A lot has been written about utility computing, covering
topics such as web services,service oriented
architecture,blade computingand grids. As a means
of making better use of existing hardware resources and creating a
more flexible platform to meet ongoing changes in business
processes, the promise ofutility computingis difficult to
beat.
However, research carried out by
Quocirca suggests
that many organisations are struggling with the process of moving
to a utility computing platform. Organisations perceive that there
is a need to rip out and replace existing systems, moving from
separate silos of functionality to a single virtualised base in one
move.
This type of change is widely perceived as being prohibitively
expensive, as existing software and hardware investments will need
to be replaced. Additionally, there may be an impact on application
availability as system updates are carried out.
As a result of these concerns, many utility computing projects
become mired in uncertainty surrounding what the real aims are.
Business leaders involved in utility projects are often left
disillusioned with slow progress.
Dead in the water
The high cost of comprehensive system change and the possibility
of reducing application availability means that many utility
computing projects are essentially dead in the water before they
have begun.
For most large organisations, the rip-and-replace approach to IT
was discarded in the late 1980s. The services that enterprise IT
systems provide are simply too central to business operations for
them to be offline for significant periods of time.
Today, IT is required to be a process facilitator. This has led
to a reduction in application buying as more functional systems
based around services - such as virtualised systems - are being
sought.
Often, these approaches are touted as being one-stop solutions
to the various challenges of enterprise IT. Diagrams show fully
service oriented functional clouds, based on highly virtualised
hardware-resource pools. All of this is great in theory, but who
pays to get the basic infrastructure ready for such an end
point?
No business wants to pay for a major infrastructure project
simply to make one of its processes more effective. Therefore, the
job for the IT department is to help the business identify how the
main part of the system can be implemented as a set of services
based on a utility platform that makes use of existing
hardware.
This process should not be too difficult as the majority of
major enterprise applications are capable of having internal
functions made visible as web services through the use of specific
connectors.
Using this approach, new functionality can be implemented as
utility services in a cost-effective manner, and the most can be
made of functionality in existing applications. Areas such as
billing engines, customer records management, and many workflows
will already be found within existing applications. The line of
business only needs to pay for its own requirements, ensuring
continued buy-in from them.
As each project is implemented, the IT department needs to
ensure that anything that has already been implemented as a service
is re-used rather than being recreated. IT must also ensure that
only one version of any functional service is used, doing away with
functional redundancy and associated problems such as multiple data
records and reporting-structure confusions.
Streamlined environment
With this approach, the functional landscape is rationalised as
time goes by, and the various islands of functionality rapidly knit
together as projects are implemented, taking the organisation
closer to the desired solution. The basic IT structure changes from
an inefficient application-focused platform to a more streamlined
utility environment.
The main area that needs to be looked at when implementing such
changes is the management of the infrastructure. Although existing
tools may be good enough for asset identification, measurement and
control, virtualisation management and functional provisioning will
need to be looked at, and investments may well be needed to ensure
that the utility areas of the infrastructure work to the best of
their capabilities.
Most organisations realise that their IT infrastructure is a
highly dynamic environment, and that yesterday's end vision is only
today's starting point. The aim has to be to regard each project as
a set of small steps, rather than a single giant stride, and to
keep reviewing where you believe the path is taking you.