Enterprise Cloud Forum: Adopting a Service Provider Mentality

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This is what we are going to cover today. Please feel free to ask questions throughout – we would like to ensure that this session is valuable for all participants.

Here are the main challenges that Enterprise IT deals with today.Steve Mills to validate

Your end users want technology fast and they want it now. Their expectations for speed of delivery of applications have been altered due to the proliferation of mobile devices and applications. Not only that, but the way your company does business in the digital age has changed. Your customers are browsing your website, place an order via a mobile app, and check status all via technology, this is putting an extra burden on you to deliver IT.Your end users have easy access to cloud. They are free to spin up their own service – because they can! All it takes is a credit card and they are up and running in the cloud.

What does this lead your users to do? Create shadow IT.Not all shadow IT is a bad thing. Having your end users find SaaS solutions such as Salesforce, Workday or Qlikview to meet their increasing demands on IT helps the CIO focus IT resources on the business of IT. At Rackspace, our own CIO, Steve Mills has encouraged Shadow IT within reason. As long as the apps meet compliance and security requirements – Steve says GO FOR IT! Now, instead of having an IT team of 15 people supporting these apps, he has an army of 4500 Rackers supporting themselves.Let’s define shadow ITNote: Source: McLaughlin & Assoc, national online survey (per San Antonio Business Journal June 25, 2012), conducted among 500 IT decision-makers, who work for businesses or organizations that use cloud computing

IT struggles with meeting the increasing demands of business units – speed, flexibility, agility. Business units are circumventing IT completely and are going rogue.From our experience working with 60% of the F100, I know this because many of them are customers of Rackspace 

Unsanctioned use of the cloud can lead to a few dangers.Some of the potential dangers of shadow IT:Governance, security, controls which could lead to revenue loss, loss of business IP, and brand deteriorationFrom a cost standpoint:Lack of negotiated terms and feesHigher costs to the company overall

IT can panic and BAN the Cloud which is impracticalUse Existing and likely outdated Approval Processesfor Spending Control – but that takes away the speed, agility and flexibility of the cloud

Fear of change and restricted resources keeps IT drawn to the path of least resistance – “the known”. “Let’s keep doing what we’ve always done …. It has worked for us so far”

Enterprise Misstep #1: treating cloud computing like a technology. When adopting cloud, enterprises need to be prepared to shift their thinking and understand that CLOUD is a new business model. To truly take advantage of cloud computing, your IT organization has to transform… and most importantly, the way you deliver IT services to your end users must change. Yes, believe it or not …there is a right and wrong way to adopt cloud. Adopting a Service Provider Mentality and Empowering a Self-Service OrganizationThe importance of IT meeting the demands of the businessHow to protect from the dangers of Shadow IT and leverage its benefits How to create an army of empowered employees How to approach Service Catalog Development How IT can drive business value back into the organization through the apps Be prepared to change the way you think of the business of IT!

The first shift in thinking is that the leap from virtualization to cloud computing is a shift not only in technology but in a wholesale shift in IT as a business model.To truly take advantage of the cloud, your IT organization has to transform. Everything from how you provision, procure, manage and run the business of IT will need to be revamped. And most importantly the way you deliver IT services to your end users will change.

Early phases of creating an application is the uncertainty associated with it. Will it be successful at all? Will it grow gradually? Might it experience skyrocketing adoption? Traditionally, the time to obtain all approvals a capital expenditure requires a forecast in a period of uncertainty. Your organization is making a bet on the success of that product or service before knowing what the payoff might be. There are only so many capex dollars available leading to an above/below the line decision making processIf you remove the CAPEX investment barrier, your developers and business units can experiment more freely with ideas and kill them if they don’t turn out to be viableOpportunity Cost: Time spent provisioning no longer causes missed opportunity. Everyone gets what they need when they need it. No trade offs 1 project for another.SecuringCAPEX dollars and approvals is no longer a barrier to entryHow Many Viable Projects Have You Killed Because You Couldn’t Validate CAPEX Spend?

The last option is to embrace the change, adapt to the new business of IT and create new procedures for Spending Control You are CREATING A SERVICE CATALOG

What is a service catalog. This is derived from ITIL service management. Be as simple as an approved vendor list where Central IT has negotiated pricing terms and the vendor or Service Provider understands your companies security & compliance requirementsOr it could be as sophisticated as a portal where users in your organization can immediately spin up pre-defined/approved configurations. This would bill directly to their cost center and is the self-service automated tool!

Building a service catalog starts with working with a service provider who can provide IT resources FAST!You create preconfigured cloud solutions meeting the security and governance requirements of your business.When the business unit comes to IT for services – you have a solution for them via the selected service provider and service catalog.

Step 1:Catalog common workloads and use cases for utilizing cloud technology?Step 2: work with the service provider to design and build standard cloud configurations.Everyone’s happy!