IT's Evolutionary Transition

Gaining visibility to application performance is key. Application Performance Management (APM) solutions are not new and provide insight to tiers within an application stack. With the entry of cloud based computing in the past couple of years, the APM world got a bit more complex.

APM is mature enough to consider cloud-based providers in the application stack. In the classic model, an application has three layers in the stack: 1) Database layer, 2), Application layer and 3) Web layer. Depending on the complexity of the application, it may have 5 or more layers in the mix. Today, a cloud service provider may serve one or more of these layers.

Several solutions exist that support cloud-based APM. New Relic, OPNET, and CA are just a few examples. At the Under the Radar conference, Tracelytics presented their approach to APM. Tracelytics started two years ago by a small team of three to address a growing problem they observed in research from Brown University. I met with Spiros Eliopoulos, Co-Founder and CTO to discuss how Tracelytic’s approach differs from the competition.

So, what’s different? Bottom line: It has to do with the flexibility of the solution. As the application stack gets increasingly more complex, so does the management. The number of providers and shared resources is growing exponentially. According to Spiros, their solution “looks at each layer individually, then ties together the different layers to provide a complete view.” Tracelytics allows APM visibility through “drilldown performance across layers.” Their clever approach uses heat maps to visually find problem spots. Managing APM within layers and up/down the entire stack is key to providing clear visibility to correct problem areas quickly.

Many providers struggle with pricing strategies in today’s cloud and virtualized world. In the traditional computing world, it was easy to license solutions. Tracelytic’s approach continues to provide flexibility by focusing on the tracing volume rather than hosts or layers. The entire stack of an application is considered one application. So, whether you engage one application to report 10x per hour or 10 applications once per hour, the cost is the same. This is true regardless of the number of layers within the application stack. Nice!

Shadow IT is a good thing for IT organizations…and here’s why…

It is important to first understand what Shadow IT is and why it happens. Shadow IT is commonly referred to when non-IT organizations delve into the delivery of technology solutions…without IT’s involvement. It happens for a number of reasons. But the most common is when there is demand for a technology solution and it is believed (right or wrong) that IT is not able to assist or deliver the solution. This could be due to timing, availability, experience, bureaucracy, or a number of other factors. The bottom line is that the non-IT organization believes they can address a need better than the IT organization can.

In general, is Shadow IT a bad thing? Yes, but has the opportunity to evolve into a very good thing. Shadow IT (as it is often implemented today) is a reaction to a problem with a solution that is not ideal. The solution is a non-IT or trying to provide IT services. Unfortunately, this is often not their core competency and furthermore distracts from their core mission.

So, why is this new? In the past, it was hard for non-IT organizations to leverage technology without the assistance of IT. People were also not as familiar with technology. In the cloud-based world, leveraging technology is far easier. In addition, knowledge workers today are more familiar with technology than in past generations. For those that build shadow IT organizations, the believe is that it is the path of least resistance; build yourself or leverage IT. While not an ideal situation, it is often the only choice.

At the Forrester CIO Forum yesterday, 79% of business decision makers say they rely on technology to innovate in the business. 42% say IT is too bureaucratic and 11% of those business decision makers are bypassing IT.

The move to shadow IT is a good thing for IT. Why? It is a wake-up call. It provides a clear message that IT is not meeting the requirements of the business. IT leaders need to rethink how to transform the IT organization to better serve the business and get ahead of the requirements. There is a significant opportunity for IT play a leading role in business today. However, it goes beyond just the nuts and bolts of support and technology. It requires IT to get more involved in understanding how business units operate and proactively seek opportunities to advance their objectives. It requires IT to reach beyond the cultural norms that have been built over the past 10, 20, 30 years.

A new type of IT organization is required. A fresh coat of paint won’t cut it. Change is hard, but the opportunities are significant. This is more of a story about moving from a reactive state to a proactive state for IT. It does require a significant change in the way IT operates for many. That includes both internally within the IT organization and externally in the non-IT organizations. The opportunities can radically transform the value IT brings to driving the business forward.

Shadow IT is a turning point for IT. Embrace it and leverage the best that it can deliver while transforming how technology solutions are delivered. Look for ways to embrace the amplitude in change of technology, process and organization. Embrace change and look for ways to transform IT to better serve the business. Cloud is a significant opportunity to leverage for this change. Shed the ways of old and adopt the new. Opportunity awaits.

Moving workloads into Cloud Computing environments is on everyone’s task list. As one evaluates the choices between public and private cloud, the sizing of an environment quickly comes into view. How large or small should an environment be? Once you get started, how does one “rightsize” their cloud environment? As the cloud based environment, or environments start to grow, sizing them correctly will ensure that performance and financial objectives are kept in check.

Last week at the Under The Radar conference, I had a chance to meet with one company that addresses this need. I met with the Founder and CEO of Cloudyn, Sharon Wagner. Cloudyn’s approach is to evaluate cloud details and provide a set of recommendations. But that is just the start. Cloudyn’s approach is to ingest a number of variables via provider APIs from cost information to performance characteristics. Their solution is able to do this automatically even if negotiated pricing is in play with public cloud providers. The engine ingests cost elements from both public and private clouds. According to Sharon, the SaaS-based solution uses “a predefined algorithm that the user can modify to produce actionable recommendations. The recommendations provide specific details on the action to take and why”. Understanding the reason behind a decision puts users in a better position to make informed decisions. Armed with this information, users can size cloud environments more accurately and manage costs. Cloudyn’s solution takes it a step further to tie business metrics with technical metrics to derive metrics like ‘cost per transaction’.

Taking it a different direction, users can leverage the recommended actions to feed into the orchestration layer of their cloud. While this step may be a bit too automated for some, those with a clear understanding of their workloads and capable of setting boundaries might enjoy this valuable perk.

The Under The Radar (UTR) Conference (http://www.undertheradarblog.com/) is tomorrow, April 26, 2012. UTR is the intersection of hot up-and-coming startups, investors and judging. If the reception tonight was any indication, the conference and presentations should be very interesting. Here’s a sneak peak of my take of the hot areas and companies to watch:

Application Development Solutions

A few companies are presenting their solutions in the mobile and security space. In the era of cloud computing, these are two hot buttons that enterprises and service providers alike need to be keenly aware of. The move of the information worker from a stationary device to a mobile device is in process. CoIT and BYOD are both serious factors to the movement. Likewise, using traditional security paradigms in the new model run into serious complications. Tools are needed to help organizations make this move while managing and securing environments.

Companies: BitzerMobile, Cabana, Duo Security, Fabric Engine, Framehawk, StackMob

Platforms and Infrastructure

Building applications on top of infrastructure is nothing new. In the cloud era, the architecture…and options open up quite a bit. The cloud market is starting to mature and value is moving from core infrastructure to platforms and on to applications. Leveraging hosted platforms does require a different paradigm to succeed. In addition, when considering apps at scale, automation and orchestration become even more important. This is a very broad area with quite a bit of specialization. Moving forward, integration in the space will be the key to success…along with some consolidation.

Companies: Appfog, AppHarbor, CloudBees, CloudScaling, Drawn to Scale, ionGrid, Iron.io, MemSQL, MongoLab, Nodejitsu, NuoDB, Piston Cloud, Puppet Labs, Sauce Labs, ScaleArc, Zadara Storage

Monitoring and Analytics

One of the most interesting areas is how data is used and analyzed. And then taking action based on the information gleaned from the data. Players in this space range from aggregating data to understanding and analyzing it. Value increases as the data is moved into analytics and ultimately business actions taken based on the intelligence. While there is quite a bit of specialization in this area at different levels (application monitoring/ performance management to analytics and intelligence), added value will come when these can be tied together to drive business decisions.

Companies: Chart.io, Cloudability, Cloudyn, Datadog, DataSift, Infochimps, Metamarkets, Nodeable, Sumo Logic, Tracelytics

Interesting Areas to Watch

In today’s marketplace, there are the future-state solutions and concepts. And then there are the real-world solutions that solve today’s problems. Both states need to be understood and the ball needs to be moved forward…and fast! The increased amplitude of mobile devices along with cloud computing bring applications at scale into the forefront. Orchestration and automation becoming hallmarks to success to up-level the conversation and value IT brings to organizations. Ultimately, the play will be with data and analytics. But today, there are more fundamental issues on the table.

Of course, that’s just a cursory review of the upcoming presentations from the UTR conference. Look for more details in the UTR Twitter stream (#UTRconf) and posts after the conference.

Many folks want to look in a crystal ball and magically profess what the future looks like. In the land of technology, it’s not that easy. Or is it? Sure, we do have the ability to control our destiny. We are limited by our own boundaries…artificially set or not. This may seem fairly straight forward, but it’s not. Businesses are looking for technology organizations to evolve and change. Even if that means they shift how they use services and applications on their own. Hence shadow IT.

Over the course of my career, I’ve seen many data centers in various countries. Even today, the level of sophistication varies greatly with Switch’s primary Las Vegas data center at one end of the spectrum and a 20-year old data center from a top data center/ cloud provider at the other end. I’ll leave them unnamed to avoid any potential embarrassment. To contrast, I’ve toured newer data centers in their portfolio that are much more innovative.

The advent of cloud computing has flipped the way computing resources are used on it’s head. How data centers are used is changing quickly. And what’s inside is becoming more relevant to those that manage data centers, but less relevant to those who use them. Let me explain.

Operating a data center is complex. It is no longer just four walls with additional power and cooling requirements. To add complexity, the line between facilities and IT has blurred greatly. How does an organization deal with this growing complexity on top of what they’re already dealing with? Furthermore, as the complexity of the applications and services increases, so do the expertise requirements within the organization. How is every company that currently operates a data center expected to meet these growing requirements? In reality, they can’t.

Only those that are able to bring the scale of their applications and services will warrant the continued operation of their facility. General purpose IT services (core applications, custom applications and the like) will move to alternative solutions. Sure, cloud is one option. Co-location is another. There are many clever solutions to this growing challenge. Are there exception cases? Yes. However, it is important to take an unbiased view at the maturing marketplace and how to best leverage the limited resources available internally.

In summary, unless you are 1) operating applications or services at scale or 2) have a specific use-case, possibly due to regulatory or compliance requirements, or 3) do not, realistically, have a viable alternative… then you should consider moving away from operating your own data center. The future data center for many is an empty one.

I had the opportunity to write a post for SecureWorld Post’s site. You can view it at:

http://secureworldpost.secureworldexpo.com/crawford-cloud-computing-turns-infosec-upside-down/

Over the past year, I’ve observed a concerning trend about workloads. It seems that with the advent of cloud computing, the idea of a workload has been confused a bit. The fundamental concern is a misguided view that all workloads are the same or similar. Specifically, I’ve heard general IT professionals making decisions around cloud computing by following those of Netflix, Zynga, Facebook and Google. This makes some very large and flawed assumptions that are fundamentally based in a misunderstanding of the business drivers and workload requirements.

What is a Workload?

First, let’s start with what a workload is. A workload is a characterization of the work that applications perform. This includes the applications, systems, storage and network infrastructure. It’s a holistic view of the type of “work” being performed with the entire system. The nature of the work is the load being placed on the infrastructure systems. The work being performed is governed by the application, systems, configurations and specific use of the applications or services. At a macro level, this is fairly unique to each company. There are exceptions, which I will discuss in a minute…read on.

Workload Modeling

For well over 20 years, organizations have modeled their workloads to better understand performance characteristics of systems. Others may refer to it as Web Testing, Software Testing, Load Testing and the like. When I was at InfoWorld in the early 90’s, I participated with BAPCO to model performance of systems based on the 10 most popular applications at the time. At the time, we used scripts to perform functions in each app similar to popular actions taken by typical users. It was very cool for the time. The idea was to create a “typical” load by characterizing typical application use on systems, storage and networking devices. Today, the level of sophistication of workload modeling has increased significantly. And many tools like TPC target a specific application or service. I’ve listed a number of more popular ones in the references section.

Two Fundamental Types of Workloads

At a high level, when you consider the different types of workloads, there are two fundamental categories. One is the monolithic application/ service while the other is more generalized. These are very different.

Monolithic Applications

The monolithic application is often a single-purpose custom-built application (or application suite) and runs at scale. In addition, it’s commonly a dedicated application separate from general business IT functions. Examples would be Zynga’s gaming platform or Google’s search platform. Both Zynga and Google’s environments also run at an extreme scale. Because of the scale, it’s even more important to understand nuances around workload characterization that are less critical (and harder to pin down) with mixed workloads. For example, Google can fine-tune the different aspects of their search platform to decrease the time to present results. In addition, they can create custom infrastructure components, architectures and configurations. Why? Because they clearly understand the myriad of possible tweaks to the application and their impact. In addition, applications at scale bring a whole host of unique challenges on their own. This is a very different environment from their internal core business applications that run their business. It is also very uncommon for most businesses to have this type of workload with the exception being the aforementioned or possibly a Line of Business (LOB) application. Arguably, one might consider Google, Facebook, Netflix or Zynga’s apps the company’s LOB application.

Mixed Workloads

The second type of workload is a mixed workload that combines a variety of core business applications. Internal core business applications are great examples of a mixed workload (email, ERP, HR, Financials, custom applications, etc). Each company will have a different combination of applications. They may also be a combination of off the shelf and custom applications. And each application does not typically run at a very large scale. These are classic IT workloads and found in just about every organization. The amount of effort to characterize and tweak this workload at a granular level vs. the value gained is often hard to justify.

Comparing Apples and Oranges

It’s important to clearly understand the type of workload you are comparing. Comparing what Zynga does with your own decisions is not the wisest of choices. Meaning, the demands and specifics of a monolithic workload are very different from a mixed workload. In addition, this does not taken into account the business factors that each type of workload brings to the forefront. All of these should be considered in the decision making process.

Following, Learning and Thinking

So, simply following Zynga, Google or Facebook’s decisions with cloud computing should not be happening without further consideration. Unfortunately, it is. Yet even Netflix and Zynga have taken very different paths for their applications/ services. Can we all learn from these industry leaders in the cloud computing space? Absolutely! But we need to consider what factors and aspects compare with our own needs. Getting to the answer is more complex than simply saying “Facebook went right, we should go right too!”. It means we need to think more and understand our own needs.

And as if understanding your own workload is not complex enough, comparing workloads across companies is very challenging. There are so many variables to consider that the value may not be worth the effort. For most it will still be an apples to oranges comparison. The best advice is to understand the factors that go into your decision-making process and compare common attributes across workloads. That way, you can learn from others while making good decisions about understanding your own workload.

Leveraging the appropriate tools can also assist in the decision making process.

References:

TPC Benchmarks: Transaction Processing Performance Council (http://www.tpc.org/)

SYSmark/ MobileMark/ WebMark Benchmarks: BAPCO (http://www.bapco.com/)

Cloud Testing: SOASTA (http://www.soasta.com/)

HP LoadRunner (http://www8.hp.com/us/en/software/software-product.html?compURI=tcm:245-935779)

Building data centers in specific areas is nothing new. Data centers are large consumers of power. That’s not news either. Typically, data centers are located near sources of low-cost (and hopefully renewable) energy. Energy is a large portion of the overall data center operational costs.

But power isn’t everything. Two other major considerations are connectivity to a variety of major backbone providers and people. Yes, people. How many skilled workers are willing to take the risk and relocate to a rural area? If the job doesn’t work out, where do they go? There is a premium to relocate people, which factors against the power savings.

Two ways to address the people issue are 1) locate the data center in close proximity to other data centers and 2) architect for a truly lights-out operation to limit staffing requirements. It seems that both are not only possible today, but also being encouraged.

Major companies such as VMware, Intuit, Microsoft, Yahoo, Dell along with commercial providers have build data centers in the Wenatchee/ Quincy area of Central Washington State. The combined data centers comprise more than two million square feet of data center space. That’s quite a large footprint for such a rural area. More recently, Facebook located and Apple is locating a data center in the Prineville, Oregon area.

If your company does not have the scale for large data centers, there are still options. Commercial data center providers are locating data centers in the Wenatchee/ Quincy area. There is also a growing trend in the creation of data center “parks”. These are locations that are specifically built to take advantage of power, cooling, tax implications and connectivity options. In addition, they’re close enough to metro areas to attract the talent required for operations.

Reno, Nevada

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2010/11/15/large-reno-project-to-generate-its-own-power/

Colorado

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/03/09/energy-park-proposed-at-nexus-of-fiber-power/

I would expect to see an increase in data centers popping up in these data center parks and away from metropolitan areas where rent and power is expensive. In addition, cloud computing will only increase the movement of data center functions away from traditional approaches to commercial offerings in remote areas.

Could they? Could it be out of Vogue to operate your own data center? Current developments in Corporate Social Responsibility and a maturing data center marketplace are starting to drive these changes.

For many, this could be a discussion about the pink elephant in the room. Data centers have been, and continue to be a requirement for businesses around the world. We rely more heavily every day on systems and the applications they run. Those applications run on servers and use storage subsystems; all of which are connected with networking devices. Collectively, we call this the “IT Load” for a data center.

The root question is not whether a data center is required. The obvious answer is: Yes! The real question is: Do I need to operate my own data center? But we will get to answer that question in a minute.

Data Center Energy Consumption

Data centers are consuming a larger percentage of the world’s energy every day. Our growing appetite will continue to take a toll on natural resources. In 2007, the EPA issued (for some) an eye-opening report on data center consumption and potential areas of efficiency.

http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/prod_development/downloads/EPA_Datacenter_Report_Congress_Final1.pdf

While the report is a bit dated (2007), the core data still holds true today. The majority of the report is focused on projections and potential areas of efficiency. In 2011, Jonathan Koomey issued an updated report on the findings.

http://www.analyticspress.com/datacenters.html/

In his report, he noted that data center power consumption did not grow as strongly as the EPA projected. By 2010, global data center energy consumption hit 1.3% while in the US that number rose to 2%. Those are still very significant numbers.

What is Missing?

To add more fuel to the figures, a significant number of “facilities” are missing. Most notably missing from these findings is the energy consumption by the myriad of smaller “data centers”. While many would not call them data centers, they still serve the same purpose of housing servers, storage and networking equipment. These are smaller closets, rooms and labs. It may be as small as a server and switch under a desk to a rack or two of gear in a closet to a 1,000 sqft room. It is much harder to pin down the power consumed by each of these smaller locations. If you consider that these are the common solution for Small and Medium Businesses (SMB), the aggregate consumption is significant.

Potential Impact

Increasing the efficiency of the physical data center is a great start. There are many opportunities to improve the efficiency of power and cooling systems. People have focused on increasing the efficiency of power and cooling systems for years. Many of the solutions are simple to implement and make a significant impact. While others take quite a bit of work, expertise and money. And there are many brilliant minds around the world that are currently working on this very challenge.

However, the largest potential impact may come from the IT load itself. For the majority of IT loads, the equipment is not used efficiently. Server, storage and network utilization figures are much lower than they could be. Servers are designed (from an energy perspective) for high utilization. One look at the power supply power curve for a server supports this. On the server, processor utilization rates commonly peak at 20-30% with average utilization in the 5-10% range. In addition, the current implementation rates for virtualization are still relatively low. The latest figures suggest that as many as 50% of servers are virtualized. Anecdotally, that figure still seems high. Regardless, pushing the implementation of virtualization to 80%+ would significantly reduce the overall power consumption…for the same IT workload.

Imagine reducing the US power consumption by a full 1%. The impact could be that significant.

Strategic and World-Class Expertise

Now back to the root question: Do you need to have your own data center? Before answering, two other questions will shed light on the answer. Is your organization in a position to operate your data center (100,000 sqft facility, 5,000 sqft room, closet, lab, etc) at a world-class level? Asked a different way: Is your organization willing to make the investment of installing a team of people to operate a world-class facility where it is their whole job, not just a line in the job description? Second, is operation of a data center strategic to your organization? We already covered that data centers are vitally important. So is electricity. Are you willing to make the investment in operating a data center that is unique and provides an advantage from your competition? Or are there alternatives that better fit the strategic direction of the organization?

The Solution

If you set personal beliefs, cultural norms and inertia aside, for most, the answer to these questions is no. There are viable alternatives today that offer the economics, flexibility and responsiveness. And the alternative data center providers do employ teams to ensure their facilities are world-class. Only those few with large-scale requirements or the uncommon corner case will still need to operate their own data center.

Cloud computing is just one of many ways to accomplish these objectives. Startups and others are already heading down this path unencumbered by cultural norms and inertia. The challenge for established organizations is how to effectively turn the corner.

Bottom Line: Most organizations are not in a position to efficiently operate a world-class data center and should look at alternative solutions. The data center provider market is mature and competitors are already heading down this path.

Cloud Computing is still a hot topic in 2012. For the Small and Medium Business (SMB) community, it is a game changer. Unlike the days of past, cloud computing offers leverage previously only available to enterprise class companies. In essence, cloud computing levels the playing field for SMBs. I wrote about this back in June 2010:

Leveling the Playing Field for the Startup and SMB

http://timcrawford.org/2010/06/05/leveling-the-playing-field-for-the-startup-and-smb/

Roughly 18 months later, that article still holds true. The opportunities are numerous and within reach today. Many focus on the financial benefits first and foremost. Unfortunately, that is where most stop. What has changed in the past 18 months are the number of solutions available and the accessibility to those solutions.

Look for upcoming posts to address both the opportunities and challenges that cloud presents for SMB. Those are not the same for many corporate environments and need to be well understood.