- Part 1: First Wave: Server, Storage and Availability
- Part 2: Second Wave: Networking, Security and Management
- Part 3: The End Game: ITaaS and the Private/Public/Hybrid Cloud
In this weeks’ post, I will bring together the discussions on technology ecosystem revolution from VMware/virtualization and talk about customer aspirations toward IT-as-a-Service (ITaas). In particular I will talk about how these changes are part of a continuum toward the next phase of IT, Public/Private/Hybrid cloud infrastructure. Why do we need a “Cloud”? The first thing we should realize is that the customers want “Cloud” (or ITaaS) precisely because of the complexity of the technology ecosystem I’ve described in the first two posts of this series. The whole thing is too darned complicated and there is not an instruction book for how all this stuff is supposed to fit together. Perhaps if technology was stagnant the industry would have time to catch up and document the status quo – but that is not likely. The lack of a blueprint that cuts across vendors is completely intentional – see my post on The “Product Box”. Vendors want customers to be reliant on a single vendor – so they can sell their proprietary technology stack! The Return of the (Public) Cloud
For a long time, customers have not wanted to buy IT products or manage their infrastructure – but they did not think they had a choice. You’ve probably noticed that “Cloud” is new name for a vision that has been around for a long time. In 2000, I built a channel for VeriSign, working with ISP and ASP partners to build security and payments into the hosted offerings they sold their customers. The goal of companies like Digex, US Internetworking, Verio, Interland, Rackspace (Hey they still exist!) and a many others, was to host applications (in 2002 the big push was for hosted Exchange…) on behalf of customers and charge them a monthly service fee. Sounds pretty darn similar to the “Cloud”… What is new is not the customer goal, but the ability of the IT industry to make this goal achievable. As the technology behind “Cloud” has matured, customers have come running. So far it seems like Amazon Web Services (AWS) is at the top of the pile. AWS started by selling raw IT, purchased by credit card over the Internet and have gradually have begun offering more complete IT infrastructures sold by an Enterprise Sales team (and still often purchased with a credit card). But don’t confuse the purchase mechanism with the decision-making process. AWS realizes that Fortune 1000 global enterprises are not going to wake up one morning and move their critical applications to the Cloud. They have questions, processes to follow, and governance to maintain – and they want a seasoned sales and technical team to assure them of the wisdom of this move and to provide assistance in the (often underrated) migration of their applications to the AWS platform. So what is the “Achilles heel” of the AWS/Public Cloud story? I think there are 2 ½ major challenges AWS (or any public provider) has in winning this market in the long term: #1 – The first challenge is application complexity and the need for AWS to build relationships with technology vendors Enterprise infrastructure is a mish-mash of applications, and hundreds of hardware and software vendors – this infrastructure is not easy to unplug and migrate to the Public/AWS cloud. Migration can be big lift and it will be challenging to meet more sophisticated Enterprise application needs #2 – The second challenge is customer fear of vendor lock-in Once migration to AWS/public cloud provider is done, the customer is at a risk of being exactly where they did not want to be -– completely reliant on one vendor! As former VMware CEO Paul Maritz used to say, “It’s like the Hotel California – You can check-out any time you want, but you can never leave!” #2 ½ – The “½ challenge” is sales and integrator channel capacity To move millions of customers and $ Billions in infrastructure from on-premise to the “Cloud” takes a lot of work by someone (no it does not sell/migrate itself), and today’s “Cloud” sales forces are still small-scale and immature relative to the overall IT industry “sales capacity”. As demand builds, the “Tornado” provides unexpected sales capacity growth, but we are not there today. Now If anyone could harness the power of the global IT channel to sell “Cloud”, now that would be a competitive advantage (more on this in future posts). Hybrid Cloud to the Rescue! So what is the best option for customers? What if you could put your application in the Cloud on the same platform you use today for your virtualized, on-premise IT (often called “Private Cloud”)? And what if you could migrate it seamlessly from on-premise to the Cloud, and back again? That is the “Hybrid Cloud” vision for IT that VMware and other vendors have articulated. For example VMware vCloud Hybrid Service (vCHS) is built on the same vCloud Suite/vSphere platform that has gained predominance in corporate data centers, and they’ve announced products that enable seamless migration between on-premise data centers and vCHS.. To me, Hybrid Cloud is a win for customers, since most Enterprises will want a mix of “Cloud” and on-premise and will want to maintain choice. Hybrid Cloud is also a good business model for incumbent IT infrastructure vendors in storage, networking, etc… When a customer goes to AWS it reduces their Total Available Market (TAM). Sure they can sell product to AWS to use on the back end, but AWS offers the Service and they can suck out the margin from branded IT products like Wal-Mart sucks the margin out of the Crest toothpaste (i.e. very aggressively…) We’ve covered a lot in this series, from changes to server, storage and availability technology ecosystems, to the more recent revolution in networking, security and management – to the next phase of IT, the Hybrid Cloud. I welcome any comments below — And make sure you “Follow” our blog (look for the “Follow” link on the upper left) and have your say.
“Climbing Out of the Box”™ 