Blessay: Successful Private Clouds Aren’t Spoken Of In Public

23rd February 2016 by Greg Ferro

You don’t hear much about successful “Private Clouds” because they aren’t done in public. Two takeaways.

People are talking a lot about public cloud because its good business not necessarily because its good technology [1]
Private Clouds are being successfully deployed in vast numbers and no one is talking about them. This is also good business and probably because its good technology.

Being Public

Some companies choose to be public about their cloud participation.

Recruiting. Cloud computing of any type need people who have different skills focus but mostly its about attitude, flexibility and excellence (recruiters are bad at this). Chatting to people at conferences is job searching that is many times cheap than recruitment companies.
Marketing. Speaking at conferences using your company brand name usually costs a lot of money. The poster child of public cloud, Amazon AWS, gets vast amounts of free marketing that could well be measured in hundreds of millions.
Open Source Participation. Get other companies to start using your software and wait for the free software contributions to roll in to your platform.
Open Source Exposure. Encouraging other developers to start using your open source project. Build a pool of resources that using, developing and supporting your platform so that you can save money on recruiting (see above) and get more contributions(see above).
Ego. Some people like to think that what they do matters and they should receive public recognition for doing their day-to-day job. Just a very few will actually deserve it.
Competitive Advantage Strategic business advantage is gained by showing competitors how your IT makes your more competitive.
Startup Crash Landing working in startups has few guarantees. The most likely outcome is that your next job is just around the corner and public speaking is a fine addition to your résumé.

These are all fine reasons for being open and speaking about your IT success. In particular, using public cloud platforms means that your chances of systemic competitive differentiation is zero. [2]

Being Private

Most companies do not talk about their cloud participation.

Competitive Advantage. Many companies invest in IT to achieve competitive advantage. Highlighting your advantage will negate the investment.
Cost. Its cost serious money in lost time, travel and supervision to release resources for travel. [3]
Measurable Gain. The returns on public speaking are largely intangible & immeasurable. Why waste effort
Legal. Some industries are highly regulated and the
IT Security. Two aspects to security. One, open discussion of your internal architecture is providing reconnaissance information to an attacker [4].
Brand Security. Employees speaking on behalf of company are at risk of causing brand damage, public outcry, etc. People who have families to care for (compared to most public cloud consumers) have real fears of failure that will cause serious damage to their personal lives.

There are also lesser reasons for rejecting public engagement. While often these are retrograde and focussed on the past they are nonetheless real:

Inflexibility: It’s never been done before.
No perceived value: Measuring the internal cost vs the perceived value is difficult for companies who have never engaged openly.
Fear of Failure Why take
Why Bother We have insufficient resources. [5]
Fear of Speaking Mature, established companies have no experience in the mechanics of speaking. It will, perhaps, take some time for them to embrace the value of openness.

Private Clouds Are, Well, Private

The majority of companies using public cloud have limited financial resources. They don’t make a profit and cash burn/cash flow is a critical issue. The ability to achieve any form of exposure is, well, good and a chance of a soft landing into when your startup crashes (as most of them do).

The technology press has been massively skewed towards public cloud simply because there is material to be used. Public speaking, public figures who are accessible for interviews/coffee. Private cloud owners simply don’t engage in public debate. I mean, why bother ?

In the real world, private Clouds are far more flexible and practical for the most companies. It is the only cloud solution that will support your legacy software AND support the implementation of next generation cloud technologies.

Private Cloud Is Also The Answer

I’m concerned that there widespread market bias leading ( a Confirmation Bias most likely) that strongly supports public cloud as the only possible solution. The disruption isn’t caused by public cloud, it’s caused by technologies that public cloud must use. Without them, public cloud isn’t viable, practical or even possible.

Public cloud has been the first companies to embrace DevOps/Automation/OrchestrationPortals/APIs/REST/JSON etc because that is the best way to run an IT infrastructure. Enterprise IT will be slower to embrace these since they are 1) not technology-only companies 2) they must sustain heirloom technologies while transitioning to cloud in their private data centres.

Being forced into technology change isn’t a bad thing. Look at smartphones and the speed of innovation that has been possible because phones are replaced on a bi-annual cycle.

Public cloud cheer squads have formed to force change onto consumers. Again, no bad thing since the resistance to change is substantial and significant. What these clouderati cheerleaders have conveniently forgotten is that the same technology drives/deploy/ private cloud and delivers the same value. Orchestration and automation works just as well in private cloud.

Also key, scaling down the technology to private cloud size is a simple task and removes a key objection to deploying it. The public cloud is a sweet testing platform for private clouds. Lets test it, see it how it works and then deploy the technology that we need.

Back to my two things:

Public clouds aren’t the best solution just because people are talking about them.
Private Clouds are being successfully deployed in vast numbers and no one is talking them.

The EtherealMind View

One feature of the public cloud is that sheer number of resources available to help with adoption. Practical, useful resources that talk about the good, bad & ugly help to get the job done. This information removes very costly processes like pre-sale proof-of-concept, time spent in meetings and more. On the other hand, public cloud is hard and requires a full replacement of all your existing IT to embrace.

You don’t hear much about private cloud because its private. No egos, no resume boosting, no travel, and some minor security reasons. Private clouds exist, are successful and going through exactly the same growing pains as public clouds but there are reasons why private clouds are private.

This article first appeared in an Issue of the Human Infrastructure Magazine at Packet Pushers. You can signup to receive the magazine by email and for free by subscribing here.

Most cloud technology is better than existing technology because most existing IT technology is obsolete by at least a decade. ↩
Once everyone is using the same technology, there is no advantage between competitors. (computing/storage/networking is unlikely to be fungible resource like electricity in the next 50 years). ↩
Not everyone wants to work nights and weekends. Not everyone thinks that speaking at a conference is a fun activity. ↩
Security through obscurity isn’t best practice but when attackers have your source code, ↩
Startups have far more human resources than a typical enterprise IT team. They must cope with far more complexity than a typical Internet startup – more platforms, more operating systems, diverse applications and have little access to high quality people and support. ↩

Permission and Proof in Private Clouds

4th August 2014 by Greg Ferro

Permission and Proof in Private Clouds

I’m often told that the enterprise customer will take years to implement Private Clouds because the enterprise is slow to adopt new technologies. Yet the private cloud is happening faster than seems practical and there has to be a reason that is driving adoption so quickly.

The Public Cloud is Proof

Enterprises have limited capacity to implement change. A typical IT budget is 80% spent on maintenance and support of existing infrastructure which means limited funds for innovation. Implementing the sort of structural change that is needed for Private Cloud requires significant capital and requires a one-off budget allocation to complete the initial phase before the cost reductions fall to the operational bottom line.

Going to bat with the executives for CapEx budget requires a high level of confidence, proof of delivery and assurances. The accounting review and approval process doesn’t reward risks or unproven outcomes.

The public cloud changes the balance of power in this process. IT Managers can point to the public cloud, highlight the success and costs savings of those services and demand funding to build private clouds. When the discussion turns to risk/reward, a smart manager can simply point to Amazon, Google or Microsoft as success stories that reach the headlines almost everyday. Equally, Facebook and other high profile startups can be used to validate private cloud projects.

Permission

In the operational areas, the same method can be used to drive change in the IT organisation and structure. Look at companies like Netflix and use their success as your permission to implement change.

Existing processes built on ITIL / PRINCE2 logic can be discarded when you can demonstrate high levels of success, growth and speed. Plenty of companies have talked about their success in conferences, get out there and find a story that is relevant to your own situation, company and market.

Permission for change in the IT Department organisation and job roles has been granted by the success of others. You don’t need to ask for it.

Using Public Clouds As Driver

Public clouds are here to stay and will be a part of any IT strategy but the simple fact is that the technology that Amazon, Google or Facebook use to build their hyper-efficient, scale up and automate is also available to any Enterprise. Most or all of the software is available as open-source and requires only some skill and planning to implement at the smaller scale of an Enterprise data centre.

Private clouds are the future for Enterprise but the internal change and disruption is significant. A well prepared architect or IT manager should take the opportunity to leverage the success of public clouds as proof that the technology works and is proven. When changing the organisation and staff attitudes, point to examples of DevOps / Agile / Lean as successful references and examples of how other people have achieved success.

One Final Thing

Don’t hesitate to embrace public cloud. An application or service that works on the public cloud will work even better in a private cloud since they use the same foundation technology. Public cloud can be a testing ground for private cloud.

My Private Cloud Block Architecture Diagram

18th July 2014 by Greg Ferro

When planning network architecture for the next few years, I believe that it is important to comprehend that the network is just a one part of an overall system. The ITIL foolishness that drive most IT infrastructure processes prevents clear systemic thinking and I’m often having to explain how the network is fully integrated into the server and storage architecture.

It is too simple to say that “everything is connected”. The real story is that the network will, over time, be orchestrated by external software applications. More correctly, everything will be orchestrated by by software. Portals and service catalogs are far more interesting than the network connectivity.

I created this following block diagram to explain my current perspective. Over time, I have identified products and solutions in most of the areas, there are some places that I still don’t understand well and I’m still researching in the there areas.

You can click for a much larger image which should be more readable.

Private-Cloud-Schmatic-Block-Diagram-august-2014 — EtherealMind’s Private Cloud Block Diagram – August 2014 (Click for Larger Image)

Public Cloud Too

I recently did some consulting work for a public cloud company which highlighted that public clouds have basically the same technology as private clouds. There are some specific matters around scaling and simplicity because public clouds are operated differently but the actual software and hardware is often the same.

Moving Parts

Too many companies think that building a private cloud is simply upgrading their VMware vCenter to a vCloud / vCAC / vCOps solution and then learn some very harsh lessons in gap analysis and expectations.

If you think this is interesting, I am available for consulting on a hourly basis and can advise you on your own private cloud.

Blessay: We Need To Buy Infrastructure Dolls Not Babies For The Private Cloud

25th April 2014 by Greg Ferro

The future of private infrastructure ownership is moving to a new model combines the old with the new that I describe as “dolls and babies” where the major transformation in infrastructure ownership is the transition from having babies to owning dolls.

Infrastructure as Babies

Enterprises buy infrastructure like people have babies. It takes months to make a baby, creates a great deal of disruption during their delivery and it wasn’t easy to change work practices when the baby arrived.

And, like a real baby, it involves large capital investments and enormous amounts of ongoing feeding and care. Preparing the space, learning how the handle the baby and what it needs are all challenging things for the ‘new parents’.

In the last five years, we have have seen many structural changes in manufacturing of hardware through commoditisation. Indeed, its become so cheap to make new hardware, or extend the life of existing hardware that large companies like EMC & Cisco can produce multiple product families with major overlap. Comparisons show that EMC’s VNC and VMAX or Cisco’s Nexus 6000/7000 products in the data centre have so much overlap that it buyers find it hard to pick out the obvious differences. Logically, the profit margins must be able to sustain entire business units to produce and develop the platforms.

Infrastructure as Dolls

The alternative option is to consider asset purchases as dolls. Something to be bought cheaply, used for a short period and then tossed aside after a year or two. A doll asset might live on for a while on the toyshelf before being tossed as rubbish.

Infrastructure as dolls uses a concept of replacement and rotation. This requires change in business process and technology section to enable rapid change, faster deployment and so on. Buy doll clothes instead of baby clothes.

We have all heard those concepts before as “private cloud” which enables “doll” concept. See Cattle vs Kittens for more detail.

Transition – Are Customers Are Becoming Wiser ?

Vendors are reluctant to adopt the “doll” business model. Firstly, they are often deeply attached to their babies and reluctant to change.

Secondly, delivering babies is very good business for vendors. High priced goods that require large upfront investments make for good cash flow and trailing revenue.
Customers are becoming better parents and realising that they have too many babies. Having fewer babies is about family planning and careful career choices.

Conclusion

Creating and raising babies is the way that IT Infrastructure has developed over the last 20 years. As our babies grow up and become teenagers, many are realising that our ‘teenagers’ are not exactly right for the nest generation. If only we have chosen dolls instead of babies, we could put the old dolls away and get new ones without causing any damage.

We need Dolls not Babies in IT Infrastructure.

PS: Pets & Cattle

I’ve talked before about the cattle vs Kittens but feel that this metaphor is more suited to operating systems or virtual machines where systems need less maintenance, low capital and have limited physical presence. In the physical infrastructure, the device configuration is largely unchanged for most of it’s life. For both storage arrays and network switches in the data centre, configuring a few LUNs or adding a few ports to a VLAN constitutes a trivial delta in terms of overall functionality. All of the big decisions are made during the design phase where selection, features, location and implementation are all fixed before the roll out. Servers are already priced as consumable items and easily replaced in many use cases.