Neudesic Launches Cloud Assessment v2

Neudesic has relaunched its cloud assessment site, http://cloud-assessment.com.Neudesic was the first to have a comprehensive Windows Azure-specific cloud assessment offering, and we're now launching version 2 to reflect a more mature Microsoft cloud platform and a more sophisticated market.

The first thing you'll notice about the new cloud assessment site is that is it HTML5-based. It can be used on tablets as well as desktop browsers.

The site includes a cloud qualifier, which provides some quick feedback on likely cloud value based on answering some simple questions such as "We would like to reduce our IT costs" and "We want to have worldwide presence." Businesses use the cloud for different reasons, so it's important to tailor interest in cloud to specific benefits important to your organization.

Services we provide for cloud include briefings, cloud assessments, pilots, migration, new development, and training. The breadth and substance of those have changed over the last few years. Historically, that meant the following: briefings were usually for a technical audience; cloud assessments were most often a one-day affair where a single app was analyzed for cloud suitability; pilots, migrations, and new development needed to be estimated; and training meant 2-day developer training. All of this of course had the Windows Azure platform in view. Today, we are still all about Windows Azure but the platform is much  broader, including both IaaS and PaaS services. In cloud assessments, many customers these days are expressing interest in a generic cloud assessment that does not assume what the cloud vendor and platform will be. Lastly, many enterprises are interested in assessing not a single app but some or all of their IT portfolio. These are some of the drivers in overhauling our cloud service offerings, process, and online tooling.

Today, we offer two distinct lanes of cloud services. For a single department / single app focus, a briefing is a lunch-and-learn; an assessment is a one-day visit that includes an architectural design session and scoping of a migration. For a company looking at cloud at a high level where their entire IT portfolio is in view, a briefing includes both an executive briefing as well as a technical one; an enterprise assessment involves 2-4 weeks and can be generic or Windows Azure-specific as desired. In an enterprise assessment, we interview application stakeholders, categorize apps by platform and other criteria, and analyze cloud suitability for groups of applications. This includes an enterprise impact study which takes into account process impact, infrastructure impact, and cultural impact of introducing the cloud. For either level of engagement, a pilot or proof-of-concept is typically 2-4 weeks in length. Engagements for migration and new development need to be custom-estimated. We offer Windows Azure training for developers and/or IT professionals, which can span 2-5 days based on coverage. For companies needing bulk migration of dozens or hundreds of apps, we offer our Azure Migration Factory service which provides highly-efficient low-cost migration by leveraging parallel teams of offshore consultants supported by subject matter experts.

In the My Cloud area of the site, visitors can see a custom cloud plan based on their scope of interest (company-wide vs. single dept. / single app) and where they are in their cloud readiness (education, evaluation, pilot, adoption, looking to change cloud providers).

As in the past, an initial visit is free to qualified customers in the markets we serve.
The updated cloud assessment site is part of a larger initiative where Neudesic is updating its many online cloud properties. Stay tuned for more.

Webcast: Microsoft Cloud Computing Assessments: Determining TCO and ROI

On Tuesday 11/16/10 my Neudesic colleague Rinat Shagisultanov will deliver Part 2 in our webcast series on cloud computing assessments, this time dealing with how to make the business case by computing TCO and ROI.

Assessments: Determining TCO and ROI

Event Type: Webcast - Pacific Time
Event Start Date: 11/16/2010 10:00 AM
Event End Date: 11/16/2010 11:00 AM
Presenter: Rinat Shagisultanov, Principal Consultant II, Neudesic
Registration: https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=151052

Cloud computing can benefit the bottom line of nearly any company, but how do you determine the specific ROI for your applications? In this webcast you'll see how to compute the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for your on-premise applications and estimate what the TCO in the cloud will be to gauge your savings. You'll see how your Return on Investment (ROI) can be calculated by considering TCO, migration costs, and application lifetime. Knowing the ROI helps you make informed decisions about risk vs. reward and which opportunities will bring you the greatest value.

Upcoming Webcast: Cloud Computing Assessments, Part 1

Tomorrow (10/21) at 10 AM Pacific time I'll be giving the first in a series of webcasts on Microsoft Cloud Computing Assessments. Register here. These webcasts go hand in hand with my cloud computing assessment article series.

Microsoft Cloud Computing Assessments: The Right Way to Evaluate and Adopt Cloud Computing

Event Code: 151050
10/21/2010
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Welcome Time: 09:55 AM
Time Zone: Pacific
Event Language: Not Specified
Connection information for this Webcast will be sent in your event confirmation.
Registration: https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=151050

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Featured Product/Topic: Windows Azure platform

Recommended Audiences: Technology Executives, IT Managers, IT Professionals, Business Executives, CIO, CTO, IT Directors, Business Decision Maker, Technical Decision Makers, Developers

Cloud computing offers so much promise, but it is new and confusing to many. You may be wondering whether cloud computing is right for your business, what the financial return might be, and how to go about getting started with it without making a mistake. In this webcast you'll be introduced to an assessment process for Microsoft cloud computing that puts the value proposition of the cloud into sharp focus for your business. You'll see how an assessment sheds light on risk vs. reward, identifies promising opportunities, analyzes applications financially and technically, and helps you figure out your cloud computing strategy. With the clarity and plan that comes out of an assessment you will be able to evaluate and adopt cloud computing responsibly, maximizing the benefits while managing risk.

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Cloud Computing Assessments, Part 2: Envisioning Benefits & Risks

In Part 1 of this series we discussed the ideal rhythm for exploring cloud computing responsibly and the critical role a cloud computing assessment plays. An assessment allows you to get specific about what the cloud can mean to your company. Here in Part 2 we will consider assessment activities for envisioning, in which you take a look at where the cloud could take you.

Envisioning: Finding the Cloud’s Synergies with your Business

Cloud computing has so many value propositions that it’s almost problematic! When you hear general cloud messaging you’re exposed to many potential benefits that include cost reduction, faster time to market, and simplified IT among others. Different organizations care about different parts of the value proposition. In an assessment, we want to find out which benefits have strong synergy with your company—and focus on them.

A good exercise to evaluate where the value proposition resonates is to gather business and technical decision makers, provide some education on benefits, and have a discussion to see where there is interest. Your people may be enthusiastic about some of these benefits but neutral or even negative about others. Here are some of the benefits to consider:

	Elasticity
	In the cloud you can change your footprint anytime, quickly and easily. Think of the cloud as a big rubber band.
	No Commitment
	In the cloud you have easy entry and easy exit. You can stay in the cloud as long as you wish, but you can walk away any time, with no financial or legal commitments beyond your current month’s bill.
	Reduced Cost
	In the cloud you are likely to see reduced costs, in some cases extremely reduced costs. These reduced costs derive from the use of shared resources, the economy of scale in the cloud, and your ability to only use and pay for resources as long as you need them.
	Consumption-based Pricing
	In the cloud you only pay for what you use, and you only use what you need.
	Extra Capacity
	In the cloud you can expand capacity whenever you need to, even if a surge in demand is sudden and unexpected. You have the comfort of knowing extra capacity is there for you, but you only pay for it when you actually need it.
	Faster Time to Market
	In the cloud you can deploy new and updated applications very quickly. On Windows Azure for example you can deploy an application in 20 minutes or less.
	Self-Service IT
	In the cloud some IT tasks become so simple anyone can do them. Company IT cultures differ on this, but for some companies the ability to let more individuals and departments directly control their own deployments and level of scale is attractive.
	SLA
	In the cloud you have a Service Level Agreement that boils down to 3 9’s (99.9%), or up to 8 hours of unavailability in a year. For some companies and applications that’s an improvement over their current SLA; for others it may be a downgrade.
	Simplify IT
	In the cloud certain IT tasks become very simple, just a click or two in a web portal. This includes provisioning, software deployment, and upgrades.
	Management
	In the cloud you have automated management working on your behalf. In the case of Windows Azure, patches are applied to your servers automatically; server health is monitored; and your availability and data integrity are protected through managed redundancy.
	Convert CapEx to OpEx
	In the cloud you do away with a lot of capital expenditures such as buying server hardware. This is replaced with operating expenditures, your pay-as-you-go monthly bill. For many companies this means a healthier balance sheet, but not all companies and managers see this as positive. Some people have easier access to capital budget than operating budget.
	New Capabilities
	In the cloud you have new capabilities. For example, Windows Azure provides new capabilities for business-to-business communication and federated security. These new capabilities can allow you to innovate and realize a competitive edge. The cloud also enables some new business models such as Software-as-a-Service that you may have interest in.

It can be useful to have separate envisioning meetings with business and technical people; you’ll likely find different audiences have different interests and concerns. For example, a CIO could be gung-ho about the cloud while the IT department below them is apprehensive about the cloud.

Risks & Concerns

A benefits discussion must be complemented with a risk discussion. Anything new like cloud computing will naturally lead to concerns, real or imaged. Each concern needs to be mitigated to the stakeholders’ satisfaction. Examples of concerns frequently raised are security, performance, availability, disaster recovery, vendor lock-in, in-house capability, and runaway billing concerns.

Security

Security comes up in nearly all cloud discussions. Sometimes there will be a specific risk in mind but often the concern is just a general expression of “I’m concerned about security in the cloud”. The best way to feel good about security in the cloud is first to understand how good security in the cloud is: cloud providers invest a massive amount in security. Next, start getting specific about areas of concern: only then can remedies be designed.

For specific security concerns, the consulting firm performing your assessment should have a knowledge base of commonly-raised concerns—such as data falling into the wrong hands—and standard mitigations for them. In addition, there should be a defined approach for threat modeling risks and planning defenses.

Security in the cloud is best viewed as a partnership between you and the cloud provider. There are certain things the cloud environment will do to protect you, and there are complementary things you can do yourself. An example of something you can do is encrypting all of the data you transmit and store. An assessment should capture your concerns and record the plan for dealing with them.

Performance & Availability

Since the cloud is a different environment from your enterprise, you can’t assume the dynamics are the same. You may find performance to be stellar, about the same, or disappointing depending on what you’re used to. An assessment should consider the performance requirements of applications and plan to validate them in a proof-of-concept.

Availability is more straightforward to predict because there is a published SLA, but the Internet path between the cloud computing data center and your users is outside the cloud provider’s control. If your users are in an area with poor or unreliable Internet service, availability expectations should be revised accordingly.

Vendor Lock-in

Some organizations have a fear of vendor lock-in: if you move something to the cloud, are you stuck there? There’s an interesting discussion to be had here. On the one hand, it’s perfectly possible to write applications that can run on-premise or in the cloud, preserving your ability to move back and forth. On the other hand, if you take advantage of new, only-in-the-cloud features such as Windows Azure AppFabric, you’ll lose some portability (but it may be worth doing so for the benefits). An assessment is an occasion to weigh these tensions and pick a lane.

Disaster Recovery

Cloud providers have many mechanisms to protect your data, such as redundancy, but much of this is automatic and neither visible nor controllable by you. You may require a level above this where you can for example make time-stamped snapshots of your data and be able to restore them on demand. An assessment should map out your DR requirements, including RTO & RPO, and determine how you and the cloud platform will collaborate to meet them.

In-house Capability & Process

If you are going to adopt cloud computing your developers and IT department will need the appropriate skills. An assessment should include an analysis of where people skills are today and where they need to be for cloud computing adoption. It’s not only skills that need updating but process as well: the cloud will surely impact your development and deployment processes. Your cloud computing plans should budget for this training and process refinement.

Billing Concerns

Some find the “just like electricity” metering aspect of the cloud unnerving: what if your billing runs out of control? An assessment should identify procedures for measuring billing and monitoring applications proactively, identifying disturbing trends early so they can be investigated before large charges accrue. In the case of Windows Azure, for example, billing can be inspected daily and it’s not necessary to wait till the end of the month to learn how charges are trending.

Trust

By and large, trust is at the root of most cloud computing concerns. Trust is something that needs to be earned, and in cloud computing it can and should be earned in degrees. If you’ve had a good experience with a proof-of-concept in the cloud, that will bolster your confidence to put something in production in the cloud. Your assessment should produce a roadmap that promotes measured, increasing use of the cloud with validation that expectations were met at every step.

Alignment

Since the purpose of a cloud computing assessment is to find the fit for your organization, it’s very important to understand what is already going on in the company. Any cloud computing plans should align with this backdrop.

Business Alignment

Your company’s business plan likely has significant events on the calendar, for example launch of a new product line or service. Annual planning and budgeting are another example. The flow of business initiatives may suggest that certain cloud opportunities make sense sooner or later on the timeline.

IT Alignment

Your IT department is also likely to have events on the calendar that should be taken into consideration. Is a server refresh cycle scheduled? Consider that using the cloud might allow you to avoid or reduce buying that hardware. Are there plans to overhaul the data center? A cloud strategy might allow you to drastically alter the size and cost of your data center, using the cloud for overflow at peak times.

Envisioning Provides Business Context

Much of a cloud computing assessment will involve identifying and analyzing specific opportunities (applications), but this initial envisioning activity is important. It gives you the business context for your technical decisions. In envisioning you capture both the areas of traction and disconnect between cloud computing and your organization. This information will help you in forming your cloud computing strategy and it will color the suitability scoring of potential cloud opportunities. Timing of cloud initiatives should take business and IT initiatives into account.

In subsequent installments we’ll look at more activities that are performed in a cloud computing assessment. If you’d like to see how we do it at Neudesic, visit http://cloud-assessment.com/.

Cloud Computing Assessments, Part 1: The Right Way to Adopt Cloud Computing

There is a right way and a wrong way to get involved with cloud computing. This article series is about doing it the right way and focuses on the use of cloud computing assessments to properly evaluate, plan for, and adopt cloud computing. Here in Part 1 we’ll be looking at the technology hype cycle, the best rhythm for adopting the cloud, and the critical role an assessment plays. In subsequent parts of the series we’ll look more deeply at various aspects of an assessment such as computing ROI, dealing with security, technical considerations, and the impact on IT. Since I work with the Windows Azure platform that’s where I’ll be focusing.

The Technology Hype Cycle

When major technology waves are unleashed, there’s a lot of buzz and also a lot of uncertainty. The well-known Gartner Hype Cycle explains why this is so. A new technology triggers many expectations, some of them unrealistic or not immediately attainable. As the market’s understanding gets sorted out, these inflated expectations transition into disillusionment which is also exaggerated. As time passes and technology and best practices mature enlightenment occurs and there’s a general understanding of what’s really possible and advisable. It’s at that point we have widespread, productive use of the technology.


Technology Hype Cycle

The hype cycle can be scary, and you might be thinking right now that the best thing to do is sit back and wait for cloud computing to mature. On the other hand, early adopters who leverage new technology sooner than others can gain a competitive edge. The hype cycle doesn’t mean you can’t benefit from a technology in its early years, but it’s essential to take some careful precautions to avoid getting burned.
In the case of cloud computing it’s particularly confusing for businesses to know what to do and when to do it. What’s real today, and what’s hype? Where are developments headed? Should you be doing something now or is it best to wait? There’s a real tension between the wish to join the party and realize the benefits and savings vs. the fear you might be jumping the gun or making a costly mistake.

Rhythm for Cloud Computing Adoption

Fortunately, there’s a way to move from uncertainty to certainty about cloud computing, and that’s to follow the rhythm shown below, which has 4 stages: awareness, assessment, experimentation, and adoption. The missing link between thinking about the cloud (the awareness phase) and using the cloud happily (the adoption phase) are the inner activities of an assessment and an experiment.



Let’s look at each phase.

Phase 1: Awareness

In the awareness phase, you’re starting to learn about cloud computing and are forming an initial impression of it. You’re likely getting information from many sources which might include the media, discussions with peers and colleagues, webcasts, conferences, vendor presentations, and the like. You’re getting pummeled with information, partial information, and misinformation. There’s a large buzz, but everything you’re hearing is either generalized or is someone else’s experience.

You wonder, what would cloud computing mean for us specifically? When you ask that question, you are ready for the next phase, an assessment.

Phase 2: Assessment

A cloud computing assessment has one purpose, and that is to bring the cloud into focus for your organization. In the cloud computing assessments we practice at Neudesic we seek to answer these questions in an assessment:

• Can I believe the claims of cloud computing?
• What is Microsoft doing in the cloud?
• What are the benefits?
• Is the cloud a good fit for my business?
• Where are the opportunities and what ROI will they bring?
• How do I avoid risk?
• What does it cost?
• What belongs in the cloud and what doesn’t?
• When is the right time to engage?

An assessment is very much like having a suit tailored to fit you perfectly. We move from the general to the specific. You’ll exit the assessment with a clear understanding of how the cloud can benefit your company; a strategy that fits your business plans; a roadmap of opportunities; and a full view of risk/reward considerations. The roadmap your assessment produces will typically recommend a proof-of-concept and a prioritized timetable for cloud adoption. Some opportunities may make sense immediately but others may be more appropriate further out. Business and IT events on your calendar as well as upcoming cloud computing platform features will help determine the best timing for moving applications into the cloud.

Armed with the clarity and plan that comes out of an assessment, you are ready for the next phase, an experiment.

Phase 3: Experiment

Although an assessment plays an important role in planning for the cloud, there’s no substitute for some actual experience. A proof-of-concept experiment is recommended before you start adopting the cloud for production purposes. The experiment serves several purposes. First, it gives you an opportunity to test the claims of the cloud personally. In addition, the experience will either confirm the results of your assessment or cause you to revise your conclusions and cloud adoption plan.

Once you’ve concluded both an assessment and an experiment, you can proceed to cloud adoption with confidence.

Phase 4: Adoption

The final phase is actual adoption of the cloud. Your earlier assessment should have produced a roadmap for adoption, where some opportunities make sense in a “do them now” first wave and others in a potential second wave. After each migration to the cloud or new project in the cloud, you should reflect on the most recent experience and refine your cloud plans if warranted.

It’s important to set up monitoring and management of your production applications in the cloud, adjusting deployment size in response to changes in demand. Failure to do this could undermine the ROI you expect to get from the cloud.

Now or Later?

Having said all this, what should your timing be for cloud computing? My belief is you won’t be in a position to really answer that question until you’ve had an assessment done. Regardless of your ultimate conclusions about where to use the cloud and when, there are some good reasons to take a serious look at cloud computing right now and put an initial plan in place. Since assessments are often free, there’s a lot to be gained by having one sooner than later. It should be clear after an assessment what opportunities there are for your business to leverage the cloud and what the best timing is. Getting an assessment now doesn’t mean you have to start adopting the cloud now.

What considerations should affect your timing decisions? There are several. One is the importance of getting in front of the cloud. Since cloud computing is a self-serve technology, it may come into your organization all by itself as one department or one individual starts to use it. It’s better to proactively have taken a look at cloud computing and have a strategy and guidance in place for acceptable use--and you can only do that if you start looking at it sooner than later.

Another key consideration for timing is your company’s culture of risk vs. reward. Using Gartner’s definitions, we recognize that not all companies balance risk vs. reward equally. There’s the Aggressive Innovator who values reward over risk and has gotten good at managing risk in order to get the brass ring. There’s the Pragmatic Adopter who looks at risk and reward equally. And there’s the Risk-Averse company who is hesitant to consider risks of any kind. If you’re in the first two categories you’re more likely to take an early look at cloud computing.

Cloud computing may offer you significant savings and agility, and if that’s the case the sooner you start using it the sooner you’ll realize the financial and institutional benefits. In particular you might find it useful to consider business and IT activities on the horizon and align your cloud plans with them. Are you launching a new product line or renewing budgets? Are you nearing a server refresh cycle or re-planning your data center? Aligning your cloud computing plans with existing business and IT plans will maximize opportunities and minimize disruption.

In subsequent installments we’ll look at the various activities that are performed in a cloud computing assessment. If you’d to see how we do them at Neudesic, visit http://cloud-assessment.com.