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I believe we are moving toward outsourcing of infrastructure vis a vis IaaS clouds including outsourced private clouds. There are larger roles available in cloud utility providers. At the same time, internal organizations will need to strengthen their architect/outsourcing manager roles.
The new skills include more knowledge of various virtualization technologies, knowledge of APIs of specific clouds, negotiation skills with cloud providers, x-cloud architects, heterogenous infrastructure application/systems management knowledge and skills, new disaster recovery architects, and more specific consulting skills aligned with cloud independent managed service providers.
There is a bold new world that is rapidly evolving for data center professionals. The biggest concern might be being left behind.
The technological clock is lapping itself in our generation
Adoption cannot keep pace. Have you noticed that the youngest generation thinks email is passe? For them, email as a technology does not satisfy their needs most of the time. They know how to use email and are not afraid of it. But, email is not instantaneous. The next generation (is it generation Z?) has grown up with SMS on their phones, video calling through Skype, chatting through Facebook (AOL IM also appears passe), and communicating through their headsets on XBox. Amazingly, dialing a telephone may be passe also. When my son wants to talk to friends, the first thing he will do is put on his Xbox headset because he thinks many of the friends are there and immediately available.
What is most amazing about the situation is not that the next generation is adopting new technology. It is that they are skipping a technology that has yet to be adopted by the oldest generation. It is almost like we can see time lapping itself in our generation. In the past, (think cars, radios, TVs, cell phones), the adoption of technology may have started in a younger generation, but the wave would eventually reach the oldest generation while the youngest was still using it. I can remember the first remote control TV that my grand parents got. At that time everyone was adopting remote controls. Even in recent times, we have seen all generations adopt mobile phones.
I think the first discontinuity of technology adoption may be email, but I can see that there will be others in the future.
What is most amazing about the situation is not that the next generation is adopting new technology. It is that they are skipping a technology that has yet to be adopted by the oldest generation. It is almost like we can see time lapping itself in our generation. In the past, (think cars, radios, TVs, cell phones), the adoption of technology may have started in a younger generation, but the wave would eventually reach the oldest generation while the youngest was still using it. I can remember the first remote control TV that my grand parents got. At that time everyone was adopting remote controls. Even in recent times, we have seen all generations adopt mobile phones.
I think the first discontinuity of technology adoption may be email, but I can see that there will be others in the future.
Data Center Consolidation
Here is a slide presentation that I delivered on a webinar with BDNA today.
Data Center Consolidation
View more presentations from Barry Weber.
People are analog, not digital
Most individuals in IT get a sense of comfort from the predictability of IT applications and systems. They know that even if there are configuration problems or defects in applications, these will also be predictable. Once finding that an event occurs, it is just a matter of following a methodical process to identify the root cause. While root causes can be obscure, they are ultimately logical outcomes.
People on the other hand, do not deliver discrete predictable outcomes. At times they can disappoint, but at other times, they can deliver ingenuity, innovation, unexpected effort, passion, love and impact far beyond the expected. This ability of people to deliver results and surprises is the wonder of who we are. Most executives and leaders recognize this about people. The surprising thing is that these days, in the hiring process, we seem to be operating in a way that assumes that people are as predictable and limited as IT applications and systems. Today, when there are job openings, those that are looking for talent seem to be consumed with
People on the other hand, do not deliver discrete predictable outcomes. At times they can disappoint, but at other times, they can deliver ingenuity, innovation, unexpected effort, passion, love and impact far beyond the expected. This ability of people to deliver results and surprises is the wonder of who we are. Most executives and leaders recognize this about people. The surprising thing is that these days, in the hiring process, we seem to be operating in a way that assumes that people are as predictable and limited as IT applications and systems. Today, when there are job openings, those that are looking for talent seem to be consumed with
- Finding the candidate that matches the job description regardless if an individual matching all components of the job description has ever been seen in the wild
- Assuming that individual capabilities are as discrete as the functions built into applications
- We will deploy more technology to identify meaning and content in the mountain of resumes (like semantic search)
- Some who are looking for talent will stop trying to advertise as widely to avoid the effort and cost of consuming the mountain
- There will be more emphasis on leveraging technogy, like LinkedIn that exposes relationships to allow us to identify the analog target (a person) with a technologically enabled analog process.
Walmart takes on cable and satellite
Internet streaming of movies to DVR is not new. It has not reached most households yet. But it was a wave that was slowly building. Until today. The announcement that Walmart has acquired VUDU significantly changes the balance in the market. Perhaps your new entertainment provider will be Walmart in the future.
The 3 foundation measurements of IT
There are 3 foundation measurements of IT. These are the indicators of successful delivery to the business.
- Requirements delivered for changes to application functionality. This can be measured as internal or external customer satisfaction, revenue growth attributed to application changes, function points, user stories, and use cases delivered.
- Service level achievement. This can be measured as achieving Service Level Agreements and the metrics will typically be in application performance, application availability, and time to close issues.
- Cost. Coupled with the first or second bullet point, it would be measured as ROI. Otherwise, it is typically a historically trended set of numbers.
The gap between being rational and being informed
I was talking to a trusted colleague yesterday. I was explaining that in almost all cases, I find IT people that would agree that systems should be high quality, highly available, and deliver the performance that the business expects. If there was an event, they would want to be able to know that it was coming and rapidly diagnose the root cause from information provided as part of end-to-end application/system monitoring and configuration management information.
Organizations are filled with intelligent, talented, rational IT people. Yet, when they implement systems, there are often limitations to the above stated goals.
I think there are two root causes for the disconnect between the goals and reality. One of the root causes is hard to fix and the other is easy. The hard to fix root cause is that we implement complex systems in complex ecosystem. Systems are getting more complex with more moving parts as we move toward SOA, more vitualization, clouds, and more non-functional requirements in areas like privacy and security. This is coupled with new and improved budget constraints and the age-old alignment questions between IT and the business.
The easy to fix root cause is that often, limitations in IT's ability to manage systems is not communicated.
I have seen many organizations that have invested in excellent application and infrastructure management tools and rapidly implement a portion of what they need. Unfortunately this is coupled with limited investment in internal transfer of knowledge on how to care and feed management systems. And the release management process is not modified to ensure that changes to applications are coupled with changes to monitoring and management. Often, those individuals that do know how to make changes move on and the internal knowledge gets diluted further. As the visibility to manage applications decreases, this is not communicated. The result is that those that invested in tools to support the goals listed above do not know that things have changed. They remain intelligent, rational IT professions. But now some of their decisions become impacted by an information gap. This is the gap between being rational and being informed.
Organizations are filled with intelligent, talented, rational IT people. Yet, when they implement systems, there are often limitations to the above stated goals.
I think there are two root causes for the disconnect between the goals and reality. One of the root causes is hard to fix and the other is easy. The hard to fix root cause is that we implement complex systems in complex ecosystem. Systems are getting more complex with more moving parts as we move toward SOA, more vitualization, clouds, and more non-functional requirements in areas like privacy and security. This is coupled with new and improved budget constraints and the age-old alignment questions between IT and the business.
The easy to fix root cause is that often, limitations in IT's ability to manage systems is not communicated.
I have seen many organizations that have invested in excellent application and infrastructure management tools and rapidly implement a portion of what they need. Unfortunately this is coupled with limited investment in internal transfer of knowledge on how to care and feed management systems. And the release management process is not modified to ensure that changes to applications are coupled with changes to monitoring and management. Often, those individuals that do know how to make changes move on and the internal knowledge gets diluted further. As the visibility to manage applications decreases, this is not communicated. The result is that those that invested in tools to support the goals listed above do not know that things have changed. They remain intelligent, rational IT professions. But now some of their decisions become impacted by an information gap. This is the gap between being rational and being informed.
