The cloud operations model

James Urquhart posted an insightful article on the false debate around whether private cloud is really cloud. By positing the idea of cloud as both a business model and an operations model, Mr. Urquhart opens the door to a continuum of paths to the cloud, regardless of how risk-taking or risk-averse any particular company is.

I discussed this topic last month based on a spirited discussion on Twitter about the validity of private cloud. I used a lot more space to describe what Mr. Urquhart puts into one paragraph (my emphasis):

[I]f you look at cloud as an operations model, the value of running an efficient resource pool with reduced bureaucracy is highly compelling, even if you can't reach the efficiencies of a larger public-cloud provider. Given the complexities of moving data, applications, processes and everything else IT to the public cloud, an internal cloud service becomes a highly compelling option.

Many medium-to-large enterprises have not only computing power that can be more effectively and efficiently deployed, but also a lot of people performing similar, and perhaps identical, tasks in different departments or business units. This may have arisen from various events in corporate history, be it dissatisfaction with company-wide services, political maneuvers, or grass-roots efforts grown wild. The result is the same - lots of people doing the same job, and that job tends to be lower value (maintenance, support) than what is needed (business alignment, service creation/improvement).

In a cloud operations model, sub-units still build and deliver services to their customers as they do today. The key difference is how and where they build those services. The use of a centralized, on-premise, multi-tenant resource pool, even though it's not as elastic as AWS, changes the game significantly in terms of how people think about IT roles and responsibilities. I submit that going to the cloud operations model can have more impact than the move to the public cloud:

• Data center-related purchasing shifts to a single group, who can better negotiate company-wide prices and discounts due to the necessary scale/volume for the resource pool.
• Data center management moves to a centralized team, who can focus on building the expertise and committing the time and energy to being great at it.
• IT people tasked with delivering applications and services can now do so without spending undue time on underlying infrastructure.
• Time reclaimed from reducing data center redundancies and time to deploy services can be redeployed to high-value IT activities that more directly enable business growth, such as researching emerging technologies and business process analysis.

Once this model really takes hold, having meaningful discussions about what, why, how, and when to move to the public cloud can become a lot easier. The business folks have gotten used to a certain decoupling of hardware and services, while the IT organization is better prepared to engage on business-related issues. Most importantly, everyone will have gained necessary experience in rethinking how technology is delivered and managed in preparation for future transformation.