ServiceMesh's Dave Roberts presented for Focus webinars, June 27, 2011. Cloud computing is revolutionizing the IT market. But if you aren't careful, you're cloud project can end in disaster. This presentation gathers some lessons learned by the early adopters, so you can avoid their mistakes and double-down on their successes.

1. THE AGILE IT PLATFORM
Cloud Scars: Lessons from the Enterprise Pioneers
June 28, 2011
Dave Roberts
Vice-President, Strategy
dave.roberts@servicemesh.com
@sandhillstrat
@servicemesh

2. ServiceMesh Background
 Enterprise provider of a governance, security, and automation platform that enables a
Continuous Software Delivery Lifecycle. The results is faster software cycle times,
reduced complexity, and lower cost to get from conception to production.
 Customers include some of the world’s largest and most sophisticated companies in:
 Financial services
 Health care
 Consumer
 Other IT-intensive industries
 Global presence with headquarters in Los Angeles and offices in Austin, London,
New York City, Sydney, and Washington D.C.
3X revenue growth in 2010
3rd consecutive year of profitability

3. Seven Common Self-Inflicted Cloud Wounds
1. Failure to recognize the scope of organizational change
2. Leaping before looking
3. Failure to simplify
4. Failure to understand attorneys and vendor management
5. Taking vendors at face-value
6. Cloud addiction
7. Failure to take policy into account

4. 1.
Failure to Recognize the Scope
of Organizational Change

5. “Cloud” is not a technology
problem.
It’s a people problem.

6. Typical Cloud Starting Point
IT Department

7. Limited Offerings
Developer IT Department
Self-Service
Portal
Create service offerings

9. Business units are tempted to
bypass IT.

10. IT Department Reality
IT Department
Compute
Network
Storage

11. Really Need to Examine the Whole
Solution Delivery Lifecycle
Customer Sales Marketing Business Developer IT Department
Analyst
Business Unit
Optimize the overall Solution Delivery Lifecycle

12. Solution: Embrace Collaboration
Developers Application
Architect
Product
Manager
IT Department

13. 2.
Leaping Before Looking

14. Often, companies decide that if
cloud is “good,” they should jump in
with both feet from the start.

15. Do you have a cloud strategy?

16. Does it have phases?

17. You’re going to learn a lot.

18. Your organization is going to
need time to adapt.

19. You’re going to have to choose
service providers and that will
take time.

20. You’re going to need to evaluate
your current application
portfolio and develop a
remediation strategy.

21. 3.
Failure to Simplify

23. Modern applications have a lot
of dependencies throughout the
lifecycle.

24. Building
Monitoring
Security
Operating Systems
Hardware
Backup
Etc.

25. Many of these dependencies
aren’t cloud-compatible.

26. Use cloud as an excuse to
simplify moving forward.

27. Standardize.

28. Standardize ruthlessly.

29. X86
10 Gbps Ethernet
NAS and iSCSI

30. Eliminate everything else that
adds complexity.

31. Replace systems that can’t be
automated or scale.

32. “Stateless boot” through app
configuration.

33. Standardize (ruthlessly) up the
stack, towards PaaS.

34. Two Benefits

35. 1. Simplicity enhances
probability of success.

36. 2. Contestability lowers costs.

37. 4.
Failure to Understand Attorneys
and Vendor Management

38. Enterprises don’t run
(for long)
on credit cards and expense
reports for critical services.

39. At some point, contracts
must be negotiated.

40. That will take time.

41. It will take a long time.

42. It will take far more time than
you ever thought possible.

43. 6 months

44. 5.
Taking Vendors at Face Value

45. Lots of products.

46. Cloud Washing

47. Many existing tools cannot
make the jump to cloud.

48. Too low-level

49. No sense of chargeback

50. Low-level automation only

51. IT Operations Automation
≠
Business Agility.

52. Lots of services, too.

53. Beware cost claims.

54. Machine arbitrage is thin.

55. vs.

56. Beware cloud providers bearing
management tool gifts.

57. Beware management tool
vendors bearing cloud gifts.

58. Thar be lock-in
lurking everywhere.

59. 6.
Cloud Addiction

60. When you buy a new
hammer, suddenly
everything looks like
a nail.

61. Some applications aren’t
suitable.

62. Some may never be suitable.

63. Some applications may be cost
effective in external clouds for a
while…

64. …but then become more
expensive as they scale.

65. The typical issue is network
charges.

66. But this applies to any billed
resource that can’t be predicted
well or limited.

67. Hybrid cloud with mobility is a
winner here.

68. Most think about scaling out to
external cloud…

69. … But the right answer might be
to scale up to internal cloud.

70. Mobility is key.

71. Constantly review and monitor.

72. 7.
Failure to Take Policy Into
Account

73. Diverse User Base with Hybrid Clouds
Creates Governance Holes
Development Hybrid Clouds
Self-Service
Portal
Product +
Planning Orchestration
Operations

75. Simple role-based access control
is not enough.

76. Advanced Policy Management
Development Hybrid Clouds
2 Enforcement and Audit
Product
Planning
Operations 1 Create policies
Audit /
IT Security Governance

77. Seven Common Self-Inflicted Cloud Wounds
1. Failure to recognize the scope of organizational change
2. Leaping before looking
3. Failure to simplify
4. Failure to understand attorneys and vendor management
5. Taking vendors at face-value
6. Cloud addiction
7. Failure to take policy into account

78. Thank you
Dave Roberts
Vice President, Strategy
Email: dave.roberts@servicemesh.com
Web: http://www.servicemesh.com/
Company Twitter: @servicemesh
Personal Twitter: @sandhillstrat