Recently, I took part in a live Twitter chat hosted by the Cloud Commons blog (thanks again for the invite!) that was focused on Rogue IT. After hearing from, and engaging with, some major thought leaders in the space, I decided to write a blog summarizing my thoughts on the topic.

What does “Rogue IT” mean anyway?

I think that there are rogue IT users and there are rogue IT projects. There’s the individual user scheduling meetings with an “unauthorized” iPad. There’s also a sales department, without the knowledge of corporate IT, developing an iPhone app to process orders for your yet-to-be-developed product. Let us focus on the latter – rogue IT projects. Without a doubt, rogue IT projects have been, and will continue to be, an issue for corporate IT departments. A quick web search will return articles on “rogue IT” dating back around 10 years. However, as technology decreases in cost and increases in functionality, the issue of rouge IT projects seems to be moving up on the list of concerns.

What does rogue IT have to do with cloud computing?

Cloud Computing opens up a market for IT Services. With Cloud Computing, organizations have the ability to source IT services to the provider that can deliver the service most efficiently. Sounds a lot like specialization and division of labor, doesn’t it? (We’ll stay away from The Wealth of Nations, for now.) Suffice to say that Rogue IT may be an indication that corporate IT departments need to compete with outside providers of IT services. Stated plainly, the rise of Cloud Computing is encouraging firms to enter the market for IT services. Customers, even inside a large organization, have choices (other than corporate IT) on how to acquire the IT services that they need. Maybe corporate IT is not able to deliver a new IT service in time for that new sales campaign. Or, corporate IT simply refuses to develop a new system requested by a customer. That customer, in control of their own budget, may turn to an alternative service offering “from the cloud.”

What are the advantages of rogue IT? Do they outweigh the risks?

Rogue IT is a trend that will continue as the very nature of work changes (e.g. long history of trends to a service-based economy means more and more knowledge workers). Rogue IT can lead to some benefits… BYOD or “bring your own device” for example. BYOD can drive down end-user support costs and improve efficiency. BYOD will someday also mean “bring your own DESK” and allow you to choose to work when and where it is most convienent for you to do so (as long as you’re impacting the bottom line, of course). Another major benefit is increased pace of innovation. As usual, major benefits are difficult to measure. Take the example of the Lockheed Martin “Skunkworks” that produced some breakthroughs in stealth military technology –would the organization have produced such things if they had been encumbered by corporate policies and standards?

Should CIOs embrace rogue IT or should it be resisted?

CIOs should embrace this as the new reality of IT becoming a partner with the business, not simply aligning to it. Further, CIOs can gain some visibility into what is going on with regard to “rogue IT” devices and systems. With some visibility, the corporate IT departments can develop meaningful offerings and meet the demands of their customers.

Corporate IT departments should also bring some education as to what is acceptable and what is not acceptable: iPad at work- ok, but protect it with a password. Using Google Docs to store your company’s financial records…there might be a better place for that.

Two approaches for corporate IT:

- “Embrace and extend:” Allow rogue IT, learn from the experiences of users, adopt the best systems/devices/technologies, and put them under development

• IT department gets to work with their customers and develop new technologies

- “Judge and Jury:” Have IT develop and enforce technology standards

• IT is more/less an administrative group, always the bad guy, uses justification by keeping the company and its information safe (rightly so)

CIOs should also consider when rogue IT is being used. Outside services, quick development, and sidestepping of corporate IT policies may be beneficial for projects in conceptual or development phases. You can find the transcript from the Cloud Commons twitter chat here: http://bit.ly/JNovHT

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wvl_qDHk30

I do not think anyone who is currently working in IT right now would disagree with me that a transformation is in progress.  There would probably be a heated discussion on what that transformation is, or where it is headed, as this transformation can mean different things to different companies. Let’s talk about what GreenPages is seeing with our clients and how this can help you make sure this transformation works in your users’ favor.

Here are four main changes I have noticed:

1.  Users are now the focus, not applications or locations.

It is all about the user.  Years ago, IT was all about making sure the applications were up and running.  IT spent a lot of time saying NO and had much more control of what was on the network and the tools that were available to their users.

The advent of smart mobile devices such as Androids, iPhones and especially iPads has created new abilities for the user to get access to the data and applications they need anywhere, anytime instead of having to be in the office to work.

Now the work IT is doing is providing this access to the users while keeping the data safe and available.  Our clients are using VMware, Citrix, Cisco and many other technologies to provide this, and there are new options and capabilities monthly.

The days when users had to be in the office to work are long gone, and I am happy about that and am much more productive because of it.

2.       Virtualization is now a commodity

Virtualization is becoming much like a high school diploma in the sense that it is now an entry level requirement.  The values of using all of the memory, CPU and network resources you already have in a much more efficient way are undeniable.  Now the next tasks are making better use of the physical resources by using optimization tools such as CA, VKernel and vCenter Operations Suites.  These tools will let you assign the correct amount of resources to run the workloads without any waste or overprovisioning.  This is a tremendous savings and allows our clients who are using them to forecast when hardware or software resources will run out so they can plan their purchases instead of hitting the wall and having to get something quickly.

The other side of this is doing a better job managing what you have.  No admin I talk to has the time to proactively look at all of the virtual machines, physical hosts, network resources or metrics to find problems before they impact workloads.  That is where tools such as vCenter Operations, vFoglight, CA and Veeam come in.  They look at all of the resources, metrics, systems, and virtual machines and can point out areas of concern so you can focus identifying the issue and resolving it much quicker.

3.   Cloud is here.

The most overused term in the industry is Cloud.  However, that does not mean that it isn’t a game changing technology.  The cloud is changing and many of our clients are jumping on board in both small and large ways.  Office 365, hosted servers and desktops, IAAS, and PAAS are the usual first steps.  Say what you will about the cloud, more and more applications and workloads are running in the cloud and more are joining them all the time.

4.  Better technology, better ways of solving issues

Everything from Intel and AMD processors, flash technology, SSD, new servers, converged infrastructure, improvement in VDI brokers and better and more efficient software keeps giving IT professionals better ways of solving the issues around keeping users happy.

The new IT is anywhere, anytime access to the applications and data needed to perform our jobs, entertain us and keep us connected. This is a journey and not a destination and I cannot wait to see what is coming next and how we can leverage it to make our lives, and our users’ lives, better.

Working for GreenPages allows me to speak with many Healthcare CIOs regarding cloud computing. The discussion almost always focuses on the typical concerns, and legitimate concerns, about security, infrastructure, cost, and what is a public and a private among many other things. As a former healthcare CIO, I can empathize with their concerns, frustrations, and the many mandates placed on their information systems teams.

Interestingly enough what is not discussed (and I find this very important) is staffing skill and the adaptation to the new form of computing. Many hospitals are traditional in their approach to selecting, implementing, managing, and supporting their infrastructure and end user needs. What I mean by that is staffing is focused on primarily the clinical applications followed by network engineering/security support, desktop support, etc.

With a cloud model this staffing complement begins to morph. The skill sets required to support a cloud environment change, and I would say for the better. To fundamentally make a philosophical staffing model change and be successful in the long term is much more difficult to position with staff, senior executives, and in many cases unacceptable to you as the senior IT leader. What do you do? What can you do?  What does the model look like?

Let’s discuss an approach.

• You need to know and understand where you are
  with staffing today.  In other words what technology and applications do
  you need to support and what maintenance regiment do you have (a baseline).
• Develop a vision of how you see cloud computing
  in your organization.
• Confirm what technology you are using today that
  will enable you to move into cloud computing and where the gaps are.
• What applications are you comfortable with that
  will not impact many of your users, a beta move to the cloud if you will.
• Identify the skillsets required to do so
• Position a beta budget (hard and soft costs)
• Confirm what this “cloud beta” will remove from
  your service line or operational expenses (licensing, purchases etc.).
• Determine the skillsets in your staffing
  complement that will no longer be needed. (I am speaking about skill not
  a reduction in staff).
• If you decide to move your email application
  into the cloud, will you need the skills to manage it as if it were on site?
• The skills that may now be needed include an
  ability to provision PaaS.
• You will also need training dollars to be
  successful.

The key is move into the cloud slowly, either by an application (one at a time) or from the approach of a technology area—server administration for instance.  Whatever your approach is will affect your skill set. Addressing your skill requirements during your move into the cloud will result in a successful tomorrow.

You may be asking, what are you talking about?  Did you say Microsoft and promotion?  That’s like saying oil and vinegar, Athens and Sparta, Sox and Yanks. In fact there’s a greater likelihood of seeing Snuffleupagus walking down the street than seeing a Microsoft promotion. But today you’re wrong—it does exist, like Paula Abdul notoriously pointed out in 1989, opposites do attract.

In all seriousness, this is the 7^th installment of the Big Easy and, nope, it has nothing to do with the hurricane drink or pralines, but rather a promotion that will provide you extra money for sales of Microsoft software.   Microsoft customers have had a lot of success with this in the past, and maybe you already know all about it so if you don’t, humor me. And if you do, pay attention because there are some subtle changes worth noting.

So here’s the scoop: based on qualifying purchases of Microsoft products you will earn money back in the form of a partner subsidy payout that can be used for implementation of future solutions and products including software, hardware, and services.   Basically, the gist of it is dependent on which product you purchase, how many licenses you get, and what program it is purchased in (i.e. Open Business or Open Value).  Microsoft will give you money back in a form of a check that you can use for future purchases.   It’s sort of like free money.

Like those new fall TV shows that suck you in to only be cancelled after a few short weeks, Microsoft’s Big Easy Offer is back for a limited time too: now until December 31, 2011.

Why are they doing this? It’s the last quarter of the year so what better time to have a promotion!

Cutting to the chase, if you purchase software through Open Business and Government or Open Value you have a chance to get hundreds or even thousands of dollars back.   Now Open Value is a program Microsoft is really pushing so if you happen to need licenses with Software Assurance, getting it through Open Value will provide a bigger payout for you. In fact, Microsoft is paying out three times as much money as Open Business, so if you’re looking at getting a license with Software Assurance, Open Value may be a plausible option because you could get some serious dough back.

There are several products included in this promotion which now includes Microsoft Online Services such as Office 365, Windows Intune & Dynamics CRM Online.

Now, once the order goes through, Microsoft will cut you a check that is made out to the partner of your choice and you can use that money for a future order.  The cool thing is Microsoft doesn’t care what you spend that money on.  In previous promotions you had to use it specifically for Microsoft products, but now you can purchase anything that the partner offers.

The past promotions have been very successful and no doubt this one will be too.  We all know that budgets are tight and any extra money is always a huge help and who knew Microsoft could be so generous.  Check out the Microsoft promotion pages to learn more about putting extra cash in your company’s wallet. Check out the details of this promotion from Microsoft.

The change that I am talking about is the discontinuation of VMware Advanced Edition.  What??  Why would this be a good opportunity for small to medium businesses?  Well, VMware is being generous and taking all the customers on the Advanced and Advanced Acceleration Kits and moving them to Enterprise.  That means that if you have those editions or buy them before 4.1 is not sold anymore, then you get an automatic upgrade to Enterprise for much less that it would take to purchase it.  Nice!!

Let me back up a second and talk about the different editions of VMware because this can be confusing unless you deal with it all the time.  There are basically 3 different “levels” of VMware.  It is important to remember that the software between these levels is exactly the same; certain features have been disabled for each level, but the code and functionality is the same.

This chart shows the upgrade paths that are available from vSphere 4.1 to vSphere 5.0

First are the Essentials, Essentials Plus, and Remote and Branch Office editions.  These are perfect for small to medium businesses that are just getting into VMware.  They come with 6 sockets of vSphere and vCenter Server for Essentials.  This provides everything needed to get started in virtualization including vMotion and High Availability (with Essentials Plus). The limiting factor for these editions is the 6 socket/3 host maximum.  You cannot manage more than 3 hosts with vCenter Server for Essentials so when you need to go to 4 or more hosts, you need to buy an upgrade edition called an Acceleration Kit.

In vSphere 4.x there were 2 Acceleration Kits, Advanced and Midsized.  Purchasing these would give you 6 sockets of vSphere and the Standard vCenter server (1 location only), which can manage as many hosts as you have. You would then buy CPU licenses for any additional hosts that you have.  The huge opportunity now is if you have, or buy, an Advanced or midsized Acceleration kit before VMware goes to a vSphere 5.0 only model, you can essentially buy the advanced version and get the Enterprise version when you decide to go to vSphere 5.  More features at a much reduced price equals value to me!

One more important change in the Acceleration kits with vSphere 5.0: when you buy an acceleration kit, they revert to the Standard, Enterprise or Enterprise Plus licenses as soon as you activate them.  With vSphere 4.x, you had to buy additional acceleration kits when you added more hosts; with 5.0 all you do is buy more of the regular license.  This is a much better way to manage this going forward for VMware and their customers.

The other editions for vSphere 5.0 are Standard, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus.  vSphere 4.0 has an advanced version but that is no longer available when you upgrade to 5.0.  Same deal here: if you have Advanced Edition now on vSphere 4.x, then you are the proud owner of vSphere Enterprise when you upgrade, and can take advantage of all the new features.

Here are the links to the features of each version.  vSphere for small and medium businesses and vSphere for Enterprise.  Here is a guide from VMware with a bunch of information about the benefits and how to upgrade your licenses.

This is a great time to upgrade your VMware licenses if you need to anyway and want to take advantage of this offer and get access to some additional features.

I think there is a lot of misperception around all of this “cloud” stuff so I wanted to lay out my thoughts on the topic and hopefully level a bit on where GreenPages sees the technology both today, as well as in the future.  My belief is that when anyone says the word ”cloud,” most people immediately think of some type of public, multi-tenant environment like Amazon’s EC2, AT&T’s Synaptic Compute, or Terremark’s Enterprise Cloud and, frankly, that tends to scare the hell out of many of our customers.  It’s the whole Coke/Pepsi thing where both companies may purchase space in something like Amazon’s environment and those applications could literally be running side by side on the same physical piece of hardware inside of Amazon’s environment.  Most of GreenPages’ customers today, for one reason or another with some being valid and others not so much, are simply not ready to dive into this world with primary/tier 1 types of applications and data. I very much liken this discussion to the virtualization discussions we were having three to five years ago, telling customers “hey, you can run these 10-20 applications on top of a single physical server with little to no performance or stability issues” and having customers give us the “yeah, right, like that is ever actually going to work” kind of look.

While I do honestly believe that the majority of objections to this public cloud/utility computing model can be overcome today, I am also a realist and understand the apprehension many customers have to diving into this type of a major platform shift in the short term, which brings me to the point of this post.  Don’t think of ”cloud” as being only a public/shared type of service; there is a ton of opportunity for customers to develop their own “private” clouds within the four walls of the existing corporate data center.

During the summit event, I got the distinct impression that many of our customers felt that GreenPages, as well as other IT providers, were twisting their arms and forcing the public cloud down their throats.  I want to clear the air and firmly state that this is not the case from GreenPages’ perspective.  We believe that in the short term, the concept of a private cloud will prevail, and this is not at all a bad thing. Building a private cloud will essentially streamline IT operations internally and provide that foundational understanding of what a “cloud” really is, so that when the initial apprehension is gone and our customers are ready to move some or all of their applications to more public offerings they will be educated and able to easily migrate to, from, or between these public options.  Once this is in place, the concept of the Enterprise Hybrid Cloud will be realized.

So, where do you start in this journey?  The first step is to fully understand the core components that make up a private cloud. In my opinion, there are four primary components: virtualization, monitoring, management, and automation.  I think most of you reading this are already well down the path of virtualization, but this is only part of the journey.  You may have 15:1 or 20:1 consolidation ratios, but have you truly changed the way you manage this environment compared to what you were doing pre-virtualization?  We constantly see environments that are heavily virtualized but poorly monitored and managed.  This presents a huge opportunity to further streamline operations and get IT out of the business of ”keeping the lights on” and simply being a cost center and into the business of innovating and turning IT into an essential part of the business.  Once robust monitoring and management are in place, the automation component may be added to make intelligent decisions based on the data collected by the monitoring tools and the policies and workflows put in place by the management tools.  Together, these four pillars of the private cloud will enable the true transformation of the data center and allow for an easier transition to public offerings once the business is ready to take that leap.