Closing the Gap Between Apps and Ops
Agile techniques, dynamic programming languages, mashups, frameworks are all part of the same trend of driving time and cost out of the application development process. The problem is that the speed and agility we’ve achieved in the domain of “apps” hasn’t crossed over into the domain of “ops,” which is where application value is realized.
This is because of a longstanding “deployment gap” that exists between apps and ops.
At its most basic level, this gap is a result of conflicting motivations. Apps is about speed, while ops is about control. Apps folks focus on delivering solutions to the lines of business as rapidly as possible. Ops folks focus on operating stability, compliance, and cost control through standardization and stringent change management. The gap between them can inhibit business responsiveness, delay deployments and cause organizations to miss opportunities. It can take months and sometimes even years to deploy an enterprise application—and this stands in the way of business value.
Cutting with a Scalpel: IT Budget Planning in a Down Economy
If you’ve followed the recent presidential debates, you’re probably familiar with the “hatchet and scalpel” metaphor for fiscal planning. By one candidate’s logic, the hatchet is the old way of cutting budgets during a down economy: wholesale reductions across the board, with little regard for the relative value of programs. In this context, a single hatchet stroke cuts fat, while also cutting away the muscle and bone that is fundamental to setting the economy back on track.
The new and perhaps more enlightened approach, this candidate suggests, is to use a scalpel to make precision cuts at just the programs that can be sacrificed, while preserving investment in the areas required for future growth and transformation.
This metaphor is equally apt for thinking about IT budget policy.
The Cloud Computing Adoption Model: Eating the Elephant One Bite at a Time
Think of any historical IT transformation and you’ll likely recall the pain associated with change. For large organizations, change isn’t easy and it certainly doesn’t occur overnight. It requires a finessed combination of planning, validating, selling and a fair amount of political cajoling to get people signed up for the change. It also requires an incremental, stepwise progression that yeilds benefits along the way—without this, stakeholders become fatiqued, enthusiasm wanes and projects lose steam. When merchandised effectively, these incremental wins become the kidling that stokes the fire, building the enthusiasm, conviction and confidence required for transformation.
This was true for ERP or SOA projects in years past and it’s true for cloud computing projects today.
Cloud Computing promises to reduce operating costs by increasing infrastructure utilization and reducing server sprawl; reduce the cost of software consumption, by allowing business lines to align cost with value received; and to dramatically improve business agility, by compressing deployment cycles and time to value for application functionality.
