LIFE IN THE CLOUD
MARK SCHRUTT
Cloud adoption and Canadian businesses p.19
Interview with Praveen Datta, director, Cisco Consulting Services p.24
April/May 2014 VOLUME 5 NUMBER 2
INSIGHTS FOR TECHNOLOGY PROFESSIONALS
CLOUD ON THE HORIZON
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WHAT’S NEW IN 2014
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Contents
www.itincanadaonline.ca
Vol 5 No 2 April/May 2014
16 What to look for in a data centre Features 12 Best practices for the cloud Two experts share how businesses can get the most from the cloud 16 Choose wisely: what to look for in a data centre Rogers Data Centres’ A.J. Byers offers advice on how to choose a data centre 18 Canada and the cloud: adoption rates in the enterprise Three thought leaders talk about Canadian businesses’ use of the cloud 22 HP launches new application testing solutions for mobility and the cloud The company introduces a new product to speed time to market 24 Life in the cloud Cisco’s Praveen Datta discusses how the cloud transforms day-to-day business 26 Beyond the cloud: concepts that can benefit all of IT How can cloud-native ideas help the field? 29 Shopping in the cloud: trends in retail Accenture’s Christian Playford talks about the cloud’s impact on the industry
18 Cover Story: Cloud on the horizon: what’s new in 2014 Departments 4 Editorial 6 News Our roundup of news stories 8 Case Study: Microsoft and HQIC A health clinic deploys Yammer for more effective communication
9 Case Study: Dell and BlueSun An Ontario company deploys Dell storage to improve customer data storage 10 Case Study: Canderel and Citrix A Canadian real estate firm speeds up its application deployment with Citrix
Online Extras: www.itincanadaonline.ca Missed an issue? Misplaced an article? Visit www.itincanadaonline.ca for a full archive of past IT in Canada Online issues, as well as online extras from our many contributors. April/May 2014 IT in Canada Online / 3
EDITORIAL INSIGHTS FOR TECHNOLOGY PROFESSIONALS
Rachel Levy Sarfin
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Cloud on the horizon: what’s new in 2014
T
hirty years ago, you probably would not have imagined a world in which you would be able to view business could securely through a mobile device. Back in the early 1980s, the thought of accessing business applications on anything else other than your desktop must have sounded like fantasy. Nowadays, businesspeople barely give a second thought to the things they can do because of the cloud. However, this topic is top-of-mind for IT professionals, which is why we have chosen it as the theme of this month’s magazine. This month’s issue explores several subjects related to the cloud. Several of this edition’s articles contain practical advice on implementing cloud technologies. Are you looking for a data centre? A.J. Byers, president, Rogers Data Centres, shares his advice on what to consider when making that choice. And if you’re wondering if there are any best practices you should be keeping in mind when it comes to the cloud, Daniela Fisher interviews two experts who weighed in with their thoughts on the matter. In addition, Amy Allen’s article on HP’s Application Lifecycle Management product family will interest readers who are thinking about implementing those types of solutions. Other articles offer food for thought. Praveen Datta of Cisco discusses how the cloud has transformed day-to-day business. As per usual, this issue contains case studies about Canadian companies implementing technologies, which might give readers ideas about whether these solutions can work for them. We also cover trends in the cloud space. Three Canadian experts share their analysis of statistics and anecdotal evidence about cloud adoption in this country’s enterprise. Other thought leaders provide some thought-provoking ideas about how cloud trends can be applied to the rest of IT. This issue also takes a look at how the cloud impacts specific verticals, such as retail. Thirty years ago, the cloud was a distant dream. Now that it’s here, take advantage of the agility and cost savings it provides.
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PRODUCT NEWS OpenText and Ontario government team up for job creation
Mobile corporate data still unsecured: Centrify A recent study commissioned by the unified identity services solution provider Centrify and conducted by Osterman Research has found that 15 per cent of enterprise employee survey respondents feel they carry little to no responsibility for protecting corporate data on their personal devices. Moreover, the survey found that 10 per cent of respondents have not implemented any protection measures, such as a password or a PIN, on devices they use at work. Only 44 per cent of respondents indicated they think about device security on a day-today basis, while almost 10 per cent said they think of their security responsibilities only a handful of times a year. “The results show that even employees of large multinational corporations, who are consistently warned of the dangers to their data directly from their IT department, are not keeping security top of mind,” said Michael Osterman, principal, Osterman Research. “It is clear organizations need to continue to educate employees on the dangers and risks of mobile security but also look to solutions that safeguard the devices and applications which these employees have access to.” More alarming, perhaps, is that 15 per cent of respondents said they have had their personal account or password compromised, while almost half of respondents said they have accessed corporate data while using an unsecured network, such as at an airport or coffee shop. The survey also found that 32 per cent of employees who lose an unprotected device are unlikely to report it to their bosses in a timely fashion, with most preferring to “contract the flu or go on vacation with their mother-in-law.” “As these results demonstrate, enterprise employees still need to be aware of security threats and best practices,” said Tom Kemp, CEO, Centrify. “Corporate employees are now leveraging applications on their devices to get their jobs done. As a result, there is greater need than ever for unified security identity across multiple devices and platforms.” The survey was conducted in March 2014 and surveyed 500 corporate respondents from North American organizations with more than 1,000 employees.
6 / IT in Canada Online April/May 2014
OpenText and the government of Ontario announced recently that they have struck up a partnership to create more jobs in the province. According to the agreement, OpenText has pledged to create 1,200 jobs in the province over the next seven years. Ontario will commit up to $120 million in support of the initiative. “At OpenText, our employees are our most valuable assets, and our commitment today validates the strength of the technology talent pool in Ontario,” said Mark Barrenechea, president and CEO, OpenText. “We are an Ontariogrown global company and we chose to invest here because of the highly educated workforce, our strong university partnerships in R&D, as well as the province’s robust and innovative start-up communities.” According to the terms of the agreement, over 30 per cent of the jobs created will be in research and development, while another 10 per cent will be reserved for youth under the age of 29. Additionally, OpenText indicated that it will be opening a worldwide customer briefing centre and offices in downtown Toronto. The company currently has offices in Waterloo, Ottawa, Peterborough, Kingston, Richmond Hill, Montreal, and Calgary. “I am thrilled that OpenText, a made-inOntario success story, decided to carry out this expansion here,” said Kathleen Wynne, premier, Ontario. “We are proud to partner with OpenText to help create good jobs in Ontario and build a brighter future for our province.”
PRODUCT NEWS HP updates XP storage lineup HP announced the seventh generation of its XP storage product. The company says that with the XP7, businesses can expect to see 99.9999 per cent uptime — a figure that equals out to less than 31.5 seconds of downtime per year. The XP7 can also deliver 3 million IOPS, and HP says it is “the highest performing, full-featured, enterprise-class disk array, delivering three times the performance of the previous generation of XP Storage.” HP claims that one XP7 storage system can “deliver more IOPS than three EMC Symmetrix VMAX 40K storage arrays combined.” “XP7 introduces the best of all worlds,” said Kyle Fitze, product director, HP Storage. “It delivers mission critical reliability, rich replication and disaster recovery services, and very fast performance that in many ways exceeds all-flash arrays. It’s the reason our customers use XP in some of the most demanding data centre environments around the world. It’s bullet-proof, disaster-proof storage that only HP can deliver.” A single array can accommodate up to 4.5
PB of internal storage, although customers can scale up as needed. Furthermore, the company says that by consolidating multiple disk arrays into a single storage unit, businesses can significantly reduce both floor space requirements and storage-related energy costs. As for data protection, the product comes complete with new user authentication and access control functions, which increases resource segregation so that data can be managed more securely. The release of the product will mark the 15-year anniversary of HP’s partnership with Hitachi. The Japanese company works with HP to produce the XP lineup. The product carries a starting price of $462,000, and shipments will begin in mid-May.
Linux Foundation to give open source community a helping hand The Linux Foundation announced that it has gathered together some big names in the industry – under the banner of the Core Infrastructure Initiative – in support of open source projects. The Linux Foundation says that open source “historically has produced high quality and highly secure software”, but developer communities do not receive the financial backing they need to maintain the software. The OpenSSL project, for example, typically receives only $2,000 per year in donations. The Core Infrastructure Initiative is backed by companies such as Amazon Web Services, Cisco, Dell, Facebook, Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NetApp, and VMware, and will provide funding for open source projects while allowing developers to continue working in their own open source communities. “We are expanding the work we already do for the Linux kernel to other projects that may need support,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director, The Linux Foundation. “Our global economy is built on top of many open source projects. Just as The Linux Foundation has
funded Linus Torvalds to be able to focus 100 per cent on Linux development, we will now be able to support additional developers and maintainers to work full-time supporting other essential open source projects. We are thankful for these industry leaders’ commitment to ensuring the continued growth and reliability of critical open source projects such as OpenSSL.” The decision to move forward with the initiative was made in part because of the Heartbleed crisis, and the OpenSSL project is currently under consideration as the first recipient of funding from the Linux Foundation. The OpenSSL project – and others like it – stands to receive fellowship funding for key developers, security audits, computing and test infrastructure, travel, face-to-face consultations, and more. “By creating the Core Infrastructure Initiative, the Linux Foundation has once again stepped up to the challenge of supporting open source projects at the heart of today’s Internet,” said Colin Kincaid, VP, Product Management and Architecture, Cisco. “Supporting dedicated open source collaborators and contributors is vital to the success and growth of innovation.” April/May 2014 IT in Canada Online / 7
CASE STUDY
By Amy Allen
Health Quality Innovation Collaborative T
and Microsoft’s Yammer
he Health Quality Innovation Collaborative (HQIC) is a non-profit collective of health care professionals that was formed by Dr. Sanjeev Goel, the lead physician at the Wise Elephant clinic based in Brampton, and his partners in the health care industry. Launched in 2012, the organization is dedicated to finding new ways to encourage collaboration amongst health care providers and their patients.
The Business Problem There were several issues that Goel and his partners felt needed to be addressed. First, the organization needed better access to its electronic medical records. That way, physicians could easily relay patient data to other
ingenious manner. We created secure private groups built around patients, and everyone in that group, including family members, can interact with the circle of care.”
Lessons Learned and Best Practices
The Solution
Before introducing Yammer to its operations, HQIC relied on an electronic medical record system called OSCAR (Open Source Clinical Application and Resource) to store patient records and carry out billing processes. But OSCAR was “WE WANTED TO ENABLE PATIENTS TO unable to provide the organization COMMUNICATE WITH US REMOTELY with the collaboINSTEAD OF HAVING TO COME INTO ration capabilities THE OFFICE IN PERSON, THAT WOULD it was looking for, BE EASIER FOR THEM AND FOR THE so it decided to go with a solution HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.” that combined Dr. Sanjeev Goel, founder, HQIC Microsoft SharePoint, Yammer, and Lync. team members, and keep up to date with HQIC named the solution Synapse. each phase of their patients’ care. There was also a need for a more reliable Implementation referral system; according to Goel, tracking HQIC’s first step was to implement the referrals using a fax system is almost imposdashboard for its new solution. As it went, it sible to accomplish. They needed something realized it needed to add other solutions on automated, permanent, and electronic. to the dashboard – it added a patient portal Lastly, the collective was looking for a using SharePoint, then an internal communimore convenient way to communicate with cations system using Yammer and an external their patients. communications system using Lync. “We wanted to enable patients to commu“Only people with access to patient renicate with us remotely instead of having to cords could use our old communication come into the office in person,” said Goel. system. This was not good, because they “That would be easier for them and for the had to be able to communicate with patients health care provider.” and other people, like home care nurses,” said Goel. “So we’re using Yammer in an 8 / IT in Canada Online April/May 2014
Goel stressed that during the implementation process, it wasn’t enough to simply install the technology. Much of the heavy lifting lay in creating a culture change in the organization. “We were very lucky to have some major champions to make it happen,” said Goel. “If you don’t have that, you won’t be able to implement something like this. At the very beginning, I needed to keep reminding people to use Yammer. They kept using email. So it’s important to get champions to remind people at the beginning to use Yammer instead of email.” Privacy was another issue HQIC had to deal with. The organization was handling sensitive patient data, after all, and Goel stressed that employees have to know what is and is not appropriate to post in a public forum. Someone has to monitor online communications, Goel said, and privacy is something that organizations really have to consider when implementing social enterprise technology in a health care setting.
Benefits When it implemented Yammer, HQIC was looking to improve communication amongst the medical community – and that was exactly what it got. “We believe that teams that talk better to each other provide better care for the patient, because it creates more collaborative care,” said Goel. “Knowledge moves more quickly through the organization. We now have a place where we can go find information more easily; it almost creates a kind of a shared history for the organization.”
By Daniela Fisher
CASE STUDY
Case Study: BlueSun
About the Company
BlueSun migrated its data during a series of weekends. The process itself was relatively smooth. The biggest challenge was coordinating the different parties involved, and making sure there was a detailed project plan for each migration.
BlueSun is a Burlington, Ont.-based company that provides software solutions to the financial services industry. It was founded in 2001 and employs 30 people. The company’s flagship product is WealthServ, a financial advisor tool used by the life insurance and mutual fund industries. BlueSun has over 30 clients in the United States and Canada, and handles almost 50 per cent of all Canadian life insurance business in the independent channel.
Lessons Learned and Best Practices
The Business Problem Until BlueSun implemented Dell technologies, the company had been storing its customer data in three separate date centres, on outdated hardware. This model was very costly and difficult to manage. Not only was the company paying for multiple data centre locations, it was also leasing equipment through old contracts with managed services providers. “The cost was very high to have the multiple sites and all these different contracts,” said Andrew Olaveson, IT administrator, BlueSun. “It was just starting to spiral out of control. We needed a way to consolidate number one, our environment, and number two, our hardware platform, so that we could effectively get the most bang for our buck.” Though BlueSun was able to manage the different locations and hardware, it became time-consuming and inefficient. It also made it difficult for the growing company to scale up. As such, BlueSun started looking for ways to consolidate its data and have a centrally managed solution.
The Solution To meet its storage needs, BlueSun chose Dell to implement a new virtualized infrastructure. The infrastructure was based on Dell server, storage, and networking technologies. Olaveson and his team deployed Dell’s PowerEdge R720 rack servers, Dell PowerVault storage arrays, and Dell Networking
Andrew Olaveson, IT administrator, BlueSun
8024 Ethernet switches with two virtual LANs. With these technologies in place, the company also added a complete disaster recovery site, to ensure business continuity for clients. The Dell solution consolidated data previously held in three separate facilities into a single colocation centre. It helped BlueSun reduce costs, increase scalability, and provide a secure environment for customer data.
Implementation Consolidating three data centres into one was no easy task. BlueSun had data centres in Mississauga, Ottawa, and Toronto. Working with Dell, Olaveson set up a new virtualized environment and transitioned the company from the old infrastructure to the new. “We wanted to minimize the downtime to our clients, so we had to think of a way to transition into the new environment with minimal impact,” said Olaveson. “We did that in a phased approach, where we would migrate one line of business in on one weekend, let that settle, and then two to three weeks later we migrated another one in.” To ensure no downtime for customers,
For BlueSun, success is in the details. “Just make sure you have everything planned out and detailed, because there’s so many different moving parts to a change like this that you have to be aware of,” said Olaveson. Olaveson also recommended collaborating with Dell: “Make sure to engage with the Dell team on best practices for the hardware setup, because after the implementation, you’re working out bugs and things like that.” Following Dell best practices for setting up and configuring the hardware can help ensure there won’t be any issues when it is time to deploy.
Benefits By implementing Dell’s virtualization solution, BlueSun realized a number of benefits, including simplified IT management and significant cost-savings. The company can offer its clients a high level of security and data availability, with more visibility for BlueSun’s IT administrators. “Before, we didn’t really have visibility in a lot of our environments,” said Olaveson. “So when we built out this solution, we made sure to deploy a monitoring tool. We have a lot more visibility of what’s going on in the environment, which in turn makes us more proactive instead of reactive when an issue occurs. A lot of the time we know when something’s wrong before our clients know, which is a huge benefit. That’s a big one for me in terms of improving my job. Getting that level of visibility across the board, and just centralizing everything in one location is much easier to manage and maintain.” April/May 2014 IT in Canada Online / 9
CASE STUDY
By Rachel Levy Sarfin
Case Study: Canderel Lance LeBlanc, VP, IT, Canderel
About the Company Canderel is a real estate development, management and asset management firm. The company was founded in 1975 in Montreal. In addition to its Montreal office, Canderel now has locations in Ottawa and Toronto. There are also branch offices across the country. Canderel employs 250 people in all of its locations.
The Business Problem “Application deployment was a manual process that was applied at the asset level for each of the local workstations,” said Lance LeBlanc, VP, Information Technology, Canderel. “The process was labour-intensive, inefficient and counterproductive for the organization.” LeBlanc and his team began to search for a solution that would deliver applications in a more efficient manner.
The Solution After searching for a solution provider, LeBlanc selected Citrix. He and the IT department chose Citrix’s products because of its integrated suite of applications. Canderel 10 / IT in Canada Online April/May 2014
implemented XenCenter and XenApp. XenCenter is a graphical virtualization management interface for the company’s XenServer. It is designed to manage servers, resource pools and shared storage, as well as to deploy, manage and monitor virtual machines from a Windows-based desktop. Canderel uses XenCenter to host the company’s virtual server infrastructure. XenApp is a virtual application delivery solution. It provides Windows apps as secure mobile services. Canderel uses XenApp to service the application delivery model. This implementation was part of a larger project, LeBlanc explained. “Several business requirements were taken into consideration when we designed the solution,” he remarked. “Citrix facilitated the process that was required in order to successfully orchestrate the company’s business continuity and disaster recovery plan across the country.”
Implementation Canderel implemented Citrix’s solutions in four stages. The first stage involved bringing in CloudOps, a Montreal-based cloud infrastructure firm, to assess the gaps between Canderel’s business requirements for agile delivery of applications to current and new employees and partners. CloudOps’ assessment documented these requirements. “CloudOps also assisted with the revolution of our existing delivery model which was time consuming and devicecentric,” LeBlanc added. During the second stage, CloudOps worked with Canderel to design and provide a solution that met all of the requirements within the allocated budget. The third phase of the process was deployment. “In this stage, Canderel introduced the
solution to a pilot group of end-users for acceptance testing and provided training to the end-users,” LeBlanc said. The fourth stage involves ongoing operational management by CloudOps and Canderel. The two companies actively seek feedback to allow for the successful evolution of the implementation in order to meet new business requirements.
Lessons Learned and Best Practices LeBlanc noted that there was one important lesson Canderel learned during the implementation process. With the fast-paced growth of the organization and the requirement to quickly spin up new offices and sales centres in remote locations, he and his colleagues recognized the need to implement a new set of capabilities in order to not only integrate the diverse legacy applications but to ensure that their employees were up and running with full access to their corporate systems in hours rather than weeks. A best practice that Canderel discovered was moving end users’ computing into the data centre. “Our employees now have the ability to access all of our corporate applications at anytime from anywhere and on any device without the assistance of an IT resource,” LeBlanc remarked.
Benefits LeBlanc cited several gains Canderel has reaped as a result of implementing Citrix’s products. “Canderel’s application delivery model is now in real time and supports across platform devices and a range of different operating systems,” he noted. “Citrix has enabled IT’s ability to respond faster and with less effort to new business requirements.” In addition, the end-user experience has improved and it is easier to access systems remotely. Two additional benefits are lower risk and the formulation of a disaster recovery plan. “Citrix has reduced the company’s operational risk by keeping sensitive data in the data centre where it can be protected and backed up,” LeBlanc explained. “Citrix has also paved the way to implement business continuity and disaster recovery across our entire group of companies.”
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TECHNOSPECTIVE BEST PRACTICES
By Daniela Fisher
Best Practices for the Cloud
able resource for businesses. The question is how companies can effectively deploy cloud solutions. To find the answer, IT in Canada talked with cloud experts about best practices for the cloud.
Cloud shifting IT
By 2016, cloud’s strategic importance to decision-makers is poised to double from 34 per cent to 72 per cent, according to an IBM study released in October 2013. 12 / IT in Canada Online April/May 2014
T
he report indicates that decisionmakers such as CEOs, CMOs, and finance executives are increasingly realizing that when it comes to the cloud, cost-savings are just the tip of the iceberg. The possibilities of cloud are seemingly endless for enterprise. Cloud solutions can cut cost, drive innovation and agility, and stimulate business growth. The potential for big data and the cloud is a field that’s just beginning to be explored. There’s no doubt that cloud is a valu-
The rate of adoption for cloud computing is only increasing. New cloud-based technologies are continually evolving and shaping IT decisions. As such, IT organizations are under pressure to be more flexible and to quickly adopt new technologies. To succeed in this era of constant change, CIOs are adopting new operating models and becoming more service-oriented. Cloud solutions can be significant drivers in this change. They can help transform IT from being in charge of running operations to becoming a strategic asset for achieving company goals. Shawn Rosemarin, executive director, architecture and professional services, VMware Canada, shared his views on how companies can transform their IT through the cloud. “The reality is this transformation to cloud is as much about people and process as it is about technology,” said Rosemarin. “The leaders that we’re seeing succeed here are those that are focusing on driving a new way of doing business. Moving to a cloud model is really going to shift the way in which people and process elements of organizations operate.” Fundamentally, the cloud has two ben-
Shawn Rosemarin, executive director, architecture and professional services, VMware Canada
TECHNO SPECTIVE BEST PRACTICES efits: agility and cost-savings. Rosemarin explained that today, companies tend to spend 70 per cent of their total IT budget on keeping the lights on, or running systems and performing maintenance. This allows only 30 per cent for innovation. Rosemarin suggests that cloud solutions can help IT free up some of that maintenance cost, by driving accountability and a lower cost of doing business. “If I can capture a lot of that current keeping the lights on cost, and shift that towards innovation, what it allows me to do is focus that innovation as a company on driving new applications, new services, and new IT capabilities to market that fundamentally have an impact on either driving new revenue for that company or reducing further expenses in the field,” said Rosemarin. The other benefit is agility. Once organizations have captured cost-savings, they’re going to have new projects they want to invest in, and requests for new IT initiatives. “The inherent benefit of driving towards this cloud model is that the organization is now in a position to be able to be agile to those requests,” said Rosemarin. “It’ll not only be able to respond to the shift in demand without delays in capital costs of traditional infrastructure, but also be able to shift as required. That agility changes model changes the way IT is perceived internally and externally as well.” Moreover, a successful cloud strategy needs to start from the top down. Organizations need to embrace cloud as a comprehensive IT strategy. “Organizations have to have a top-down driven mandate to do this,” said Rosemarin. “Ultimately there needs to be a strong leader at the top that believes in the longterm viability of this business. I’ve heard executives refer to this as ‘I either get into the business of new IT,’ or ‘I will be in the business of no IT.’ That’s the reality.”
The cloud maturity model For Rosemarin, companies using cloud computing to virtualize their data centres are on the right track. He sees the software defined data centre as the next step of IT. By virtualizing the majority of hardware within the data centre, IT becomes more agile, and is able to take on more capabilities.
“THE REALITY IS THIS TRANSFORMATION TO CLOUD IS AS MUCH ABOUT PEOPLE AND PROCESS AS IT IS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY,THE LEADERS THAT WE’RE SEEING SUCCEED HERE ARE THOSE THAT ARE FOCUSING ON DRIVING A NEW WAY OF DOING BUSINESS. MOVING TO A CLOUD MODEL IS REALLY GOING TO SHIFT THE WAY IN WHICH PEOPLE AND PROCESS ELEMENTS OF ORGANIZATIONS OPERATE.” As IT departments automate IT, they become more flexible and better able to deliver services. This is important, says Rosemarin, as organizations and employees don’t want to wait for IT to install the correct service. “Shadow IT and shadow spend is rampant,” said Rosemarin. “Customers in the line of business, if they do not get what they want from internal IT organizations, they’re going to the public cloud, without the sponsorship of the internal organization. IT executives need to have a comprehensive strategy [to prevent this].” At VMware, Rosemarin developed a maturity model for delivering IT-as-a-Service. The data centre is transformed through stages, to be able to deliver IT-as-a-Service. “We’ve evolved within VMware what we call the maturity model and this is something that I’m very close to,” said Rosemarin. “This maturity model was based on the premise of a few key items. One is [that] looking at a multi-year ROI is no longer feasible. Customers are no longer getting special budgetary allowances to move to cloud, and customers are not even willing to entertain a multi-year ROI scenario.” Instead, customers want an agile product cycle, one that allows them to see tangible returns within a six to nine month period. “We looked at VMware’s innovative platform and how could we drive customers through this maturity model, and the real key element here is the money that is saved with each phase of this, part of that can get returned to the business,” said Rosemarin. “But the lion’s share of it really becomes the budget that pays for the next phase of evolution, the next phase of evolution. If most organizations can get to this softwaredefined data centre 2.0 by the end of 2014,
they’ll be in a very good position to start reaping the benefits of cloud.” The time is now, said Rosemarin, for businesses to embrace the new cloud strategy. “There’s no need to start looking at what is this thing going to grow to over the next five or ten years, we fundamentally need to help organizations get to infrastructure as a service,” said Rosemarin. “What that does is it now provides an on ramp for the final phase of maturity which is really what we call X as a Service.”
Big data in the cloud One of these services is providing companies with big data analytics in the cloud. Big data is another major trend fueling cloud growth. Vin Sharma, director, strategy and business development, cloud analytics, Intel, looked at how analytics have evolved over the years, to help companies manage their data sets. “There’s been a shift from analytics 1.0 to analytics 2.0,” said Sharma. “The notion in the ‘80s and 90s that business intelligence was understood as reports and dashboards of what has happened. Whereas that has now accelerated towards increasingly interactive analytics, where you have a question that you address, you have access to a variety of data sets simultaneously, and you get a response back at same time while drinking coffee.” Sharma predicted that as analytics undergoes a widespread shift to predictive analytics, there will be an explosion of analytics in the cloud. “We’re seeing cloud computing in general become a way of delivering more efficient services, IT infrastructure delivered more efficiently,” said Sharma. “And whether April/May 2014 IT in Canada Online / 13
TECHNOSPECTIVE BEST PRACTICES
Vin Sharma, director, strategy and business development, cloud analytics, Intel
that’s delivered in a public cloud or a private cloud, it goes back to companies wanting to deploy new services very quickly, and knowing what services to deploy because they’ve used big data analytics to understand the patterns of their customers. Now they want to scale those and deploy them very quickly. The efficiency with which they can deploy those services is best delivered in some ways through a cloud-like infrastructure, where you have a really large scale.”
14 / IT in Canada Online April/May 2014
“WE NEED THAT ROOT OF TRUST ALL THE WAY FROM THE SOFTWARE DOWN TO THE SILICON, IT PROVIDES THAT ASSURANCE THAT NO CHANGE HAS BEEN MADE, THAT NOTHING MALICIOUS HAS BEEN INSTALLED SOMEWHERE IN THE SOFTWARE STACK THAT THWARTS THE OVERALL SECURITY OF THE SYSTEM AND BYPASSES IT. THESE ARE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT.” Creating a cloud fortress As companies and consumers increasingly store their data in the cloud, Sharma has a few recommendations for securing the cloud. It all goes back to the infrastructure. “Make sure first the infrastructure that can host the data is trusted,” said Sharma. “I think there’s several ways of going about it. I think the need for designing for security means that you need to configure almost a layered defence model, where you have not just one particular bolt on
security mechanism, it’s not like a padlock on the door.” “You kind of have to build an entire fortress for the value of the data that you’re hosting,” he continued. “If the data is indeed as valuable as you think it is, then it needs to be as well protected as you would a castle, which means that there’s layers of authentication, authorization, low-based access control, auditing and containment of the data itself.” Once companies have that mature, trusted infrastructure in place, said Sharma, the other important element is being able to audit that your infrastructure is in compliance with regulations. “In some cases, if it’s healthcare or financial services, these are extremely well-regulated or highly regulated industries,” said Sharma. “You have to provide assurance that your infrastructure is in compliance with regulations, and that means being able to verify not only that the data has been protected, but that the infrastructure in which the data resides preserves the confidentiality and integrity.” Sharma sees this becoming a competitive advantage for a number of companies that run their analytics and big data in the cloud, provided the trust in the security is there. “We need that root of trust all the way from the software down to the silicon, it provides that assurance that no change has been made, that nothing malicious has been installed somewhere in the software stack that thwarts the overall security of the system and bypasses it. These are extremely important.”
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TECHNOSPECTIVE
ON VIRTUALIZATION
By Amy Allen
Choose wisely: WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A DATA CENTRE
C
hoosing a data centre provider is a task that no business should take lightly. Data is essential to the operations of many companies – from effective marketing to increasing productivity to gauging how many staff members are truly needed on the sales floor – that it deserves all the protection it can get. The same can be said of the data centre, since that is where all this sensitive information is housed. But traditional security is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to protecting information. There are many factors to consider: Where should the data centre be located? What are its certifications? Is it resilient and available? Can data be recovered 16 / IT in Canada Online April/May 2014
quickly in the event of a disaster, such as a flood or a fire? And, for businesses concerned with the environment: what about energy conservation features and policies? AJ Byers, president, Rogers Data Centres, has a few suggestions. He sat down to talk to IT in Canada about the things businesses should keep in mind when finding a home for their data.
Reputation Above all, Byers advises businesses to keep an eye out for providers that are tested and true in the industry. “One of the key things you should always look for is some measure of proven reliability,” said Byers. “When you’re looking for a
A.J. Byers, president, Rogers Data Centres
TECHNOSPECTIVE factors in mind, logic dictates that businesses with a good track record are likely to keep delivering quality performance. As such, reputation is the best place to start when building one’s list of data centre criteria.
Security There is more to security than the digital shield of firewalls and data encryption. While those things are important, businesses should also consider the physical structures that house the servers. “The centre should have two layers of walls, including concrete bricks,” said Byers. “And what you’re looking for is dualfactor authentication, like a passcode with some form of biometric security. “There should be multiple security zones in the facility where the customer has full access, but contractors and tech people only have access to certain zones,” he added. “Also, look at how the physical security elements are put in place, such as access to video surveillance, so you always know exactly what’s happening around your data.”
Location, location, location
data centre service provider, you should ask: Have they been in the industry for a while? Do they have a high degree of uptime?” The best way to determine if a provider is reputable is to check their certifications. Are they PCI and SOC compliant? Better yet, are they certified by the Uptime Institute? “The data centre industry was a bit of a buyer-beware industry,” said Byers. “As time has gone on, there’s now an onus on data centre providers to get certified. We believe they [businesses] should look for the Uptime Institute’s certification process. It’s the standard certification that everyone looks for around the globe.” While it’s important to keep a number of
Businesses should be selective about the location of their data centres, but Byers noted that desired location will differ according to each business’s individual needs. Ultimately, the placement of primary and backup data centres is a tactical undertaking that requires some serious forethought. Some locations, such as close to train stations or fuel supplies, are obviously unsuitable for housing either a primary or backup data centre. The same goes for regions that are prone to flooding, hurricanes, earthquakes, or other natural disasters. “Geographic location depends on a multitude of factors, and businesses need to take many of them into consideration,” said Byers. “The disaster recovery site should be 100 km away from the primary site, but the primary site should be close enough that you can get to it if you need to.”
Resiliency No matter how many safeguards you put in place, you cannot alter weather patterns, and natural disasters will take place. They may not be as extreme as a hurricane, but it’s
ON VIRTUALIZATION
still important to plan for such contingencies well in advance. Byers says it’s imperative that businesses have a backup site that is identical to the primary site, so that the environment will come online again within a minute or two should something happen to the primary site. The key is to look for a fully replicated environment. “Are you designing for a flood or a nuclear bomb? What you need depends on what you’re trying to prevent,” said Byers. “There are 50 to 100 things to consider when reviewing your disaster recovery plan and how to design against that. For example, are you designing for a flood or a nuclear bomb?” The best way to ensure your data stays safe is to choose a provider that has experience in building disaster recovery plans.
Energy conservation At a time when climatologists are wringing their hands over global warming, energy conservation is just one more thing businesses might wish to take into account when they choose a data centre provider. Data centres are increasingly being seen as black holes of energy consumption, and with the rapid growth of data, there will be a great need for more of them in the future. Some providers are looking to that future and harnessing new technology to reduce energy waste in their data centres. “Are they implementing energy design – heating and ventilation design that adheres to lower energy usage?” said Byers. “Look for free-air cooling, where the provider leverages the temperature of outdoors to cool the data centre on mild days.” Byers concluded with some basic advice: it’s important to consider where and how the data is stored, of course, but what’s also important is your relationship with the people providing the service. “Picking your data centre provider is not something you’d want to do multiple times in your life,” said Byers. “You want to be happy with the facility, and the people you are working with. Make sure you’re happy about the relationship with the provider. You can save 10 per cent and move to a lower-cost provider, but it’s not always worth it if dealing with the organization is difficult.” April/May 2014 IT in Canada Online / 17
SPOTLIGHT ON CANADA
By Rachel Levy Sarfin
CANADA AND THE CLOUD:
adoption rates in the enterprise
T
he cloud has become a fact of life for IT professionals around the globe. Employees and customers use it on a daily basis to access and transmit information. It would come as no surprise that some countries have higher rates of cloud adoption than others. How does Canada stack up? IT in Canada turned to three Canadian cloud experts to explore how widespread the cloud is across Canadian businesses and what the True North can do to raise the rate of cloud adoption within its enterprise sphere.
Where We Stand Mark Schrutt, director, services and enterprise applications, IDC, pointed to his firm’s recent study on global cloud computing. Out of 1,100 respondents, 110 were from Canada. “Comparisons need to be made for software as a service, platform (development or PaaS) and infrastructure as a service, both public and private delivery,” he said. “In that light, Canada is behind the other regions (Europe, Asia and in particular, the US) in adoption, but we have picked up the pace since the last survey.” IDC’s conducted its previous study on global cloud computing in the spring of 2013. Wayne Hendry, account manager at the interactive menu firm Menyou.ca, added that Canada ranked ninth out of 24 countries in the BSA’s 2013 Global Cloud Computing Scorecard. He also cited IDC and Telus’ joint 2013 study on the state of cloud adoption within the Canadian enterprise. “Cloud services are expected to generate $1 billion in 2014,” he remarked. However, in spite of that impressive sounding number, Canadian businesses have a long way to go. “Given that the entire IT services market in Canada contributed $20 billion 18 / IT in Canada Online April/May 2014
to Canada’s GDP last year, cloud technology adoption does not even account for five per cent of IT spending,” Hendry stated. Martin Horne, CEO of Ottawa’s network optimization company LiveQoS, shared anecdotal evidence that the rate of adoption for cloud services in this country’s business
community is low. “I think for Canadian enterprises cloud adoption is somewhat conservative,” he commented. There are some Canadian companies that buck the trend, though. LiveQoS has been using Gmail, hosted VoIP, Amazon EC2 and other cloud services since 2008. Continued on page 20
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SPOTLIGHT ON CANADA Continued from page 18
All three experts agree that it is startups who are leading the charge when it comes to cloud services adoption within the Canadian enterprise. Schrutt noted that newer companies do not own legacy technology, which makes it easier for them to deploy cloud services. Horne echoed the IDC analyst`s sentiments, citing LiveQoS as an example of a startup that has readily embraced the cloud.
The Canadian Enterprise Cloud Mindset Hendry explained that Canada’s lower adoption rate is a result of the Canadian enterprise’s attitudes towards technology. “Reasons for this rate include not having a ‘cloud-first mindset’ in Canada, which is the norm in the U.S.,” he asserted. Hendry believes that cloud service suppliers have invested in the U.S. to a greater extent because the demand for cloud services is higher there. Moreover, Canadian businesses still purchase traditional hosting and outsourcing services, which Hendry opined impedes cloud adoption. Horne offered another explanation for Canada’s slower cloud services growth. “The resistance by Canadian enterprises to broad cloud adoption has to do with data security worries, regulatory compliance and fear of government agency spying,” he commented. Canadian businesses are concerned that information stored on the cloud is not safe. The cloud also raises a host of regulatory issues, which create a burden for firms. In addition, allegations of spying by the American NSA and Canada’s CSEC are a cause for worry. Schrutt sees the lower rate of cloud adoption as a temporary situation. “Adoption is lower but future growth rates are higher, indicating that we are a bit behind on timing,” he remarked. Schrutt echoed Horne’s analysis of Canada’s IT community. “Canada had been slower to adopt cloud due to the conservative nature of IT investments and CIOs, regulatory compliance concerns and lack of providers to build interest and market their products,” he observed. Those factors will not permanently affect the 20 / IT in Canada Online April/May 2014
Mark Schrutt, director, services and applications, IDC Canadian enterprise’s demand for cloud services, though. Schrutt predicted that the market will grow over the next few years.
A Shift Towards the Cloud? While the market is set to change, the IDC analyst acknowledges that there are other factors at play that will also need to undergo an adjustment in order for cloud adoption to grow. “The CIOs and execu-
tives we talk to are not necessarily taking risk, but realize the value that cloud has to enable their firms to move quicker, become more efficient and flexible to meet the needs of the market their firms play in,” Schrutt said. “Line of business users are also very active in driving technology solutions and cloud is in the forefront-as such, IT and Business need to work closely to determine when cloud makes sense, how to manage the vendor relationships and how best to quickly scale the solution so that the firm can realize the benefits as quickly as possible.” Hendry admitted that it is difficult to pinpoint what sorts of changes would need to take place to increase cloud adoption within larger Canadian companies. He did have a few recommendations, though. “The declining cost of cloud services, more Canadian-based vendors and increasing
SPOTLIGHT ON CANADA
Wayne Hendry, account manager, Menyou.ca
he remarked. Schrutt agreed with Hendry, noting that SMBs are one of the top cloud adopters among Canadian businesses. Horne also offered his suggestions for improving cloud adoption within Canada’s business community. All of his advice involves more secure cloud solutions that appeal to threat-conscious IT professionals, such as advancing private cloud technologies, virtual cloud storage that keeps data inside a corporate firewall but is still accessible via cloud services and data centres located within Canada.
Other Barriers to Adoption
security could motivate more enterprises to migrate,” he suggested. Hendry sees small and medium-sized businesses as being the drivers of cloud service adoption within Canada’s enterprise ecosystem. “SMBs may be quicker to adopt the cloud as they have less IT staff and may be able to make the switch faster thanks to what the cloud offers in terms of benefits and lower cost,”
Martin Horne, CEO, LiveQoS
The three cloud experts shared other obstacles that exist to cloud adoption within the Canadian enterprise. One such hurdle is in-Canada solutions. “60 per cent of Canadian buyers preferred to have IaaS delivered from within Canadian borders,” Schrutt noted, citing research. “But buying in-Canada solutions ranked unusually low on the list of factors that are weighed when making decisions around cloud.” He repeated his firm’s beliefs on this issue: “IDC believes that while the stated preference for in-Canada solutions is important in terms of relationship management, it is also a convenient excuse for other factors that revolve around knowledge and comfort with non-traditional vendors as well as inexperience in managing the reputational risk of outsourcing.” Horne commented that application migration from on premise to the cloud is another impediment to adopting this technology for Canadian businesses. App migration is a daunting task, and it can very easily go wrong. It can involve redoing code or data in order to gain the
highest ROI from cloud-native features. Applications need to undergo an optimization process so that they can operate at their peak efficiency in the cloud. While a successful application migration is well within the realm of possibilities, the very idea of this process is a cause for concern to many companies. Hendry contended that ignorance of the opportunities that the cloud provides is to blame for the low adoption rates amongst the Canadian enterprise. Cloud technologies enable companies to easily put disaster recovery plans in place, to automatically update software, and do not require capital expenditure. Although the cloud is quite prevalent and many firms have a deep understanding of its advantages, many Canadian businesses are still unaware of how it could benefit them.
The Role of the Government? Canada offers some of the richest tax incentives for research and development in the world for innovative companies. Is there a role for the government to boost cloud adoption within the Canadian enterprise? Schrutt rejected that idea. “The regulations in place are to protect consumers, citizens and businesses but there is a lot of flexibility there,” he said. “Education and IT buyers understanding what these regulations mean and how they can be compliant is a must, but that is not the government’s job - that is a CIO’s job.” Hendry agreed with the IDC analyst. “I do not see the need for a major role for the government to speed up cloud technology adoption within the Canadian enterprise,” he remarked. His only suggestion was a possible tax break to entice Canadian businesses to implement cloud technologies. Horne offered a different perspective. The federal government has regulations in place that prohibit the use of SaaS technologies within its offices and departments. “If cloud is the way of the future, then the Feds need to invest in removing the technology and legislation barriers and become SaaS advocates and users,” he asserted. April/May 2014 IT in Canada Online / 21
TECHNOSPECTIVE ON MOBILITY
By Amy Allen
HP launches new application testing solutions for
MOBILITY AND THE CLOUD
A
ccording to the 2013-14 World Quality Report, which surveyed 1,500 quality assurance directors around the world, the number one testing challenge that businesses face is the management of their testing infrastructure. HP is tackling this particular challenge by making it easier for businesses to test their products and bring them to market faster, without sacrificing quality. The company announced recently a set of new enhancements to its Application Lifecycle Management product family to help businesses with application testing for mobility and the cloud. “How do you balance the unrelenting pressure for velocity, for releasing applications faster?” said Kelly Emo, director, product marketing, HP Software. “These products will help customers balance that with the need for quality. The instant nature of customer needs is important, but releasing apps before they’re ready can be disas22 / IT in Canada Online April/May 2014
trous. These products will enable customers to go about designing, creating, and marketing their products, with new capabilities to automate wherever possible.” Testing capabilities around the cloud are something that customers have long been asking for, according to Emo. Customers want to have the ability to do large-scale testing on their cloud infrastructure, and to apply a lot of load from all over the globe to determine what will happen when it goes into production. “It’s difficult, once cloud accounts are acquired, to push out load generators,” said Emo. “There are a ton of provisioning, network configuration, and security concerns associated with this. With LoadRunner and Performance Center, this process is automated. It’s a powerful way to really scale and leverage cloud investment.” With HP LoadRunner 12 and HP Performance Center 12, customers can increase cost savings and shrink overhead while
reducing business disruptions and remediating system performance issues more rapidly and effectively. The solutions provide a scalable platform for cloud testing, which organizations can customize according to their business needs. It also integrates with a number of tools, such as Jenkins and Google Analytics. “Infusing testing into the development cycle as early as possible is important,” said Emo. “Businesses need to do performance and functional testing, and make them part of their development and build processes. The challenge in doing this is that it’s manual and laborious. That’s why automated load tests have been integrated into the build segment of the process.” The company is also announcing new mobile testing solutions, to help its customers manage a technology that, according to Emo, can sometimes be difficult to navigate. “Mobile is everywhere. It’s across industries; all industries are coming up with mobile engagement models,” said Emo. “It’s hard to find a customer right now that isn’t trying to figure out mobile testing, or how to leverage the cloud. And a constant challenge is trying to figure out how to use these capabilities in their businesses, and how to manage the costs associated with it.” The new mobile solutions allow customers to run field tests that will ensure that applications built on the HP Anywhere Enterprise Mobility Platform will still work in offline scenarios. HP Sprinter for Mobile will also enable faster and more efficient manual tests, while enhancements to the Shunra Network Virtualization for HP Software mean that testers can emulate real-world network conditions to ensure the accuracy of test results. Additionally, HP has updated its Application Lifecycle Management and Quality Center Enterprise solutions. Both products now boast a more intuitive user interface that is accessible across browsers and mobile devices, as well as an authoring feature that is similar to Microsoft Word in user experience, in order to provide testers with an authoring environment that is familiar to them. The products are now available through HP and its channel partners.
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INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT
By Daniela Fisher
Life in the cloud Companies are using the cloud as a launch pad for cost-savings, innovation, and business growth. And as cloud technologies continue to evolve, businesses stand to gain. In the coming few years, we’ll be seeing cloud changing the world. IT in Canada talked with Praveen Datta, director, Cisco Consulting Services – Service Providers Canada, Cisco, about trends in cloud and future possibilities. Cloud trends for the enterprise in 2014 The time for cloud is now. Across the board, companies are increasing their spend on cloud. For smaller companies, Datta said they are adopting things like SaaS and spending in traditional simplified cloud offerings like web hosting. He also pointed out that in the future, we’ll see them spend more on the use of collaboration. For larger enterprises, their IT budget includes network and collaboration, and professional services around the cloud. The larger the business, the more complex the solution, and the greater the need for consulting. 24 / IT in Canada Online April/May 2014
On this matter, Datta and his team have surveyed IT departments about their budgets. He found that more companies are spending more of their IT budget on cloud or managed services. The pattern is similar for both small and large companies. In the next couple of years, budgets for cloud will increase. “When you look at the spend that businesses across the board, whether they’re small or large, when you look at what’s going on in terms of the percentage of IT budget that’s dedicated to cloud or to managed services, you start to see that let’s say if 18 per cent of small businesses are spending 30 per cent or more of their IT budget on
cloud and managed services,” said Datta.
Cloud technologies changing industry Mobile devices connected through the cloud, make more information available. The Internet of Everything is advancing this trend. This holds exciting possibilities for the future. Industries have the potential to transform. “Just about every industry is impacted, whether it’s manufacturing and the increased automation of manufacturing processes, the increased safety and security within them, we’ve gone through so many use cases across different industries where
INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT it can apply,” Datta commented. “If you’re in healthcare, the ability to digitize all healthcare documents and have it easily accessible wherever you are, as you can imagine it would be very interesting to see first responders being able to check some idea and get some information on drug interaction that you can and cannot have and being able to treat you much better than if they didn’t have that information.” Another industry primed for change is oil and gas. As an industry that is highly automated, being able to tell you’re done drilling, or having bump up productivity in the oil patch. “If you look at kind of how it’s done in Canada, with the Oil Sands, you’ve got all these different pieces of equipment that are moving around that cost millions of dollars,
they’re very dangerous, and being able to wire them so that there’s an accurate control of where are all these devices, where are the people, and maintaining safety and security of the assets and the people in those areas becomes possible through cloud,” Datta remarked.
Cloud in our lifetime: onus on us to control what we share As cloud technologies continue to evolve, a big issue for many companies is security. When looking at possibilities for cloud in our lifetime, Datta noted that there are two sides to the coin. “I think one is there’s going to be an increasing need to have governments focused on privacy, and for individuals to be focused on controlling the information of
“I THINK ONE IS THERE’S GOING TO BE AN INCREASING NEED TO HAVE GOVERNMENTS FOCUSED ON PRIVACY, AND FOR INDIVIDUALS TO BE FOCUSED ON CONTROLLING THE INFORMATION OF THEMSELVES THAT IS OUT THERE,” SAID DATTA. “ON THE OTHER HAND, THERE’S GOING TO BE AN ABSOLUTE INCREASE IN THE SIMPLICITY WITH WHICH WE’RE ABLE TO INTERSECT WITH SERVICES AND WITH OTHER PEOPLE.”
themselves that is out there,” said Datta. “On the other hand, there’s going to be an absolute increase in the simplicity with which we’re able to intersect with services and with other people. “I think it’s going to be a bit of a dance, where we’re going to have make sure that we’re getting the things that we want without revealing too much that we don’t want the world to know about.” For Datta, cloud has to be managed properly. “I think the onus is going to be on businesses as well as consumers to do then. But I think if the balance is struck, then there’s great potential to simplify life, to increase productivity, to create new industries around the world. It has the potential to be as development friendly as the Internet has been.”
Ensuring business success in the cloud Datta explained that it depends on the size of the business, but in general the approach ought to be having a good understanding of what you want to do with the cloud. Before entering the cloud, companies should ask themselves questions such as: Are you looking to free up some IT resources by offloading some of your noncore IT resources to the cloud, allowing the business to focus on its core competencies and to drive more innovation and more agility into the market so they can address more opportunities. Is it a matter of reducing cost by leveraging the cloud, what are the things that are driving you towards it? “Once you understand that, you can then decide what the appropriate solution is for you,” said Datta. “It’s not that businesses are whole-heartedly throwing 100 per cent of their business into the cloud; they’re being selective of the areas that are important to maintain complete 100 per cent kind of on premise control of. There are other areas that they’re very happy to put into the cloud, and then have a hybrid model between those two different kind of infrastructures. There’s lots of ways that we’re being impacted by the cloud, and I think at the end, it’s really an improvement in quality of life.”
April/May 2014 IT in Canada Online / 25
TECHNOSPECTIVE ON IT
Beyond the cloud:
By Rachel Levy Sarfin
concepts that can benefit all of IT
W
hat words come to mind when you think of the cloud? Convenience? Ease? Cost effectiveness? The cloud has indeed brought these things into our work and personal lives. Thought leaders believe that the enterprise can further capitalize on the power of the cloud, though. There are concepts that the cloud has introduced that can be applied to other areas of IT. David Linthicum, SVP, Cloud Partners, Reuven Cohen, chief technology advocate, Citrix, and Ian Gertler, CMO of the consulting firm Symplegades all weighed in on what else the cloud can bring to IT. Linthicum has spotted three concepts endemic to the cloud that can benefit the rest of the field of IT. He sees DevOps, management and governance, and Big Data analytics as having broader applications. DevOps refers to a software development process and sets of technology that provide an agile relationship between development and IT operations. Linthicum explained that the purpose of DevOps is to change and improve the relationship by advocating better communication and collaboration between the two organizations. DevOps relates to the cloud because it generally relies upon single, unified development, testing, and deployment environment that relies on holistic configuration management. 26 / IT in Canada Online April/May 2014
TECHNOSPECTIVE Puppet, as well as key governance systems such as cloud management platforms,” he observed. “There is no one template for how these organizations are structured, but those seem like the emerging patterns.”
Management and Governance David Linthicum, SVP, Cloud Partners
DevOps “DevOps removes the barriers between development and operations, and thus has the ability to speed solutions to production,” Linthicum said. “While there is no magic here, there are some good processes and technology to provide continuous delivery and integration to reduce the amount of time it takes for new functionality to get into production in the cloud.” How can DevOps benefit the rest of IT? “It’s really a matter of people, processes, and technology,” Linthicum asserted. “So, the best way to implement DevOps processes is to focus on the organizational interaction, as well as lines of communications. While the technology is important, it’s really there to support the organization, not the other way around.” Linthicum offered his thoughts on what a well-implemented case of DevOps looks like. “Typically it’s a development and operating group working closely together, leveraging key technology such as configuration management, such as Chef or
The second concept Linthicum identified, management and governance, refers to the placement of an abstraction layer between those who use resources and those who manage those resources. Management and governance allows the enterprise to provide a set of services while removing the complexity of both company-based computer resources and those in public and private clouds. “Management and governance are concepts that pre-date and transcend cloud computing,” Linthicum stated. “It’s just a fact that those concepts are of a huge value to cloud computing, thus why they are being leveraged and modernized. You really need to leverage management and governance as systemic concepts, not just around the platform of the cloud. In other words, these concepts should span the entire enterprise.” “Management and governance provides us with the ability to manage all IT assets, including cloud-based assets, as collections of services and resources,” Linthicum added. “We’re able to place policies around these services and resources, and manage them behind a single pane of glass.”
Big Data Analytics Big Data analytics, the third concept Linthicum pinpointed, uses vast amounts of data
“COLLECTIVELY THIS TRANSFORMATION WILL MEAN BUSINESSES WILL NEED TO RETHINK HOW THEY MANAGE AND ENABLE THIS NEW SMARTER, MORE PRODUCTIVE WORKFORCE CONNECTED VIA THE INTERNET, THE ENTERPRISE IS NOT TYPICALLY THE FASTEST WHEN IT COMES TO THE ADOPTION OF CUTTING EDGE WEB TECHNOLOGIES. THE VERY ACT OF BEING BIG MAKES THE RAPID ADOPTION OF NEWER TECHNOLOGY A RISKY ENDEAVOUR.”
ON IT
to derive new insights. Linthicum noted that Big Data analytics typically entails cloudbased resources, such as the scalability of public clouds. “Big Data analytics provides enterprises with the ability to finally make business sense of data that’s been existing in silos for the last 20 years,” he remarked. “We now have database technology that’s able to cull through petabytes of information, to support the business in understanding exactly what’s going on, and making quick and critical business decisions. The cloud is a great platform for Big Data analytics, considering that you’re able to access any number of resources, as needed, when needed.” This cloud-related concept is one that the enterprise has begun to take advantage of, although its implementation can be even further widespread.
Mobility Cohen, chief technology advocate at Citrix, opined that mobility is one of the most important concepts cloud computing has introduced to the enterprise. “In many ways it’s daunting to look at the sheer volume of buzzwords and hype applied to an almost limitless amount of emerging technologies,” he acknowledged. “I think among the most interesting has been the shift from the traditional desktop centric world to one that is no longer bound by a single machine but instead spans a global cloud of capacity. Call it mobile, contextual or ubiquitous, the future of enterprise technology is about enabling the people within your business to work more effectively regardless of locality constraints.”
Reuven Cohen, chief technology advocate, Citrix April/May 2014 IT in Canada Online / 27
TECHNOSPECTIVE ON IT “I THINK WE’LL SOON SEE AN INCREASED NEED AND USAGE OF CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURES FOR MANAGING SECURITY AS MORE WORKERS BECOME REMOTE TELECOMMUTERS.”
Ian Gertler, CMO, Symplegades
The Citrix executive sees this shift underway, which marks a significant departure in how employees formerly worked. “Traditionally, we have had to adapt ourselves to work with technology,” Cohen commented. “The next generation of technology adapts to us.” As a result, workers are using the most personalized software ever. “It’s contextual, providing an augmented experience uniquely tailored to us,” Cohen said. “It’s an experience that makes us as individuals significantly more productive both in our professional and personal lives.” Cohen believes that although the cloud concept of mobility has begun to transform the enterprise, there is still work to be done. “Collectively this transformation will mean businesses will need to rethink how they manage and enable this new smarter, more productive workforce connected via the Internet,” he remarked. “The enterprise is not typically the fastest when it comes to the adoption of cutting edge web technologies. The very act of being big makes the rapid adoption of newer technology a risky endeavour.” Businesses realize they need to undergo this transformation, though. “This is beginning to change thanks in part to the adoption of startup methodologies such as lean startup and design thinking which fosters a fail fast and experiment often mentality,” Cohen pointed out. 28 / IT in Canada Online April/May 2014
He offered advice as to how to fully leverage the mobility cloud has brought to the business world. “They can try to create groups within their organizations that use a more startup-like way for building and deploying applications,” Cohen commented. “Just because you’re big, doesn’t mean you need to be slow.” He cautioned companies to formulate a strategy before embarking on a new technological journey. “This nimbleness needs to have a clearly defined structure in order to be successful. Being nimble, innovative or whatever the buzzword is, for the sake of being trendy isn’t really a good answer to a particularly well thought out question,” Cohen warned.
Everything-as-a-Service Gertler, CMO of the consulting firm Symplegades, identified the cloud concept of Everything-as-a-Service (XaaS). “We’re clearly seeing many traditional and legacy software shifts across both IT and overall business/consumer use,” he said. Gertler pointed out that people no longer browse their CD collections to listen to music; instead, they turn to services such as Spotify or Pandora. “I think this transition is touching on all areas of the enterprise as well -- in which we see many companies emerging beyond the software-as-a-service mentality that Marc Benioff evangelized and changed
the entire mindset with through Salesforce. com,” he added. The consultant predicted that we can expect to see Security-as-a-Service soon, as well. “I think we’ll soon see an increased need and usage of cloud infrastructures for managing security as more workers become remote telecommuters,” he commented. This new development will not be without perils, though. “This in itself is a doubleedged sword for many organizations, as they save money on physical office spaces and other costs, but must enhance the many policies and safeguards around confidential materials with teams dispersed around town or across the world,” Gertler cautioned. “VPNs and firewalls used to be enough, but as we continue to leverage new applications and services like Box with file sharing or web-based collaboration platforms for team interaction, the IT department is often removed from the initial stages of the process (since they’re ‘self-service’) but they also need to maintain some level of enterprise control to ensure that they protect the company and provide best practices for teams to work efficiently and safely.”
Final Thoughts Linthicum acknowledged that hurdles exist to implementing cloud concepts to the greater sphere of IT. “The most common barrier is people, and a lack of understanding,” he asserted. “The best way to move beyond this is to educate those in enterprise IT about the potential value of cloud computing, and best practices for implementation. The technology is rather easy. The people aspects of this are not.” He also had a dire warning to companies who cannot implement these concepts outside of the cloud space: “They won’t last long. They will end up spending twice as much on IT as their close competitors, and take twice as long to get solutions into production. That’s a failure in my book.”
TECHNOSPECTIVE ON RETAIL
By Rachel Levy Sarfin
Shopping in the cloud: trends in retail Retail has existed for thousands of years, although changes in technology have always made it an exciting field to watch. One of the latest developments to impact this industry is the cloud.
T
he cloud has the power to transform every aspect of retail, from the consumer’s shopping experience to the supply chain. Christian Playford, managing director, technology (retail), Accenture, shared his thoughts on what we can expect to see in this space in the coming months and years. “While widespread cloud adoption in the retail industry is still a few years away, the scalable computing power of the cloud is making it possible for leading retailers to meet the needs of time-pressed, on-thego and digitally connected consumers,� Playford commented. It is also going to affect other areas of retail. The Accenture analyst predicts that retailers will continue to increase their cloud adoption to support the associated technological advances in mobility and analytics - to improve business outcomes in channel operations, merchandising and marketing, supply chain
management and sales, service and support. When consumers shop, they do not think about the differences between the online, mobile or bricks-and-mortar channel. Conversely, multi-channel operations matter a great deal to retailers. The benefits of the cloud to multi-channel operations include real-time reporting on customer purchases and habits as well as far lower capital expenditures. The cloud can also greatly improve business outcomes for merchandising and marketing efforts. As with multi-channel operations, the cloud can give marketers greater insight into customer behaviour. It also allows access to a larger number of markets with a limited investment. In addition, cloud technology gives marketers and the merchandising department the
power to see what products are in stock in real-time to prevent customers becoming disappointed if something is not available. Retail supply chains are another aspect that can benefit from the implementation of cloud technologies. The cloud lets retailers monitor their warehouses in real-time, which will mean reduced wasted store and shelf space. That, in turn, leads to lower costs. Moreover, the cloud has no geographic limits; a retailer headquartered in Toronto can track its warehouse located in China at any time of the day. Business outcomes for the sales, service and support departments can improve as well with cloud technologies. Implementing them will lower the IT budget, and many cloud-based sales, service and support platforms easily integrate with existing IT April/May 2014 IT in Canada Online / 29
TECHNOSPECTIVE ON RETAIL “SECURITY CONTINUES TO BE TOP OF MIND WHEN CONSIDERING CLOUD SOLUTIONS, WHILE GENERAL CONFIDENCE IN THE SECURITY OF CLOUD SOLUTIONS IS INCREASING, BOTH IT AND BUSINESS EXECUTIVES NEED TO CAREFULLY CONSIDER THEIR CLOUD SECURITY STRATEGY AND THINK THROUGH NOT ONLY PRIVACY RISKS AND DATA LOSS, BUT ALSO INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND LEGAL AND REGULATORY COMPLIANCE CONSIDERATIONS.” investments. Salespeople and service and support staff can also respond faster to leads and customers through cloud platforms. Although several of the aspects of retail affected by the cloud that Playford mentioned are not customer-facing, shoppers will notice a difference due to these technologies. “The convergence of cloud, social, analytics and mobility has changed the way consumers want to interact with their retailers, and thus disrupted the way retailers need to do their business,” he remarked. “To influence consumers’ purchasing decisions, today’s retailers need to build detailed consumer profiles enriched by analytics, deliver a seamless customer experience across all channels, personalize offers in real time, based on consumers’ context and eventually give customers what they value and expect.” In order to deploy cloud technologies effectively, retailers must overcome certain barriers. Playford described the impediments to implementation: “They have an enormous amount of legacy infrastructure that needs to be supported, migrated and modernized. Integrating cloud based IT services with legacy IT is a complex but critical step to adopting cloud. It’s important not to underestimate the implementation and integration complexities. If not managed properly, these costs can creep and put significant pressure on the initial business case.” While integration sounds like a daunting task, there are steps that can be taken that can make the process proceed smoothly. “Start by separating the hype from the reality,” Playford advised. “Cloud based solutions very seldom sit in isolation. With more retailers having now adopted cloud based solutions, we have shifted away from theory based business benefits to very practical lessons learned. Retailers have an opportunity to capitalize on this knowledge 30 / IT in Canada Online April/May 2014
Christian Playford, managing director, technology (retail), Accenture
and build very pragmatic cloud roadmaps focused on handling their implementation, operational and governance realities.” He also counseled working with a partner that offers a holistic yet agnostic approach to the cloud. Playford shared some best practices as well. “Security continues to be top of mind when considering cloud solution,” he said. “While general confidence in the security of cloud solutions is increasing, both IT and business executives need to carefully consider their cloud security strategy and think through not only privacy risks and data loss, but also intellectual property and legal and regulatory compliance considerations.” The Accenture analyst acknowledged that cost is a significant consideration in the shift to the cloud, though it should not be the primary concern. “As retailers’ usage of cloud grows, they are on a journey toward using cloud’s unique attributes as an ever greater source of competitive advantage,” Playford noted. “Retailers should shift their focus away from pure cost reduction objectives and instead take a more strategic approach to cloud enabled business outcomes.” Hearkening back to his earlier point about the shopping experience, Playford concluded by urging vendors to focus on satisfying consumers. “Retailers should focus their use of cloud computing on centralizing retail infrastructure and on helping provide a consistent customer experience across all of the retailer’s touchpoints - a concept we refer to as seamless retailing,” he commented. Ultimately, shoppers do not care which technology platforms a merchant deploys. All that they want is to browse for products and purchase them in the simplest and least frustrating manner possible. The cloud can enable this to keep customers coming back.
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