http://bit.ly/AlexJauch
You can also listen to me giving this lecture at MMS here: http://bit.ly/WhyWeFailTalk
More about private cloud and enterprise architecture on my blog: http://bit.ly/ajauchblog