Tag: Infrastructure

Business · Cloud

Oracle works toward capturing enterprise Cloud IaaS demand

Tim Crawford1 Comment

4

The enterprise cloud market is still shows a widely untapped potential. A significant portion of this potential comes from the demand generated by the legacy applications that are sitting in the myriad of corporate data centers. The footprint from these legacy workloads alone is staggering. Start adding in the workloads that sit in secondary data centers that often do not get included in many metrics and one can quickly see the opportunity.

ORACLE STARTS FROM THE GROUND UP

At Tech Field Day’s Cloud Field Day 3, I had the opportunity to meet with the team from Oracle Cloud Infrastructureto discuss their Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud portfolio. Oracle is trying to attract the current Oracle customer to their cloud-based offerings. Their offerings range from IaaS up through Software as a Service (SaaS) for their core back-office business applications.

The conversation with the Oracle team was pretty rough as it was hard to determine what, exactly, that they did in the IaaS space. There were a number of buzzwords and concepts thrown around without covering what the Oracle IaaS portfolio actually offered. Eventually, it became clear during a demo, in a configuration page what the true offerings were: Virtual Machines and Bare Metal. That’s a good start for Oracle, but unfortunate in how it was presented. Oracle’s offering is hosted infrastructure that is more similar to IBM’s SoftLayer(now called IBM Cloud) than Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWSor Google Cloud.

ORACLE DATABASE AS A SERVICE

Beyond just the hardware, applications are one of the strengths of Oracle’s enterprise offerings. And a core piece of the puzzle has always been their database. One of the highlights from the conversation was their Database as a Service (DBaaS)offering. For enterprises that use Oracle DB, this is a core sticking point that keeps their applications firmly planted in the corporate data center. With the Oracle DBaaS offering, enterprises have the ability to move workloads to a cloud-based infrastructure without losing fidelity in the Oracle DB offering.

Digging deeper into the details, there were a couple interesting functions supported by Oracle’s DBaaS. A very cool feature was the ability to dynamically change the number of CPUs allocated to a database without taking an outage. This provides the ability to scale DB capacity up and down, as needed, without impact to application performance.

Now, it should be noted that while the thought of a hosted Oracle DB sounds good on paper, the actual migration will be complicated for any enterprise. That is less a statement about Oracle and more to the point that enterprise application workloads are a complicated web of interconnects and integrations. Not surprisingly, Oracle mentioned that the most common use-case that is driving legacy footprints to Oracle Cloud is the DB. This shows how much pent-up demand there is to move even the most complicated workloads to cloud. Today, Oracle’s DB offering runs on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). It was mentioned that the other Oracle Cloud offerings are moving to run on OCI as well.

Another use-case mentioned was that of High-Performance Computing (HPC). HPC environments need large scale and low latency. Both are positive factors for Oracle’s hardware designs.

While these are two good use-cases, Oracle will need to do things that attract a broader base of use-cases moving forward.

THE CIO PERSPECTIVE

Overall, there seems to be some glimmers of light coming from the Oracle Cloud offering. However, it is hard to get into the true differentiators. Granted that Oracle is playing a bit of catch-up compared with other, more mature cloud-based offerings.

The true value appears to be focused on existing Oracle customers that are looking to make a quick move to cloud. If true and the two fundamental use-cases are DBaaS and HPC, that is a fairly limited pool of customers when there is significant potential still sitting in the corporate data center.

It will be interesting to see how Oracle evolves their IaaS messaging and portfolio to broaden the use-cases and provide fundamental services that other cloud solutions have offered for years. Oracle does have the resources to put a lot of effort toward making a bigger impact. Right now, however, it appears that the Oracle Cloud offering is mainly geared for existing Oracle customers with specific use-cases.

Business · Cloud

Morpheus Data brings the glue to multi-cloud management

Tim Crawford1 Comment

clover-b4ff8d514c9356e8860551f79c48ff7c

Enterprises across the globe are starting to leverage cloud-based resources in a multitude of ways. However, there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to cloud that makes sense for the enterprise portfolio. This leads to a rise in multi-cloud deployments for the varied workloads any given enterprise uses. Meaning, any given enterprise will use a variety of different cloud-based services depending on the specific requirements of any given workload. It is important to understand the difference between Multi-Cloud and Hybrid Cloud.

This cloud ‘sprawl’ creates an increasingly complicated management problem as each cloud provider uses a different approach to manage their cloud-based services. Layer in management processes, automation routines and management tools and one can quickly understand the challenge. Add to this that any given application may use a different combination of cloud services and one can quickly see how the problem gets exponentially more complicated with each workload.

MORPHEUS DATA PROVIDES THE GLUE

At Tech Field Day’s Cloud Field Day 3, I had the opportunity to meet with the team from Morpheus Data.

Morpheus Data addresses this complicated web of tools and services by providing an abstraction layer on top of the various tools and services. More specifically, Morpheus Data creates abstraction between the provisioning and underlying infrastructure. To date, they support 49 service integrations out of the box that cover a variety of cloud services, governance tools, management tools and infrastructure.

Providing governance and automation is key to any multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud deployment. Leveraging a solution like Morpheus Data will help streamline CloudOps & DevOps efforts through their integration processes.

One interesting aspect of Morpheus Data’s solution is the ability to establish application templates that span a number of different tools, services & routines. The templates assist with deployment and can set specific time limitations on specific services. This is especially handy to avoid one form of sprawl known as service abandonment where a service is left running and accruing cost even though it is no longer used.

Much of Morpheus Data’s efforts are geared toward ‘net-new’ deployments to cloud. Moving legacy workloads will require re-working before fully taking advantage of cloud-based resources. I wrote about the challenges with legacy workloads moving to public cloud in these posts:

LOOKING BEYOND THE TOOL

While Morpheus Data provides technology to address the systemic complexities of technology, it does not address the people component. To be fair, it is not clear that any tool will necessarily fix the people component. Specifically, in order to truly leverage good governance and automation routines, one needs to come to grips with the organizational and cultural changes to support such approaches.

In order to address the people component, it is helpful to break down the personas. The key three are Developer, Infrastructure Administrator and Executive. Each of these personas have different requirements and interests that will impact how services are selected and consumed.

IN SUMMARY

Morpheus Data is going after a space that is both huge and highly complicated. A big challenge for the team will be to focus on the most critical spaces without trying to cover every tool, process and model. This is really a question going broad or going deep. You can’t do both.

In addition, it is clear that Morpheus Data has a good start but would benefit from bringing operational data and costs into the factors that drive decisions on which services to use. The team already has some cost components included but are not as dynamic as enterprises will need moving forward.

In summary, the Morpheus Data solution looks like a great start to the increasingly complicated multi-cloud space. Every enterprise will have some form of complexity dealing with multi-cloud and hybrid cloud. As such, they could benefit from a solution to help streamline the processes. Morpheus Data looks like a good start and will be interesting to see how the company and solution evolve over time to address this increasingly complicated space.

Network

Upgrading to a mesh wifi network

Tim Crawford1 Comment

Google_Wifi.max-1000x1000

After several folks asked about a recent tweet I posted about upgrading my home wifi network to a mesh network, I thought I would spend a few words to describe the before and after.

UNDERSTANDING THE BASELINE

Before discussing the details about the wifi networks and implementation, it is important to first set a baseline. As with most decisions, they are not made in a vacuum nor are they made independent of other variables and/or factors. In my case, one of the core factors to understand is that I live in the Apple ecosystem. If I lived in a Windows and/or Android ecosystem, the circumstances would not have been the same. And therefore, past decisions would likely have been different.

MOVING TO MULTIPLE WIFI ACCESS POINTS

Considering that I live in the Apple ecosystem, it made logical sense (at the time) to consider an Apple AirPort Extreme base station as my wifi access point. At the time, one AirPort Extreme base station provided solid coverage to my entire home. In addition, the Apple ecosystem with management software included in the Mac OS made the management really simple.

At some point, however, the size of my home increased and so did the need for a broader wifi network. Apple’s AirPort Extreme base stations allow the ability to create an extended network across multiple access points. The fact that you could create a wireless bridge across two AirPort Extreme base stations was also handy for those devices that didn’t have wireless capabilities. That’s all great. That is, until it isn’t great.

As Apple stopped regularly updating their AirPort devices, the quality of service consistently degraded. First, it was access points that lost connection to other access points. Then performance became an issue. Eventually, it got to the point where performance felt really lagging…especially if another device was streaming on the network. Now keep in mind that my Internet connection is a 150Mbps broadband connection which should provide plenty of bandwidth. Add to that the management required to keep things working and one can see how frustrating it can get.

THE SHIFT TO MESH

For some time, I have been toying with the idea of replacing the three connected Apple AirPort Extreme base stations with a modern mesh network that focused on performance while still keeping things simple. After doing a fair amount of research, it came down to two products: Eero & Google Wifi. Both products had solid reports from users. In the end, I opted for the Google Wifi 3-node system over the Eero for one simple reason: Cost. The three unit Eero system is significantly more expensive than the equivalent 3-node Google Wifi system. And the specs seemed pretty similar.

In my situation, the three wifi units are setup as: 1) Primary, connected directly to cable modem. The second port connects to a switch which connects to other devices that perform better via wired over wireless connections (Smart TVs, DVR, Apple TV, DVD Player, etc). 2) Wireless mesh. And 3) Wired wifi mesh. The last one is closer to my home office which has a wired connection to the core switch in order to provide greater performance while still supporting the wifi mesh. Installation and setup was very quick and easy to do.

EARLY REPORTS ARE IN

Granted the devices have been operational almost 24 hours. However, since installing the new devices, I have seen a marked improvement in wifi stability and performance. I can also see how much bandwidth is being used by different devices and address as needed. Even my wife noted that the Google wifi access points are less obtrusive than then Apple AirPort Extreme base stations. Although only one of the three is visible as the other two sit behind things and out of view. Even when everyone is at home on their devices, I have not noticed a single blip in performance like in the past. In addition, moving around the house between access points also seems quicker and seamless. This is important for those (like us) that live in semi-rural areas where cell coverage is spotty and wifi calling is required.

Only time will tell, but so far I am very pleased with the change.

CIO · Cloud · Data

Why are enterprises moving away from public cloud?

Tim Crawford9 Comments

IMG_6559

We often hear of enterprises that move applications from their corporate data center to public cloud. This may come in the form of lift and shift. But then something happens that causes the enterprise to move it out of public cloud. This yo-yo effect and the related consequences create ongoing challenges that contribute to several of the items listed in Eight ways enterprises struggle with public cloud.

In order to better understand the problem, we need to work backwards to the root cause…and that often starts with the symptoms. For most, it starts with costs.

UNDERSTANDING THE ECONOMICS

The number one reason why enterprises pull workloads back out of cloud has to do with economics. For public cloud, it comes in the form of a monthly bill for public cloud services. In the post referenced above, I refer to a cost differential of 4x. That is to say that public cloud services cost 4x the corporate data center alternative for the same services. These calculations include fully-loaded total cost of ownership (TCO) numbers on both sides over a period of years to normalize capital costs.

4x is a startling number and seems to fly in the face of a generally held belief that cloud computing is less expensive than the equivalent on-premises corporate data center. Does this mean that public cloud is not less expensive? Yes and no.

THE IMPACT OF LEGACY THINKING

In order to break down the 4x number, one has to understand legacy thinking heavily influences this number. While many view public cloud as less expensive, they often compare apples to oranges when comparing public cloud to corporate data centers. And many do not consider the fully-loaded corporate data center costs that includes server, network, storage…along with power, cooling, space, administrative overhead, management, real estate, etc. Unfortunately, many of these corporate data center costs are not exposed to the CIO and IT staff. For example, do you know how much power your data center consumes and the cost for real estate? Few IT folks do.

There are five components that influence legacy thinking:

  1. 24×7 Availability: Most corporate data centers and systems are built around 24×7 availability. There is a significant amount of data center architecture that goes into the data center facility and systems to support this expectation.
  2. Peak Utilization: Corporate data center systems are built for peak utilization whether they use it regularly or not. This unused capacity sits idle until needed and only used at peak times.
  3. Redundancy: Corporate infrastructure from the power subsystems to power supplies to the disk drives is designed for redundancy. There is redundancy within each level of data center systems. If there is a hardware failure, the application ideally will not know it.
  4. Automation & Orchestration: Corporate applications are not designed with automation & orchestration in mind. Applications are often installed on specific infrastructure and left to run.
  5. Application Intelligence: Applications assume that availability is left to other systems to manage. Infrastructure manages the redundancy and architecture design manages the scale.

Now take a corporate application with this legacy thinking and move it directly into public cloud. It will need peak resources in a redundant configuration running 24×7. That is how they are designed, yet, public cloud benefits from a very different model. Running an application in a redundant configuration at peak 24×7 leads to an average of 4x in costs over traditional data center costs.

This is the equivalent of renting a car every day for a full year whether you need it or not. In this model, the shared model comes at a premium.

THE SOLUTION IS IN PLANNING

Is this the best way to leverage public cloud services? Knowing the details of what to expect leads one to a different approach. Can public cloud benefit corporate enterprise applications? Yes. Does it need planning and refactoring? Yes.

By refactoring applications to leverage the benefits of public cloud rather than assume legacy thinking, public cloud has the potential to be less expensive than traditional approaches. Obviously, each application will have different requirements and therefore different outcomes.

The point is to shed legacy thinking and understand where public cloud fits best. Public cloud is not the right solution for every workload. From those applications that will benefit from public cloud, understand what changes are needed before making the move.

OTHER REASONS

There are other reasons that enterprises exit public cloud services beyond just cost. Those may include:

  1. Scale: Either due to cost or significant scale, enterprises may find that they are able to support applications within their own infrastructure.
  2. Regulatory/ Compliance: Enterprises may use test data with applications but then move the application back to corporate data centers when shifting into production with regulated data. Or compliance requirements may force the need to have data resources local to maintain compliance. Sovereignty issues also drive decisions in this space.
  3. Latency: There are situations where public cloud may be great on paper, but in real-life latency presents a significant challenge. Remote and time-sensitive applications are good examples.
  4. Use-case: The last catch-all is where applications have specific use-cases where public cloud is great in theory, but not the best solution in practice. Remember that public cloud is a general-purpose infrastructure. As an example, there are application use-cases that need fine-tuning that public cloud is not able to support. Other use-cases may not support public cloud in production either.

The bottom line is to fully understand your requirements, think ahead and do your homework. Enterprises have successfully moved traditional corporate applications to public cloud…even those with significant regulatory & compliance requirements. The challenge is to shed legacy thinking and consider where and how best to leverage public cloud for each application.

Business · CIO · Cloud

SAP Cloud Platform is not your typical ERP software

Tim CrawfordLeave a comment

img_5439

I had the opportunity to join SAP (NYSE: SAP) executives recently for SAP’s Capital Markets Day at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

Before talking about my perspective on SAP and the SAP Cloud Platform, I would be remiss mentioning the NYSE itself. The NYSE is not like every other business location in lower Manhattan. The NYSE is more like a working museum. The halls are opulent and filled with the rich (pun intended) history of the NYSE. From clocks running since the mid-1800s’ to maps from the same period and paintings galore, the history of the NYSE comes out with every turn. Check out my Tweets and Instagram pictures for more details.

img_5461

Now on to SAP Capital Markets Day.

NOT YOUR TYPICAL ERP SYSTEM

SAP Cloud Platform is SAP’s overarching name given to their core set of cloud-based offerings. Today, SAP Cloud Platform includes S4 and HANA; SAP’s in-memory database solution.

Like many cloud-based software solutions, SAP Cloud Platform offers many of the core features found in their traditional Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution without the overhead of managing the underlying infrastructure. Traditional ERP solutions are very resource intensive and require a fleet of staff and systems to maintain. At the same time, these same solutions are getting increasingly more complex maintain.

In addition to the initial implementation, upgrades for ERP solutions are equally complicated and expensive. Much of this is due to the significant customizations that customers perform with their specific implementation. Therefore, many enterprises are starting to consider cloud-based ERP solutions.

SAP Cloud Platform offers a cloud-based alternative to their core ERP offering hence alleviating the need for customers to manage the underlying system and corresponding infrastructure. However, that doesn’t tell the whole story.

NEW TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLOUD

By shifting their focus to SAP Cloud Platform, SAP can introduce new technology much quicker than previously possible. Since SAP is managing the platform, software updates are relatively automatic with little to no involvement on behalf of the customer. In turn, customers can immediately take advantage of new technology without having to wait until the next upgrade cycle…which may be years away.

One of the new technologies that SAP is bringing to SAP Cloud Platform is Artificial Intelligence (AI). When using the traditional ERP approach, a rollout of new technology may take years. However, cloud allows customers to immediately leverage AI. That is a huge differentiator considering the pace in which technology is changing. There is simply no way for traditional enterprises to keep up with the ever-changing technology landscape.

A SHIFT IN CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR

While speaking with customers at the event, one difference in thinking started appearing. A very stark difference in thinking. Essentially, customers now realize the frustration, complexity and cost that comes with highly configured environments. Any changes require a significant amount of time and money. Of the customers that I spoke with at SAP Capital Markets Day, this thinking has turned on its head.

In the past, the traditional thinking was to modify the ERP system to map against existing business processes. This approach, from experience, was complicated and troublesome on many levels. At the end of the implementation the company was left with a snowflake of software that was as unique as their business.

In the new model, companies realize the painful downsides of customization. Of the customers I spoke with, they focused on how processes were setup in the system and changed their internal business processes to match those. This is the exact opposite approach from the traditional one.

If I go back 20+ years to my first experience implementing SAP, the very suggestion to adapt business processes to the software would have been considered heresy. Yet, that is exactly what is happening today.

IN SUMMARY

The conversations I had with SAP customers about their philosophy on how technology and business intersect echoes other conversations I have with customers. There is a time to adapt technology to business…but to a point. We need to understand the downsides in doing so. Just because you can customize something does not mean you should.

I wrote about this four years ago in Simple and Standard…or Custom and Complex? It appears this is finally playing out. And SAP is projecting that this shift in thinking will translate to most of their revenue coming from their SAP Cloud Platform in next few years. That is a bold statement, but not out of bounds.

If you think about ERP systems today, they are heavy, complicated and costly. There is a minimum price to play with ERP. By offering their ERP solution via cloud, SAP has lowered the barrier to entry for ERP. And by doing so has effectively opened their market potential to a much wider audience…that previously would have never considered ERP at the SAP level.

From my conversations with SAP executives, SAP is a very different company these days. That starts with their CEO, Bill McDermott, and filters throughout the organization. As enterprises move to cloud, SAP will be one company to watch in the coming years.

Business · Cloud · Data

Amazon drives cloud innovation toward the enterprise

Tim CrawfordLeave a comment

 

Amazon continues to drive forward with innovation at a blistering pace. At their annual re:Invent confab, Amazon announced dozens of products to an audience of over 30,000 attendees. There are plenty of newsworthy posts outlining the specific announcements including Amazon’s own re:Invent website. However, there are several announcements that specifically address the growing enterprise demand for cloud computing resources.

INNOVATION AT A RAPID SCALE

One thing that stuck out at the conference was the rate in which Amazon is innovating. Amazon is innovating so fast it is often hard to keep up with the changes. On one hand, it helps Amazon check the boxes when compared against other products. On the other hand, new products like Amazon Rekognition, Polly and Lex demonstrate the level of sophistication that Amazon can bring to market beyond simple infrastructure services. By leveraging their internal expertise in AI and Machine Learning, Amazon’s challenge is one of productizing the solutions.

The sheer number of new, innovative solutions is remarkable but makes it hard to keep track of the best solutions to use for different situations. In addition, it creates a bulging portfolio of services like that of its traditional corporate software competitors.

As an enterprise uses more of Amazon’s products, the fear of lock-in grows. Should this be a concern to either Amazon or potential enterprise customers? Read my post: Is the concept of enterprise lock in a red herring? Lock in is a reality across cloud providers today, not just Amazon. Building solutions for one platform does not provide for easy migration to competing solutions. Innovation is a good thing, but does come at a cost.

DRIVING TOWARD THE EDGE

There are two issues that challenge enterprises evaluating the potential of cloud computing. One challenge is the delivery mechanism. Not all applications are well suited for a centralized cloud-based delivery approach. There are use cases in just about every industry where computing is best suited at the edge. The concept of hybrid cloud computing is one way to address it. At re:Invent, Amazon announced Greengrass which moves the computing capability of Amazon’s Lambda function to a device. At the extreme, Greengrass enables the ability to embed cloud computing functions on a chip.

Moving cloud functionality to the edge is one issue. A second perspective is that it signals Amazon’s acknowledgement that not all roads end with public cloud. The reality is that most industries have use cases where centralized cloud computing is simply not an option. One example, of many, is processing at a remote location. Backhauling data to the cloud for processing is not a viable option. In addition, Internet of Things (IoT) is presenting opportunities and challenges for cloud. The combination of Greengrass and, also announced, Snowball Edge extend Amazon’s reach to the edge of the computing landscape.

AS THE SNOWBALL ROLLS DOWNHILL…

As a snowball rolls downhill, it grows in size. Last year, Amazon announced the data storage onboarding appliance, Snowball. Since last year’s re:Invent, Amazon found customers were using Snowball in numbers exceeding expectations. In addition to the sheer number of Snowball devices, customers are moving larger quantities of data onto Amazon’s cloud. Keep in mind it is still faster to move large quantities of data via truck than over the wire. To address this increase in demand, Amazon drove an 18-wheeled semi-truck and trailer on stage to announce Amazon Snowmobile. While everyone thought it was a gimmick, it is quite real. Essentially, Snowmobile is a semi-trailer that houses a massive storage-focused data center. From an enterprise perspective, this addresses one of the core challenges to moving applications to cloud: how to move the data…and lots of it.

IS AMAZON READY FOR ENTERPRISE?

With the announcements made to date, is Amazon truly ready for enterprise demand? Amazon is the clear leader for public cloud services today. They squarely captured the webscale and startup markets. However, a much larger market is still relatively untapped: Enterprises. Unlike the webscale and startup markets, the enterprise market is both exponentially larger and incredibly more complex. Many of these issues are addressed in Eight ways enterprises struggle with public cloud. For any cloud provider, understanding the enterprise is the first of several steps. A second step is in providing products and services that help enterprises with the onboarding process. As an analogy: Building a beautiful highway is one thing. When you ask drivers to build their own onramps, it creates a significant hurdle to adoption. This is precisely the issue for enterprises when it comes to public cloud. Getting from here to there is not a trivial step.

amazon-enterprise-cloud-gap

To counter the enterprise challenges, Amazon is taking steps in the direction of the enterprise. First is the fundamental design of their data centers and network. Amazon understands that enterprises are looking for data center redundancy. One way they address this is by maintaining multiple data centers in each location. After learning about the thoughts and reasons behind some of their strategic decisions, it’s clear there is quite a bit of deep thinking that goes into decisions. That will bode well for enterprises. Second, Amazon announced their partnership with VMware. I addressed my thoughts on the partnership here: VMware and Amazon AWS Partnership: An Enterprise Perspective. A third step is Amazon’s AWS Migration Acceleration Program. This program is led by a former CIO and directly targets enterprises looking to adopt Amazon’s services. In addition to their internal migration organization, Amazon is building out their partner program to increase the number of partners helping enterprises migrate their applications to Amazon.

ALL ROADS DO NOT LEAD TO PUBLIC CLOUD

Even with all the work Amazon is doing to woo enterprise customers, significant challenges exist. Many assume that all roads lead to public cloud. This statement overstates the reality of how companies need to consume computing resources. There are several paths and outcomes supporting the reality of enterprise computing environments.

How Amazon addresses those concerns will directly impact their success in the enterprise market. Amazon is closing the gap, but so are competitors like Microsoft and others.

CIO · Cloud

Is public cloud more or less expensive than corporate data center options?

Tim Crawford4 Comments

 

img_1963

First a shout out to both Steve Kaplan and Jeff Sussna for encouraging this post. This post is a continuation from the post Eight ways enterprise struggle with public cloud and delves into the reasons why public cloud can be 4x the cost of corporate data centers.

Enterprises often look toward public cloud as a cost savings measure. Cost savings is the first stage of the enterprise maturity model leverage cloud. The thinking is that public cloud is less expensive than corporate data center options, right? Yes and no. Enterprises are learning the hard way that public cloud is not less expensive than corporate data center options. Why is that the case and can anything be done to change the outcome?

AN ANALOG MODEL

First, it is important to understand the differences in usage behavior between enterprise applications leveraging corporate data centers versus public cloud. An analog is the difference between buying a car versus renting it. In this analogy, the car represents infrastructure. Which is better? Which is less expensive? To answer those questions, one first needs to understand usage behaviors.

Scenario A

Assume for a minute that you were accustomed to purchasing a large car. Whether you used it every day or not, it would sit, running, ready whenever needed. Some days you only need one seat, while other days, you need all five seats plus lots of luggage space. In this model, you pay for the large car whether used or not.

Scenario B

Now, imagine those assumptions, but rather than purchasing the large car, it is simply rented. The large car is rented full time, running and ready whether used or not.

In Scenario B, a premium is paid for the ability to rent the car. Yet, the advantages of 1) renting the car only when needed and 2) renting the size of car most appropriately needed are lost. The large car is rented whether needed or not.

Like the car model, enterprise applications are built around a model that assumes the large car is available 24×7 even though you may or may not use all its capacity or every day. Enterprise applications are accustomed to purchasing the car, not renting it. Purchasing makes sense for this behavior. Yet, when moving enterprise applications to public cloud without changing the behaviors, the advantages of shifting the model from owning to renting are lost.

BEHAVIOR AND ARCHITECTURE CHANGES OUTCOMES

Changing the behaviors of the enterprise applications when moving to public cloud is the right answer to address this issue. However, that is easier said than done. Adding orchestration and automation within an application to leverage resources when needed and returning them when done often requires a significant architectural change or a complete application re-write. Both options are significant and work against any potential cost savings for public cloud.

Adding another wrinkle to the mix is that enterprise applications are architected to assume that infrastructure is always available. That means that redundancy and resiliency is maintained in the infrastructure, not the application. Public cloud infrastructure is not built with this redundancy and resiliency. Public cloud requires the application to carry the intelligence to address infrastructure issues. Shifting intelligence to the application is yet another significant architectural challenge for enterprise applications.

Note that these architectural changes bring added value beyond efficiently leveraging public cloud. Those changes include agility and responsiveness to an ever-changing business climate.

CAN ENTERPRISES STILL LEVERAGE PUBLIC CLOUD?

With these significant hurdles and those addressed in Eight ways enterprises struggle with public cloud, it is easy to see why enterprise public cloud adoption is relatively sluggish. Yet, CIOs still need to get out of the data center business and public cloud is a fine option for those applications that make sense. Between public cloud and corporate data centers, which model is ultimately better? It depends on the needs and behaviors of the applications along with the capability of the organization.

It is important to take a minute and think about the path to public cloud. It is also important to understand that not all roads lead to public cloud. Avoid the potholes, plan accordingly and leverage the benefits.