Cloud Computing in the

Enterprise

From Enterprise IT in the Cloud Computing Era New IT Models for

Business Growth & Innovation, Frank Gens, SVP & Chief Analyst, IDC

Cloud Services Architecture:Making sense of *aaS, ben.reid@ .com

 (Good Luck) Defining Cloud Computing

• Software-as-a-Service
– “My customer resource management (CRM) system
is out on the Internet!”
• Grids vs. Clouds
– Shared Virtual Resources
– Batch Jobs vs. Online Applications
– Different Approaches to State Management
• Network Diagrams
– A service is “on a cloud somewhere”
• Virtualization Platforms & APIs
– Hardware can be manipulated with software
What problems are we trying to solve?

1. Cost
2. Scalability
3. Flexibility
4. Availability
5. Portability
6. Collaboration
7. Enable new stuff that we couldn't do before!
"The cloud" - undersea cable view
 The cloud - datacenter view
•Massive build-out happening right now
•Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo are tier 1
•HP (EDS), IBM, Rackspace?
•Scale is key
 The cloud - logical view
• The Cloud: The Universe of all Web Services
 The "cloud" - definitions and hype
Is the "cloud":
• Infrastructure aaS?
– Grid / utility / "on demand" computing
– Shared utility
– eg Amazon EC2
• Platform aaS?
– Ready-for-deployment scalable application platform
– Google apps, Force.com, Heroku, Bungee Labs
– Microsoft! (Azure)
• Software aaS?
– Used to be called "application service providers"
– Multitenanted architectures: SalesForce.com,Xero
– ...many, many others (3000 worldwide at least)
• Wide area SOA?
– "Universe of all (web) services"
– WS-* and REST (and Etch?) standards
– Data as a service? (StrikeIron)
• *aaS?
– "Universe of all economic services"
– Can traditional "services" (law, accountancy, plumbing) be included in the logical
Cloud?
 IDC Definitions (Sept 2008)
Cloud Services = Consumer and Business products,
Services, and solutions that are delivered and consumed in
real-time over the Internet

Cloud Computing = an emerging IT development,

deployment and delivery model, enabling real-time delivery
of products, services and solutions over the Internet (i.e.,
enabling cloud services)

(From http://blogs.idc.com/ie/?p=190)
 Key cloud services attributes
• Off-site, third-party provider
• Accessed via Internet
• Minimal/no IT skills needed to implement
• Provisioning:
– Self-service requesting
– Near-real-time deployment
– Dynamic and fine-grained scaling
• Pricing model:
– Fine-grained
– Usage-based (at least available as an option)
• User interface: browsers and their successors
• System interface: Web services APIs
• Shared resources/common versions (customization
"around" the shared resources)
According to research firm IDC
 Cloud business models

• Consumption
– Pay-per-use
– Perpetual license
– Renewable license / Subscription
• Advertising funded
• "Bits to objects"
• Value-add for existing products
– Build a user community
 What's out there right now – IaaS
(Infrastructure as a Service)
• Amazon
– Infrastructure web services
• EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) - now with Windows (99.95%
availability!)
• S3 (Simple Storage Service)
• SimpleDB
• SQS (Simple Queue Service)
– Payments and Billing
– On-demand workforce (Mechanical Turk)
– Search (Alexa)
– Fulfilment web service
• Rackspace
– Mosso
– JungleDisk
– SliceHost
 What's out there right now – PaaS
(Platform as a Service)
• Google Apps
– Python only
– BigTable
• Heroku
– Ruby on Rails hosted on EC2
• Force.com
– Apex
• Bungee Connect
– Bungee Logic (a C-family language similar to C#)
• Microsoft!
– Azure - .NET hosted in MS datacentres
What's out there right now – SaaS
(Software as a Service)
 Microsoft Windows Azure
The Azure™ Services Platform (Azure) is an internet-scale
cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers,
which provides an operating system and a set of developer
services that can be used individually or together.
 What problems will come up?
1. Regulatory Issues
2. Legislative Issues
3. Geopolitical
4. Security Vulnerabilities
5. Application Architecture
6. Hardware dependencies
7. Control over your servers
8. Cost of the cloud
9. If it Ain’t Broke Don’t Fix it
A simple cloud services architecture today
The Cloud Provider Continuum
A Cloud Technology Reference Model
Begin with the Basic Data Center
A Cloud Technology Reference Model
Add easy software access to:
Elements - HW/SW/Network/Storage Settings,
Installations, and Configurations
Resources - Reservations from a pool of excess capacity
in storage, computing, and network
A Cloud Technology Reference Model
Add some visibility:
A Web of Metadata (What uses or contains what other
things?)
Lifecycle (when and how can things change?)
A Cloud Technology Reference Model
Add some real-world context:
Governance (Who has authority / responsibility to change,
and how?)
Architecture Views (How are my concerns addressed?)
A Cloud Technology Reference Model
Infrastructure Clouds Start Here:
“Cloud Servers” Try to Extend Infra:
Cloud Platforms, As Perceived Today
How Cloud Platforms Likely Will Evolve
Filling in the Architecture Gap
 Why Cloud Computing Is Very Important
Q: Rate the benefits commonly ascribed to the 'cloud'/on-demand model
(1=not important, 5=very important)

Easy/fast to deploy 83.6%

Pay only for what you use 81.5%

Low monthly payments 77.9%

Less in-house IT staff, costs 77.5%

Offers the latest functionality 77.0%

Encourages more standard IT 73.3%

67.2%
Sharing systems/information simpler
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
Source: IDC Enterprise Panel, August 2008 n=244
% responding 3, 4 or 5
 When to Bring Cloud
Computing Into Plans?
 Organizations Shifting Fast In Cloud Use
Q: Current and future level use of cloud services in your organization?
(1=none, 5=widespread)

IT Management Apps 26.2%

39.3%

25.4%
Collaborative Apps 46.3%

Personal Apps 25.0%

36.1%

23.4% Current
Business Apps 34.0% In 3 years
16.8%
App Development/Deployment 25.9%

15.6%
Server Capacity 28.7%

Storage Capacity 15.5%

31.5%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%

% responding 4 or 5
Source: IDC Enterprise Panel, August 2008 n=244
 Cloud Computing Is “Crossing the Chasm”

Source: The Chasm Group

 Challenges Suppliers Are Tackling
Q: Rate the challenges/issues of the 'cloud'/on-demand model
(1=not significant, 5=very significant)

88.5%
Security

88.1%
Performance

Availability 84.8%

Hard to integrate with 84.5%

in-house IT
Not enough ability to 83.3%
customize
Worried cloud will 81.1%
cost more
Bringing back in-house 80.3%
may be difficult
Not enough major 74.6%
suppliers yet
65% 70% 75% 80% 85% 90%
% responding 3, 4 or 5
•Implications for IT Strategy &
Organization
Implications for IT Strategy & Organization
Cloud will be part of an expanding portfolio of options
– Along with Traditional On-Premise and Next-gen On-Premise

If organization is a “visionary” or “pragmatist”, it’s time now to

start getting experience using Cloud offerings
• Phase-in Cloud where the advantages tip the scales

SOA – especially as an IT management approach – is

essential to flexible and integratable IT services sourcing
– Cloud services will allow some offload of SOA implementation to cloud
services providers, and speed the Dynamic IT journey

IT skills portfolio will continue to shift

 Supplier Mgt, Web Svcs Dev/Integration, Bus. Process Insight
 IT Ops “boiler room”, Application technical specialists
 When to use cloud services now?
• Non-sensitive binary object storage (docs, pdfs, images
etc)
– use S3 or similar NOW!
• Moving server hosting to the Cloud: business case
needs developing
– Management tools not mature
– Not ready for Enterprise apps - but soon
• Azure will be a key player for PaaS
– Google, SalesForce(?) main competitors
– Lots of niches
• SaaS
– When setting up a new business, use it now! Don't saddle your
business with expensive, inflexible, rapidly depreciating assets
you don't need!