Cloud 2012 Redux

You shouldn’t have to commit everything at once

This year will be remembered as the year the cloud moved beyond the realm of “Back to Time-Sharing” or a curio for greenfields and start-ups.  While Software as a Service (SaaS) is interesting, it can not be a center piece of your IT infrastructure or strategy due to its limited scope and cost/scalability metrics.  By the same token, every IT system is not a greenfield opportunity, and most require a steady evolutionary response incorporating the existing infrastructure’s DNA and standards.

Just illustrating a “private cloud” with a “public cloud” next to it does not cut it.  What does that really mean?  Ever wonder what is really in that cloud(s)?  Better yet, in safe understandable steps, explain it; cost benefit 3-5-7 year projections, organizational impact for IT and business process, procedural impact for disaster recovery, etc.  Sorry, “Just buy my product because it is what I have to sell!” does not work; I need a tested time-phased architectural plan, with contingencies, before I commit my company and job.

For the first time in the continuing cloud saga, we have been able to put together and test a “non-aligned” approach, which allows an organization to keep IT infrastructural best practice and not “sign-in-blood” to any individual vendor’s ecosystem.  With the proper design, virtual machines (VMs), can be run on multiple vendors’ platforms (Microsoft®, Amazon.com®, etc.) and on-premise, optimized to cost, performance, and security. This effectively puts control of cost and performance in the hands of the CIO and the consuming company.

In addition, credible capabilities exist in the cloud to handle disaster recovery and business continuity, regardless of whether the supporting VMs are provisioned on premise or in the cloud. Certain discreet capabilities, like email and Microsoft Office™ Automation, can be “outsourced” to the cloud and integration to consuming application systems can be maintained in the same manner many organizations have historically outsourced functions like payroll.

The greatest benefit of cloud 2012 is the ability to phase it in over time as existing servers are fully amortised and software licences roll-off and require renewal.  Now we can start to put our plans together and start to take advantage of the coming margin-cutting wars of the Cloud Titans in 2013 and beyond.

Product-based Solutions Versus Custom Solutions : Tomb Raider or Genesis?

The Product-based Solution is where most of Corporate America is going for IT today.  The talent required to povide a successful implementation (one you actually renew license maintenance on rather than let let quietly die an ignominious death) requires the tenacity, deep specialized product  knowlege (read arcane dark arts), and courage of a cinema Tomb Raider.  The team required has to know the target product as well as Indiana Jones knows Egyptology; with equivalent courage, problem-solving skills, and morals (one can’t be squeamish hacking a solution into submission) to be able to achieve a usable solution versus an embarrassing product snap-in.   In addition to their product skills the team must be able to quickly navigate the jungle of existing applications with their mysterious artifacts to get the proper integration points and data (Gold! Gold! I say!).

What if the team can’t or don’t navigate your jungle of existing applications or do not know all of the idiosyncracies of the product to be installed?  Well you get an Embarrassing Product Snap-In (Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200, Do Flush Career).  Every seasoned IT professional has seen one of these puppies, they are the applications you can’t get anyone to use.  Usually because the do not connect to anything users currently work with, or have real usability issues (Harry Potter vs. MIT interface).  Yes, the product is in.  Yes, it tests to the test plan criteria.  Yes, it looks like post-apocalypse Siberia as far as users are concerned (What if we install CRM and no one comes? Ouch! no renewal for Microsoft/Oracle, bummer).

Custom Solutions are more like Genesis, Let there be Light! (ERP, CRM, Order-Entry, you get the picture).  It is a Greenfield Opportunity!  The team you need is just as talented as a Product-based Solution, but very different.  They need to be able to create a blueprint of your desires, like a rock star architect for a signature building.  The team needs to be experts in software engineering and technology best practice.  As well, the team needs to be able to translate your user’s meandering descriptions of what they do (or not) into rational features resembling business process best practice.  That was Easy!

In the case of custom the risk is creating Frankenstein, rather than new life (It’s Alive!, It’s Alive!).  Again, every seasoned IT professional has seen one of these embarrassing creations (Master, the peasants/users are at the gate with pitchforks and torches!).  The end result of one of these bad trips (Fear and Loathing in ERP) is the same, but usually more expensive, than the Product-based alternatives.

Debby Downer what should I do?  Reality is as simple as it is hard; pick the right solution for the organization, Product-based or Custom.  Then get the right team, Tomb Raider or the Great Architect of Giza.

Is Custom Development Dead?

Is Custom Development dead? After the last two years of custom development’s nuclear winter, (following 2008s Financial Armageddon), one would think the the Grim Reaper did his best in the blast. I really hope not, designing and building strategic systems make the more mudane aspects of software engineering worth enduring the mind-numbing syntactical pain of creation. Nothing like the smell of napalming the competition with a totally new way of doing business in the morning (my view of “Apocalypse Now” with a business bent). Maybe, just maybe, I hope rumors of Custom Development’s death are greatly exaggerated.

Did Custom Development die of natural causes, maybe pulled off of life support by risk-hating Executive Management as a perverse form of parental control after the financial snafu (Custom Development moves from PG-13 to XXX)?  Off-the-Shelf software products and the ever increasing cost of continuing maintenance really hurt Custom Development as a viable systems choice, but is that enough to put it down? Cloud and “nouveau Cloud” technologies (read SaaS, SalesForce.com) may have provided the coup de grace.  I seriously doubt it, every time I look into the Cloud I get serious PTSD flashbacks to the 70s and 80s IBM Mainframe World Domination (OMG there is a 3270 in the corner!!).  At least there was alot less hype and easier choices back then (Nobody got fired picking IBM!).

It is possible Custom Development died offshore (simple Mickey Finn, bag over the head, Shanghaied and Held for Ransom!)?  While Business Processes and System Maintenance have done reasonably well offshore (Castor Oil of the Corporate world, let Mikey take it!), strategic custom development has had less success.  Quality innovation that can transform a corporation really requires a local team steeped both in the host company and surrounding culture.  Plus, Custom Development tends to have a high infant mortality rate so it is best attempted in short phases supported by an Agile Methodology, definitely not in Offshore’s financial model wheelhouse.  So I don’t think Offshore is implicated.

There is the theory that evolution has spoken and Product-based Solutions have succeeded Custom Development, just as mammals succeeded dinosaurs.  Product companies would like you to believe that, but does that seem plausable (Land of the Lost, Jurassic Park where are you?)?  While Product-based solutions have advantages in success rates and cost, they by their nature lack the true freedom that drives raw creativity and innovation.  Custom Development is that wellspring.

The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself!  Adversity to risk is curbing animal spirits, creativity, and innovation, ….for now.  Custom Development is not dead and will return from its vacation with Puff in the Cave by the Sea when Jackie Paper locks-and-loads and we begin some serious innovation and transformation with strategic custom software systems (BTW thats when the Jobs return too!).

Feel Like Your Pants Are Down – Check Your Data

Few things are as embarassing (cool double entendre) as having your pants pulled down in public.  While it is great fun to see it done figuratively to someone else (real world on the grade school playground), it can really cramp both careers and management practice in the corporate world.

Just when you have the fought for budget money to put into some cool analytics or reporting…the project is up and running, you’re day dreaming about keeping your job (maybe a raise!). Then, the project status rolls across your desk: bad data, instant project over-run.  The problem is worst-case scenario; bad data tends to be discovered just as the project goes live with no quiet opportunity to fix it.  The money is gone and everybody is looking (yep, just like second grade, lunch money is gone and…).

Don’t you just love going back to the C-Suite for more  project budget (feel like you’ve just been pantsed?)  Ouch!  This one needs to be avoided at all costs.  How to do it is the tough part.  Does anybody really want to go into the C-Suite and say, “Our corporate data may not be, uh, kosher?”  There is a real career enhancer for any CIO.  So you need to do what any red-blooded CIO would do, bury the cost in another part of the project.  No one wants to champion a project entitled “Fixing Corporate Data Assets”.  How did they get messed-up in the first place?  Guess who gets blamed?

No one wants to hear about legacy code and budget reductions.  There is no wide-eyed fascination regarding aging databases suffering from too many corporate mergers and grafted on must-have emergency applications.  Well, if they don’t want to hear about that, why go through it.  Don’t tell me problems, get me solutions!  Well, here you go, as requested.

Instead, early in an analytics or reporting initative, put in a sub-task to test existing data for proper compliance to the stated information delivery  goals (see that doesn’t feel scary, just numbing).  Overall match to corporate data governance and meta data management standards can be tested at the same time, who could argue with that?  Just a little bit of testing, call it project (career)  insurance.

The next step should be obvious, even to a CIO.  Slide one of these sub-tasks in each project initative (they go togther like “sliders, beer, and baseball”!).  Before you know it the Corporate Data Assets are in tip top shape, without the nasty embarassment of a major budget line item.

Doublin’ Down in Hard Times

Hard times are definitely here.  By this time everybody in IT-land has done the obvious: frozen maintenance where possible, put off hardware and software upgrades, outsourced where possible, trimmed heads (contractors, consultants, staff), pushed BI/CPM/EPM analytics projects forward, and tuned up data and web resources.

Now is the time to think outside the bunker!

IT needs to consider what will need to be done to nurture the green shoots poking through the nuclear fallout. All of the talking heads and pundits see them ( glowing with radiation or whatever) and  the utmost must be done to make sure they survive and grow or we shall all sink into the abyss!

This is the time to double down in IT (poker speak).  It is not about heavily hyped Cloud Computing or the latest must-have tech gadget, but about something much more mundane and boring: improving the business process.  There, I’ve said it, what could possibly be more boring?  It doesn’t even plug-in.  In fact (shudder!), it may be partially manual.

Business process is what gets the job done (feeding our paychecks!).  Recessions are historically the perfect time to revise and streamline (supercharge ‘em!)  existing business processes because it allows the company to accelerate ahead of the pack coming out of the recession.  In addition, recession acts as something of a time-out for everybody (I only got beatings, no time-outs for me), like the yellow flag during a NASCAR race.  When the yellow flag is out, time to hit the pits for gas and tires.  Double down when it is slow to go faster when things speed up again, obviously the only thing to do.

How? is usually the question.  The best first step is to have existing business processes documented and reviewed.  Neither the staff involved driving the process at the moment nor the business analysts (internal or consultants) are that busy at the moment.  That means any economic or dollar cost of doubling will be minimized under the economic yellow flag.  The second step is to look for best practice, then glance ouside-the-box to maximize improvement.  The third step is to look for supporting technology to supercharge the newly streamlined business process (I knew I could get some IT in there to justify my miserable existance!).

Small and medium businesses get the biggest bang for the buck (just picture trying to gas and change the tires on the Exxon Valdez at Daytona) with this strategy.  This process allows SMBs to leapfrog the best practice and technology research the Global 2000 have done and cut to the chase without the pioneer’s cost (damn those arrows in the backside hurt!).  Plus implementation is cheaper during recession ( I love to be on the buy-side).  The hardware, software, and integration guys have to keep busy so they cut prices to the bone.

The way forward is clear, IT only needs to lead the way, following is kind of boring anyway.

Now is the Time for Comfort IT

Whenever crisis strikes and people enter uncertain and frightening times they close up like a clam.  They do not take on new risks like new cars or houses, instead they find comfort in life’s little pleasures.  Macaroni-and-cheese, tomato soup, and meatloaf seem to sooth the troubled mind and are the perfect accompaniment to the theater of financial meltdown.  IT has it’s equivalent of comfort foods, short (less than one budget cycle)  projects with easily measurable gains.  Projects which enhance core business functionality and projects which increase visibility are usually easy wins.

Projects like “Let’s Outsource All IT”, “Let’s Go to the Cloud”, or “Let’s Move to Open Source, Oracle, Microsoft, etc. to Save Money” are not Comfort IT and elicit the image of someone running down the hallway with their hair on fire screaming (does not look comfortable to me, let’s skip this one).  These projects will have their time in the sun when the Great Wheel turns again and risk is the entree of the day.  It will be fun to see how fast the major vendors morph their tune to a new reality; they are already shifting from guppy sales representives to bonafide sharks via the layoff lever (I am ever thankful for Email, Voicemail, and Spam Filter Purgatories).

If your organization is light on legacy projects and issues, now is the time to start some (ha ha ha!).  All joking aside, this period is a breather in the steady march of technological leverage of the corporation.  Companies can leapfrog past the painful pioneering process inherent in most technical innovation, at a bargin price.  Just about every hardware, software, and services vendor will have capacity to sell.  It is a buyer’s market , which gives the most comfort of all. 

This is the perfect time to review projects.  Determine cost-to-complete, or can it be completed.  Will it enhance the business process and ultimately be welcomed by its users, or is it a statue to political personal vanity (or an ediface to technology).  Sacrificing projects on the altar of the crisis is considered a statesman-like action and a career-saver for both the guilty and innocent.  For the fearful, consultant priests are available to both identify and cleanse  corporate IT sins for a small fee in these times (put another project on the fire!).  Nothing like a second opinion to sooth the soul, a true IT comfort food.

It’s the End of the World As We Know It!

The Holidays are a great for watching “End of the World” shows on the History Channel. They were a great comfort, actually almost encouraging, because all of the prophecies target 2012.  “The Bible Code II”, “The Mayan Prophecies”, and the Big 2012 Special compendium of End of the World scenarios, covering Nostrodamus to obscure German prophets, all agree that 2012 is the big one (Dec 21 to be exact!)  What a relief!, the rest of the news reports are trending to canned goods, shotguns, and gold by the end of the year.  We really have almost a whole 48 months before everything goes bang (I wasn’t ready anyway, procrastination rules!).

Unfortunately, we need to do some IT planning and budgeting for the new year and probably should have some thoughts going out 36 months (after that see the first paragraph).  As I discussed in a prior blog, the reporting, BI/CPM/EPM, and analytics efforts are the strongest priority; followed by rational short cost savings efforts.  All organizations must see where they are heading and keep as much water bailed out of the corporate boat as possible.  Easy call, job done! 

Then again a horrifying thought occurred to me, what if one of these initiatives should fail? (see my nightmares in prior blog posts on Data and Analytics).  I am not saying I’m the Mad Hatter and the CEO is the Red Queen, but my head is feeling a bit loosely attached at the moment.  Management cannot afford a failed project in this environment and neither can the CIO in any company (remember CIO=Career Is Over).

The best way to ensure sucessful project delivery (and guarantee my ringside lawn chair and six-pack at Armageddon in 2012) lies in building on best practice and solid technical architecture.  For example, the most effective architecture is to use a layer of indirection between the CPM application (like Planning & Budgeting) and the source data systems (ERP, Custom transactional).  This layer of indirection would be for data staging, allowing transfer to and from fixed layouts for simplified initial installation and maintenance.  In addition, this staging area would be used for data cleansing and rationalization operations to prevent polluting CPM cubes with uncontrolled errors and changes.  In terms of best practice, libraries and tools should be used in all circumstances to encapsulate knowlege rather than custom procedures or manual operations.  Another best practice is to get procedural control of the Excel and Access jungle of wild and wooley data which stands ready to crash any implementation and cause failure and embarassment to the IT staff (and former CIO).  When systems fail, it is usually a failure of confidence in the validity or timeliness of the information whether presented by dashboard or simple report.

CPM, EPM, and Analytics comprise and convey incredibly refined information and decisions of significant consequence are being made within organizations to restructure and invest based on this information.  The information and decisions are only as good as the underlying data going into them.  So skimping on the proper implementation can put the CIO’s paycheck at serious risk (Ouch!).

IBM Anounces Certification in Cloud Computing .. Huh?

IBM first announced a competency center in Cloud Computing, then a Certification over the past couple of weeks.  Well, I guess the old Druid Priests of Mainframes should recognize the resurrection of their old God TimeSharing.  Here we are, back and rested from the Breast of Gaia, Greener than Green (Drum Roll Please…….): Cloud Computing!  (Cloud Computing quickly adjusts his costume makeover to hide Ye Olde TimeSharing’s wrinkled roots)  Yes! here I am fresh, new, exciting, Web 2.0, Chrome Ready!  With me are the only guys (Big Smile from IBM!) who can Certify and Consult in My Mysteries…. IBM!

The more things change the more they stay the same, but this pushes the Great Hype Engine to a new high (or low..ha ha ha).  I can understand IBM wanting to jump on the Cloud Computing bandwagon, but are we really ready for a certification?  No one is really sure what is in the Cloud, or how it operates, but IBM is ready to lock it and load it.  Yep, they are Certifiable! (ha ha ha!).  While one can admire the desire to define and take a stand on Cloud Computing; this is one topic that requires a bit more “cook time” before full scale avarice takes hold.

Cloud Computing to too “cloudy” and “amorphous” to define today.  While expertise and advice is required, there needs to be more independent vetting and best-of-breed component level competitions.  Full solution demo platforms need to be put together to elicit ideas and act as pilots.  Case studies need to spring from these efforts as well as early adopters before an organization bets the farm on a Cloud solution.  The existing ERP platforms did not come into being overnight and these solutions have an element of their interdepency and complexity (Rome was not built in a day!).  All of the elements of backup, disaster recoverability, auditability, service level assurance, and security need to be in place before there can be a total buy in to the platform.  The reputation of Cloud Computing does hang in the balance, all that is required is one high visibility failure to set things back for potentially years (especially given the current macro environment).

Above all at this stage, a certain level of independence is required for evaluation and construction of possible solutions.  Evolution mandates independent competition (Nature Red of Tooth and Claw, Cage Fighting, Yes!).  Maturity brings vendor ecosystems and the all consuming Application Stack, but not yet.  More innovation is required, we may not even have heard of the start-up who could win this game.

The Fog Has Engulfed Us Captain! What Do We Do?

The current business environment reminds me of being socked in a fog bank in minutes, after being on a pleasant summer sail.  The entire episode puts the pucker factor meter in the red zone.  One minute clear sun and nice breeze, the next you can’t see your hand in front of your face.  Your other senses become more acute  — suddenly you hear the splash of the waves on the rocks you cannot see (funny I didn’t hear that a minute ago).  The engines of power boats are closer, seeming to come at your every quarter (PT109 how bad can it be?).

As you sit in the cockpit with your canned air fog horn and US Coast Guard approved paddle, you think that the portable marine radio you bought will not save your sorry carcass (at least you can get the Coast Guard to retrieve your drowned body as you go down).  You kick yourself for not buying that radar instead of the case of wine as a boating accessory (in fact, you think of downing some of that right now to ease your passing).  What you would not give for just a little visibility.

That’s what running a business feels like right now (makes you want to puke doesn’t it, what fun).  My Kingdom for some Visibility!  Sure, you can see what the others are doing; cut a few heads there, shut a facility there.  Is that the right thing to do?  Are you killing your future seed corn or bailing the water which will sink the company?  Ugh!  In this case, you really wish your company’s reporting could be that radar to tell where and where not to go (sure wish I got that CPM Package rather than that Sales meeting in Napa Valley).  With dashboards, planning and budgeting, consolidation, and operational BI, I would have a much better sense of what to feed and what to kill to take advantage of my competitors coming out of this economic fog (Aye Captain! in the Bay of the Blind the One Eyed Man is Admiral!).  Wishing and regrets won’t get you much, and capital investment at this point seems to be a dirty word (Yep, there it is on George Carlin’s list).

In the case of my sailing experience, the way I dug out of the fog and fear was to dig out the depth finder the former owner left behind and the charts I bought because it seemed like a good idea at the time.  I then proceeded to steer the sailboat in circles matching the readings on the depth finder with the depth readings on the chart based on my dead reckoning of my location (you reckon wrong, you’re dead).  Needless to say it worked, the fog cleared, and I was within a quarter mile of where I should have been (Cool!).  Just straightening out existing corporate reports and cleaning existing data is the equivalent of using the depth finder and charts already on hand (Yes! I know the difference between capital and expense).  In fact, that effort usually saves money by eliminating old unused reports (Oh, I feel so green!).

In any case, take a solid first step by getting those state-of-the-art visibility tools of BI/CPM/EPM when the current problems clear or things become so dire as to require dry dock repairs.  That way, the pucker meter won’t be buried in the red the next time this happens, and it will.

Image courtesy of Herbert Knosowski, AP

From the Cloud to the Bunker, the Cold Splash of Reality

Queue the movie Aliens: “…we’re screwed man, it’s over, it’s over!  They’re going to come in here and they are going to…! Get a grip Hudson!”.  That is what things feel like here at the moment.  We are just welding up the armor around the bunker waiting for the Credit Crisis Aliens to get in and decimate IT with their acid blood and ability to plant parasites in our chests.  I guess we do need to get a grip and figure out what to do to shift gears for a new reality.

Anyone want to travel to the C-Suite (Alien Central) to request budget for Web 2.0, Cloud Computing, Chrome, or Green initiatives? (Just leave your dog tags and gear here soldier, it will make it easier for us to split it up among ourselves).  The whole thing makes me chuckle as I weld another piece of steel up over my door.  The first book I go for in situations like these, given my experience and training, is George Orwell’s “1984″.  Doublethink spin is the order of the day today.  Green Computing, becomes High Energy, Aggressive Server and License Rationalization Savings Initiative.  Cloud Computing becomes Radical Infrastructure Outsourcing and Savings Program.  Web 2.0 becomes Intensive Customer Acquisition and Support Cost Reduction Program by Having Them Do All of The Backoffice Work.  Everyone admit it. You’ve seen names like these before; look at the name of any Congressional Bill, they use the same playbook.

Cynicism aside, the world has changed.  IT needs to focus on providing solid data and tools to aid in planning and budgeting for the company to move forward given the new reality.  Tactical cost savings initiatives need to be put on the table to keep staff occupied in a productive manner.  This is the time to consolidate that server farm, outsource network configuration and maintenance, eliminate under-utilized software, and rationalize/outsource maintenance of the PC hardware base.  Each of these are a steel plate welded on the doors to keep the Aliens at bay.

Continue low-cost planning initiatives in new technology — all things pass and this too shall pass in time.  IT needs to be ready to move forward without skipping a beat and keeping this focus will help morale as well.  New technology is the source of most of the major productivity gains and cost savings of the last 20 years.  So the organization as a whole needs to stay tuned-in to any opportunities coming on the horizon.

Plus, think of the fun watching the trade press and the vendors being chased and harvested by the aliens, it could not happen to a better group.  I cannot wait for the shift in editorial priority and ad focus.  Get your copies of the “Aliens” and “1984″ ready for reference!