Hybrid Cloud Solutions a catalyst for rapid adoption by SMB’s

Most cloud computing adoption surveys from different consulting companies all point towards the fact that adoption rate of cloud solutions by SMB’s can be drastically improved. Some survey examples are:-

SMB Cloud Computing Adoption 2010, by Spiceworks: http://www.spiceworks.com/it-research/cloud-computing-adoption-2010/cloud-computing-security-concerns/

BT’s Enterprise Intelligence survey: http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2010/01/04/239799/CIOs-confused-about-cloud-computing-survey-reveals.htm

If you collate the reasons for non-adoption in near term, from all surveys, it presents some deep insights on behavioral psychology of CIO and IT administrators. The most common recurring reasons are:-

( a.) “….lack of control of information and assets…”,

(b.) “..unproven technology..” or in other words the solutions available are too confusing at the moment, and

(c.) “..Security concerns..”.

Let’s take a deeper look at these concerns voices and ideate solution options.

On deeper thought, the most common reasons stated above are not surprising as they are actually interconnected in some form like cause & effect. The lack of understanding of the cloud delivery model is leading to a perception that somebody else is taking over the controls. Here cloud service providers and equipment providers are also to be blamed to some degree, for not being able to educate and spread the right awareness of the cloud delivery model. The most common misinformation the IT administrator has about the cloud delivery model is that the IT assets he has deployed today would be moved or re-deployed with virtualization at the cloud data centers, and managed by the 3^rd party cloud services provider. This misinformation is the root cause to create apprehensions. The IT Manager starts assuming that lack of assets to manage will lead to his becoming redundant and his shrinking team means shrinking influence on the network and applications architecture. This insecure feeling is the root cause of most respondent’s response to survey queries on cloud adoption. Surely the undoubtedly disruptive cloud technology and delivery model should not be held ransom to impediments like these. So then, what is the way to make adoption faster?

Hybrid Cloud model is the answer. Hybrid cloud can be understood as a mix of public & private cloud or internal and external cloud. It is a combined cloud environment consisting of multiple internal and/or external providers.

The private cloud or the internal cloud layer is an essential ingredient for the IT Managers and CIO’s to retain control or perception of control of their enterprise assets but still enjoy all the traditional advantages of the cloud technology. The primary objective of a private cloud layer is to provide enough and deep controls provided to the erstwhile IT Manager and CIO. Cloud solution providers have to build a modular layer around the solution, which is perceived to be residing at the enterprise site, and the controls of the same is with the IT Manager. For lack of a better term, let’s call this module the “internal resource layer”. Most cloud solution vendors today mainly focus on lowering TCO, by virtualization of computing, storage, multiple application instances, SaaS business model etc. This is absolutely essential ingredient of the solution, but this unwavering focus blinds them to lose focus away from the significance of the “internal resources layer”. The Internal Resources layer could become the most important layer, as it is the interface by which the IT Managers and CIO’s will feel of having something near to them, which they see and feel, using which they can control, monitor and manage their enterprise solutions. Product Managers should smartly define the packaging and release engineering, which can use a mix of public and private resources or internal and external resources.

Product Managers of cloud solutions have to give deep thought and articulate the “internal resources module” such a way that it almost replicates the kind of dashboard the IT managers are used to see on a day to day basis and are comfortable with. The internal resources module is more than just a web based remote dashboard with configurable parameters. It should simulate or a model a set of controls of data flow, policies, user database, and application management as close to legacy solutions. The control module should mimic the existing infrastructure and interpret the commands and pass them as appropriate to the underlying cloud infrastructure solution. This layer could be a smartly packages as onsite module with a mix of physical hardware and software. A properly designed and articulated solution will help in removing the apprehensions of the IT Manager and CIO in deciding to move to the cloud delivery model.

Additionally even in positioning and marketing communication, the Product Manager has to articulate a Hybrid Cloud Model story, to make it more amenable for adoption by SMB’s.

Will discuss more on how and what form the internal cloud resources can take shape in the next article.

Three Must-read, Life changing books on Dharma and Heaven

"The Difficulty of Being Good" – by Gurcharan Das
While most successful retirees fancy surfing the sands in an exotic locale, Gurcharan Das decides to study the Mahabharata and write the book titled “Difficulty of Being Good” a contemporary analysis of the Mahabharata. Although there are number of books on this epic, this book is different and refreshing and a must read for the current generation folks from all walks of life, including Corporate citizens and Businessmen. . The author reads thru each chapter of the epic, and in his unique style leverages real-world analogy in explaining the essence in simple English. The central theme is the description and the importance of following the Middle Path in this world, which is intricately mixed with right and wrong in a bewildering manner. To explain the central theme, the author explores Yudhisthira’s dilemma and the transformation from extreme idealism to pragmatic middle path as epic unfolds. The author combines his years of experience of understanding India at the grass root level to compare and juxtapose with events in the epic, and repeatedly infer the key messages and the meaning of “Dharma” throughout the epic.

Just being good does not bring about happiness and neither reserves a seat in Heaven, but then why does the epic extol followers to be Good and follow the path of Dharma. The book provides the answers. It’s fascinating to read the different interpretations of Dharma espoused by the main characters – Bhishma, Vidura, Yudhisthira and Krishna. Bhisma’s post war advice to the remorseful Yudhishthira is captured brilliantly to convey the meaning of Dharma, which is absolutely contemporary and relevant to today’s real-world.

If I get a chance to meet the author, I would love to understand his views on the Middle Path India should follow in its engagement with China and how does he view China in the comparison with Duryodhana in the context of one more analogy in the book.

"Five People you meet in Heaven" by Mitch Albom

The book "the five people you meet in heaven" by Mitch Albom fascinated me, and is not only enlightening but makes you reflect on your life and makes you live each moment pondering that you are answerable for it in your afterlife. The lead character dies and meets 5 people in his post death journey, 5 people who have crossed him in his real life. I particularly liked the part where he meets his father and develops a bond, which even though he was yearning, he could not accomplish in his real life. Think of the 5 meetings:) - like 5 gates you have to cross, or 5 examinations you have to pass, to attain entry in Heaven. Somewhere in the middle, I had this gut feeling that this is a perfect script for a family Hindi movie, which can have all ingredients to be a blockbuster. At various points the book leads you to reflect, and during once such moment, I thought of another book closely related to this topic - "Man's search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl, which is a real life story of the prisoner in the Nazi concentration camp, and how he managed to survive, only because he had a "purpose" or "meaning" to live.

All the three books, each based on Legend, Fiction and a Real Life story are deeply moving and has helped me shape my thoughts. I would strongly recommend it to all, to understand the importance of the Middle Path, the importance of having a purpose, vision and mission in our lives.

Don't blame the CWG OC, blame it on our DNA

Recent headlines on CWG Organising Committee's gaffes and subsequent tarnishing of India's image in the eyes of the world, triggered me to introspect. I am not a regular blogger, but accumulated thoughts were strong enough for me to write this. On introspection and reflection, I found behavioral similarities in most of the domains executed by Indians and feel nothing wrong in being frank to infer that this is how we Indians are and it runs in our DNA to make us exhibit the common trait in whatever we do at work, at home and in public life. We cannot just rest by laying the blame on the CWG OC, the Contractors, the Project Management etc. If at all we have to change, we have to change our mindset, our upbringing, our hard-wiring of mind as we grew up. Strong processes and management will help to some extent as a catalyst, but cannot change the way we think and behave. Another way to force change would be enforce a disincentive - more on this later.

At the moment, lets look at some of the real life scenarios( personal experience included) and I am sure you will agree, that we all have come across similar instances in the recent past, that confirms the "behavioral DNA theory". One of the CWG officers - was it Mr. Bhanot? expressed his views from the bottom of his heart and got severely ostracized by all and sundry. I also carry the same risk, by making this inference.

Project Deliverable's in IT industry:

The Indian IT industry makes claims to have reached maturity with mature processes tried and tested over the years. But has it really? What is impeding it?. Lets dig deeper. A quick reflection of the recent projects in which I was involved either as a manager, a team member or just a spectator, gave me lots of examples which are very similar to the CWG mess. The projects are declared to be completed & delivered by the project manager, but according to the end-customer who is the recipient of the final project deliverable, it is incomplete. Isn't this exactly similar to the scenario of the project deliverable's at CWG. Haven't you come across this situation in most of your project deliverable's ? I remember one project, in my career, which landed up in a similar mess as the CWG and provided significant learning's. I was a practice head of software services, and one of the project we landed was extremely futuristic in technology, the business model was fixed price unlike just headcount billing and to add to the complexity had strict delivery milestones. We were thrilled of bagging it and patting ourselves. The project in short, involved building a Media Player and TV player on a next generation mobile phone platform for a Japanese customer. Mid way thru the timeline, we realised that things are note going as per milestones. We still pursued with vigour, and as we started missing milestones, we realised that we had not even agreed on the high level design in spite of continuous communication at engineer level with the customer. The project was finally delivered, albeit later then stipulated, and with less then agreed product specs. Post mortem revealed a number of improvement areas namely Project Management and coordination with multiple development sites, timely raising of red flags in project review meetings, Highlighting all kinds of risks and detailing mitigation plans. Another learning was a need of an anchor Domain expert with responsibility and accountability. We were not able to change our attitude from the mode of "we will do whatever customer asks us to do" to the "consulting" mode. The most important learning summary was we as a team, failed to rise to the occasion until the last minute, not until the customer threatened to pull the plug of the project. Can we see a common trait here and similarity with the CWG facilities project? we needed to castigated by outside world before we admitted the mess.



More examples follow...

Misplaced Priorities in IT projects

All my IT industry friends will agree that, project slippages are most common especially with project outsourced to India. We take pride in having built strong project management skills and processes and believe that we are years ahead then our nearest competition China. But the facts are different. We take pride in processes whereas China delivers the project in time. Which is more important ?. Don't misunderstand me, I am not implying that Process is bad, but we should not miss the forest for the woods. China delivered the Beijing games with immaculate precision. We twist the distort the project with the objective of achieving the right process metric results.

In most cases, in our eagerness to meet delivery timeline and avoid penalties, we deliver half baked goods. Then we spend more time, money and resources to correct it, and satisfy the customer. Processes are meant as guidelines to manage the project, but we have learnt the art of managing the process itself. Lets take a most common example of how IT projects are tracked, especially that of new product development( closer to my space). The on time delivery, within stipulated costs are continuously measured at all levels. But most often due to various organisational pressures the priorities get shifted. Instead of focusing on the product and product quality itself, the team starts focusing on diluting the deliverable's to meet the objective of On-time Delivery and Costs. Not only this, the quality also suffers. We fully realise that the product so shipped will be unready for selling in marketplace, and most probably fail in the market place, but we don't care as the risk of "product" ownership is with the end-customer. All the learned project managers and management talent is focusing on strategic and tactical tasks to work the system to claim On-time delivery and score points on the project metrics.

In the CWG scenario, the service providers are our own Government agencies/Contractors, and the end customer is CWG Organising Committee (CWG OC). The deliverable's delivered by the Contractor is not fit to be consumed, and needs more work to be done. The behavioural trait of all those involved in providing the service, is the same as in our IT industry. Isn't this a common trait ?

Personal and Community Hygiene

More has been said about this in the media, thanks to the comment made by Mr. Bhanot. Its worth seeing http://www.ndtv.com/article/commonwealth%20games/games-village-world-class-lalit-bhanot-53784 Our tolerance levels for good hygiene are indeed low. We can tolerate unclean toilets, unclean approach roads to our house, unclean vicinity outside our homes. Many times, we have to paste circulars and send warning reminders in housing society requesting residents not to throw waste from balcony. In fact India has the notorious reputation of dirtiest toilets. What happened at the CWG is similar. The builder delivered the final product, but tolerance level for cleanliness was very low compared to global acceptable standards. Again, can we see a common trait in us Indians?

Last minute exam preparation

I have seen school students more often then not (including my kith & kin, baring exceptions), taking it very lightly during the year, and stretching themselves in the final penultimate days before the exams. Haven't we seen this behaviour more too often? Its a different matter altogether that Indian's in general have superior brains circuitry by genetics, which compensates for the unplanned last minute effort most of the times. Again isn't this a common trait of waking up last minute inherent to us Indians from childhood?

Delivery of a Constructed House by the builder or contractor

Most us (at least those reading this) have either bought homes/flats or constructed one and have livid experiences of the same. Remember if it was delivered on the promised date? Most often it was delayed much beyond the promised delivery date. Not just this, more significant is the perception of "finished or completed". The builder delivered my flat as complete and ready to occupy, but when I inspected it, it was not. There is a inherent tolerance to the perception of "finished". The tiles continued to be cleaned after I moved in, the leakage continued to fixed after moving in, the common areas continued to be plastered/polished/painted after we moved in. We don't complain then, we assume that this is normal as our inherent tolerance levels to the perception of "completion" is indeed very wide. This again is an inherent trait within us.

Game Theory Framework

"Games Indians Play" by V Raghunathan - http://www.flipkart.com/games-indians-play-v-raghunathan-book-0143063111 provides an excellent reading on behavioral traits of us Indians. it provides many more examples and uses the Prisoners Dilemma Game theory framework to explain it. I would strongly recommend reading it, and also this interview of the Author V Raghunathan @Wharton - http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/india/article.cfm?articleid=4222 It will need another blog to explain the Prisoners Dilemma framework, but there are enough of it on the net. The essence is that if we as citizens cooperate in public life, the payoff should be high enough, and the disincentive for getting caught for non-cooperation is higher too. This system will force us to change our behavioural trait. But alas this remains a theory still.

In closing - In spite of all the hiccups, wishing the CWG 2010 all the best and a great success.