Cloud and Service Catalog Blog

API Compatibility: From cruising at self-service speed to "we gotta have a meeting"

Today's announcement that Citrix is dropping support for OpenStack has reverberated through the clouderati sphere like a new Justin Bieber song through my niece's third grade class. Super important but will not matter much when the next idol arrives.

In any case, a lot of smart people have written about it. I'll leave them to explain the whole thing.

Cloud Avenue has a good in-depth coverage post. And so does James Staten of Forrester. Randy Bias also weighs in as well. I'm sure I'm missing other worthy commentators.

But the post that most caught my attention came from Thorsten at Rightscale's. We both share something in common: we both build products that connect to cloud API's. Including vendor who have API's that claim to be compatible EC2. This experience, I think provides a useful point of view when thinking about API compatibility. Not to mention it creates a jaundiced view of the human soul.

Thorsten writes.

I’ve said it many times and I’ll repeat it again: it’s the semantics of the resources in the cloud that matter, not the syntax of the API. This means that “API compatibility” has to reach very, very deep to be meaningful. Let me give you a couple of examples around EC2.

George Reese at Enstratus has written about this as well. Thorsten then refers to three areas where semantics trump compatibility: Instance sizes, the use of storage, the usage of multiple zones, and differentiation of services. These are by no means the only ones.

Let's start with instance sizes. Amazon has very definite meaning to their instance sizes which are not trivial to replicate in a data center, or as Thorsten's says, you may not want to replicate in your datacenter because your economics might be better than Amazon's.

That is, while certain instance sizes make economic sense to the seller of cloud services, they may not make sense in a private cloud. For example, why does small Linux come with 160 G of disk? It always seemed excessive to me.

But if we change instance sizes, this has many implications for the operation of an application from performance to monitoring to SLA's.

In simpler terms, a developer goes from cruising at self-service API speed to "we got to have meetings". All the code that uses the EC2 API's makes assumptions about the underlying semantics, and those semantics are expressions of operating models, organizational structures and business policies.

Change the semantics, and you have to have meetings to gather requirements, design, spec, build, test, deploy, etc. And that's just if we change the machine instance size.

By the way, I recently lived this journey. My team took our Cisco Cloud Portal and Cisco Process Orchestrator working on top of the the vCloud API's and moved to manage an OpenStack cloud using the Amazon EC2 API's.

This instance size issue showed up immediately. vCloud has no concept of sizes, OpenStack Amazon API's, has no concept of configuring VM's. Much hilarity ensued, but I'll that save that story for another post.

Storage. There's something wrong with Kevin's storage

When we add storage services like EBS, the road gets long and windy indeed. Here Thorsten writes about Elastic Block Storage (EBS).

#2: EC2 EBS block storage devices have quite peculiar performance characteristics (that are not universally liked…) both for regular I/O as well as for snapshots. It would seem rather crazy to try to duplicate those characteristics and not benefit from improvements that are possible in a smaller purpose-built private cloud. But by doing so the operating procedures for deployments may change rapidly making the notion of “compatibility” questionable. Put differently, should one retain compatibility if compatibility is worse?

Thorsten is being too kind to EBS. For many workloads, particularly traditional SQL databases, you can't depend on EBS delivering consistent performance. So Amazon users have learned to do all kinds of architectural gymnastics to get stable, predictable storage performance to an application.

In other words, developer's fixed the issue through writing new code. This option is often not available to private cloud users, users of commercial applications and platforms, and people with a life outside work. Also, it requires even more meetings.

But why would one re-write an app when self-administered root canals are so much more pleasant? And if the private cloud has an EMC or NetApp storage system with service levels, back up, dedup, etc that provides stable, predictable IO? Why no just use that?

The answer is we would, but that's change in the deployment so API compatibility matters less.

Zoning out at the speed of light

There are other issues such as how workloads work in zones and datacenter in Amazon. For example, if one wants to run the same instance in both the Virginia datacenter and the EU-region datacenter, it's necessary to copy the template image (AMI) between these sites.

Two issues arise. First, you now have to keep the same image synchronized. This is an error-prone pain. Literal quote from a meeting: "Has any one seen my image?" Ok. So automation, like what Cisco provides can help with this.

The second is tougher as it involves speed of light issues. A year ago, moving a 6 Gigabyte image between the US and EU was a three day process. First, it took 6 hours (a workday) to move the parts. Any corruption or failure required re-starting the process the next day. I've spent many an hour counting file parts to ensure they all made it through the atlantic safe and sound.

This means that we had to build a three day buffer on deploying a new image to all the Amazon Datacenters. This is but one example of the operational changes that technology enables and disables. If the transfer only takes a minute, my operational model would be different.

Balancing out

API compatibility is not going to solve that operational problems and it doesn't get you as much as you would think. But it's still important. Cloud is complex enough and any simplifcation and standardization can mean the difference between a succesful project and a failure. Compatibility can also get you a richer ecosystem of tools.

 

As an aside, it'd be fun to get Thorsten, George Reese of EnStratus and myself on a panel to talk about API compatibiliy. Maybe call it, "API compatibilty and other tales of magical unicorns."

Cloud Computing is Not Just Outsourcing, It's Also Insourcing. Mind Just Blown.

It seems insourcing is making waves, with more companies pulling work back from outsourcers.

I have observed this as well, but it's subtler than jsut pure insourcing.

In the original wave of outsourcing, the deal was often "My mess for less." The Service Provider signed up for some ridiculous cost savings initially and then some X percentage per year in additional savings.

The problem I saw working with these type of service providers is that they had no clear idea on how to go about reducing costs. The contract left no money for innovation such as self-service portals (ahem...) so automation was out.  Some services are very nichey and didn''t lend themselves well to economies of scale. Some services required intimate knowledge of the business and the Service Provider didn't have it.

Yes, you could centralize a call center and move it to India and get some savings that way. So they did it. It's now done and over-cooked. There's no next.

The only levers left to the service provider were reduced service levels and change order the client to death. Which created havoc with the relationship. (The only time I've seen stuff thrown in an anger in a business meeting!). This led to smaller contracts and shorter durations as a way of controlling the relationship and keeping the Service Provider "motivated."

Here's a quote from a CIO.com article that illustrates these last points.

Among the reasons IT leaders cite for pulling the plug on outsourcing deals—or subsets of their contracts—are poor service quality, failure to meet business objectives, and the desired for more control over the future direction of the IT function, according to Rutchik. "Another reason is that some companies were working with more generalist outsourcing providers who had been managing areas outside their core competencies," Rutchik says. "In some cases the results were less than stellar."

via www.cio.com

But in comes cloud computing... and something interesting has happened. A new kind of "insourcing"/"outsourcing"  is on its way.

The usage of cloud computing is a form of outsourcing, right? Well yes and no, let me explain.

Using external compute and storage copacity is a form of sourcing. So yes, it is outsourcing. But because the offerings are abstracted through API's and standard models, the customer can have a much weaker, non-exclusive, arms length relationship.  Moving a workload from one cloud to another is is trivial compared to moving from one outsourcing relationship to another.

Where I'm seeing insourcing come back is because cloud and virtualization with corresponding automation significantly reduce costs below what the existing service providers can do. And automation with self-service provides a much more agile process. And agility is the premium business benefit today.

It is in the infrastructure as a service where this duality plays most starkly right now.  The customer now has both a painful, manual and expensive process with black box provider and also an agile, cost-effective processs that runs internally.  Uh? What happened?  Automation and innovation happened, which changed the economics of delivering computing services.

So that's why I think Cloud is changing the Client / Service Provider relationship.  One a service is commoditized, standardized and API'd, it becomes trivial for a customer to switch providers or to have multiple providers. And that's a change to the economics of the traditional outsourcing firms.

But Service Provider will respond, right? Yes they will.

They are all working on providing their own clouds. But they'll have to compete with pure-plays like RackSpace, Amazon, Google, Microsoft who have MUCH larger scale and they'll have to compete with new entrants like SHI, who have a clean sheet to do the datacenter right. 

So it's going to be a rapidly changing space. Stay tuned.

 

Is Your Private Cloud Defensive or Responsive? < A Bit of Both

Interesting artcicle on CIO.com by James Staten of Forrester about whether the rush to build private clouds is defensive or responsive. By this, they mean, are IT organizations talking private cloud because they fear their users are going around them, using public cloud services?

Or are they are truly being responsive to the business's need for agility and speed? As James says, "the promise of instant access to a technology service at a fraction of the cost of traditional IT deployments means faster time-to-market and higher productivity for the business."

My take so far is that it's a bit of both. I've met IT organizations that have essentially been fired by their users and gone with public clouds. So they have developed their own private cloud to bring their customers back. It worked.

Here's a couple of interesting quotes that resonate with my experience: standardization, automation and self-service are key.

2. Standardize and automate the virtual environment. Without aggressively pursuing these steps, the bottom line is private cloud desires simply won't be met. It's time to find out whos holding back this effort and why. We've found that virtual environment administrators are often trying to protect their jobs and consequently don't share their knowledge. These workers need to be shown a path of career advancement as they move to a higher value role in private cloud operations. For example, they can improve the use of the virtual environment and managing the pool, not the individual VMs.

3. Realize a self-service portal doesn't mean loss of control. There should be an approval workflow between the request and the deployment. But, once the approval has been received, the deployment should just happen if capacity is available. This may not provide the 15 minute timelines that developers are accustomed to with public clouds solutions, but it greatly improves the experience with I&O.

And this is relevant to service catalog practitioners because "standardization" here means standard offerings in a catalog, described with sufficient clarity for a user to understand, configure and order via self-service, that can then be automatically translated into rigorous specifications to drive automation.

That's the goal - and it's not any harder or easier than working on a static catalog.

Reading: Liberating Private Clouds from the Proprietary Unit of Compute

The posts below by Jeff Hine gives a great shout out to newScale! But there's more.

What cloud is dependent on is behavioral and process change–and that says software to me.  Software and middleware from companies like IBM and CA and less known folks like newScale are going to be the keys to private cloud.  A software layer will also be important for firms managing the utilization of public cloud platforms within their own walls.

I like newScale in particular–it’s a purist firm.  It did not emerge from the cloud wave; it was already on its surfboard watching the wave come in.  It was doing software-driven service cataloging and self-provisioning when ITIL was the shiny new toy in IT service delivery.  Companies were building private cloud models with newScale before they were even called private clouds.

Software and behavioral change are key. And if you can crack that nut, it really does not matter whose boxes, whose “unit of compute,” or whose facility the stuff sits in.

I see it as a sign that cloud computing in 2011 is moving into implementation and not just theory. When you really have to deliver a new operational model, that's the moment where people, process and technology need to be molded into a coherent, greater whole.

We are at a moment where those building these private or public clouds are beginning to realize it's not an ice-rink, but more like an ice mountain.  The network issues are tougher than they thought -- not because of the technology (which is complex) but network really intersects security, risk management, compliance, performance and availability. These are not areas that the technical side of the house had ever articulated to other groups or their customers.  Now they are faced with making and explaining choices in a language an approach that is unfamiliar to VM admins, developers, qa and customers.

These are areas we, newScale, have been working for years.

To make matters worse, they need to bring in marketing know-how to create the brochure and branding.

I could go on, but we'll finish it right here.

It's really about IT as a service and not just a VM unit of compute.  And that's something we've been doing for a bit. Got the scars to prove and we got the wins too.

 

Differentiated Service Levels: $49 or $15,000 per month. By the Way, Here's How to Justify Your Salary Raise.

Amazon introduced new service levels to its support plans. Depending on your needs you can pay as little as $49/month or if you need it, $15,000/month.

What do you get for that $15k? A personal account manager, high priority access to engineers, and help with planning and roadmap. Which is right. At newScale, we've been serving large companies for 10 years and they not only want the responsiveness but also the direct access and relationship management.

And this is probably true of internal service groups as well. I've worked with lots of companies that have relationship managers perform this function. Well, Amazon now has put a price and a definition of what it encompasses. From my experience, enterprise relationship managers do way more than what Amazon has outlined--which is good for you if you are in the service level / relationship management.  Why? Because Amazon has taken 5% of your job and said that it's worth $15k.  Time for a raise?

By the way, does this make cloud enterprise ready? For another segment of the market, the answer is now yes.

All AWS Premium Support plans include an unlimited number of support cases, with no long-term contracts. Also, with the Gold plan, as your AWS charges grow, you earn volume discounts on your AWS Premium Support costs. Check out the calculator for a customized estimate of your deployment's AWS Premium Support cost.

	Bronze	Silver	Gold	Platinum
Pricing	$49/month	Greater of $100 - or - 5% of monthly AWS usage Pricing example	Greater of $400 - or - 10% of monthly AWS usage for the first $0-$10K 7% of monthly AWS usage from $10K-$80K 5% of monthly AWS usage from $80K+ Pricing example	Greater of $15K - or - 10% of monthly AWS usage Pricing example

via aws.amazon.com

Service Catalogue Resource: This One Is a Good Primer for ITSM/ITIL Folk

I recommend "Demonstrating Value from IT Using Service Catalogues & SLAs" (PDF) by Barclay Rae as a good primer.

He covers SLA's, key service catalog elements and for those looking for categories and hierarchies, a nice comprehensive and visual set for IT services, Facilities and HR.

It's also quite dismissive of bad SLA's and quite funny about it. A small sample:

• This SLA will be filed for reference and stored in the private folder D://unused/garbage, marked ‘Do not read’. In the event of it being read it will become invalid.
• IT will respond in a timely manner to high-priority business incidents, if they
  are asked very nicely indeed, and also made to feel very special and
  important.
• IT will respond in a timely manner to high-priority business incidents, if they
  are asked very nicely indeed, and also made to feel very special and
  important.
• IT will respond in a timely manner to high-priority business incidents, if they are asked very nicely indeed, and also made to feel very special and important.

Other documents are here.

 

Cote on Morlocks

Good post on the challenge to operations from devops. Basic premise: new agile development methods require agile operation methods.  No point in delivering code continuously if Change Management takes weeks.

It's not a rant, rather it's a "education" for the developer on how to talk to IT ops. The same applies in reverse.

Pragmatic Cloud Computing, or, Dealing with Morlocks, or, Agile Infrastructure

View more presentations from Michael Coté.

Self-service is the New Black. See This Year's Fashion at Our Upcoming Catwalk / Webinar with newScale

My product managers will be sharing the latest, fashion-forward, must have self-service portal of the season.

Self-service is the new black. The consumer has won and they want it now, now, now. So we are introducing our next generation cloud self-service portal that enables IT to deliver a real consumer experience across all types of cloud services (as well as internal services).

I'm using fashion as an analogy because self-service needs to be kept fresh and exciting. What worked two years ago, doesn't work today. It's not just about technology; it's about emotion, usability.

So join our catwalk / webinar. Info below.

A Self-Service Portal for Today’s IT Consumers

Today’s enterprise IT users are savvy consumers. They’ve come to expect their technology to be simple, on-demand, and personalized. It’s the impact of IT consumerization.

Imagine if you could provide these users with a self-service IT portal as easy-to-use as iGoogle. With the new Service Portal from newScale, now you can! Join this webinar for a sneak peek.

Topic: NEW Service Portal

Date: Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Time: 9:00 am PT / 12:00 pm ET / 5:00 pm UK

Click here to convert the Webinar time to your local time zone

Duration: 1 hour

The newScale Service Portal is an exciting new product with innovative self-service functionality that allows you to:

• Offer branded, personalized IT portals for users
• Deliver “single pane of glass” dashboard views
• Provide configurable content, with drag & drop usability
• Improve visibility and control for IT managers

Attend this webinar and learn how you can provide an iGoogle experience for your IT consumers with a self-service portal.

via www.newscale.com

Reality Dish Served: Customer Focus Seems Hard When the House is Burning.

Ian posted a question that is getting some nice, frank answers. It's "Is Inside-Out Thinking Threatening Your ITSM Initiative?"

How do you tell if you are thinking 'inside-out'? IS THIS YOU?

1. you are unable to describe your value to customers.
2. key staff are unable to state clearly who the customers are, and what you do for them

Which then generate some interesting responses...Such as this frank admission of what the SLA really was all about.

The thrust off the document was to protect Global IT's ability to meet their target fulfillment times, not how we can make the process simple and easy for the customer.

And this quote I think speaks to many ITSM practitioner's day to day reality.

The thing is that its customers can't hear the message about value [add] whilst there are fires burning in basic delivery

And someone talks about the culture changes required.

But, we're talking about a culture shift, not an overnight task, and that means that a climate needs to be created for change. Part of that is embracing best practice in governance, in service management, in delivery; policy, enabling processes, resource and relationship management, etc.

So all in all a good thread. Recommended. Feel free to add your views..

My name is Dances with Clouds. I will not talk to you anymore. You are not worth talking to.

I remember the scene in Dances with Wolves where John Dunbarr (Kevin Costner) is being interrogated and he says: "My name is Dances with Wolves. I will not talk to you anymore. You are not worth talking to."

I was reminded of that scene when reading "A New Cloud: The Stealth Cloud?"

Ian Gotts writes on CIO.com about stealth clouds--these are the cloud applications and infrastructure that are breeding like Australian bunnies in the business and coompletely hidden from IT.

An interesting point is that while they relieve some pressure for IT, they may be also making the business even more alienated from IT.

Too much has been talked about the business- IT divide. Unfortunately, the stealth cloud has driven an even greater rift between business and IT. It is exposing, as far as the business side is concerned, the lack of flexibility, agility and responsiveness of corporate IT departments.

Basically the consumer experience the users have been enjoying outside the enterprise is now also applicable for business applications and the customer is left wondering why the heck it's so difficult to do business with IT and so easy with the cloud.

I'm not saying this relationship can't be saved. But in some ways, the stealth cloud is a bit like that scene. Interrogating and questioning cloud deployments, bringing up "issues" but not solutions, is going to break the business IT relationship with some finality. You don't want to interrogate Dances with Cloud. They may not talk to you anymore.

PS:  I have to confess that when talking to some people, I'm beginning to feel like Dances with Clouds.  I mean, it's a new frontier with lots of possiblities and also risks. That either inspires you or scares you. Half full or half empty.  I know I'm inspired you and hope you are too.

ITIL down, Cloud Up. Now with @StevieChambers Extra Spanking Sauce

My friend Steve Chambers decided to administer a dose reality cloud this morning in the discussion thread ITIL down, Cloud up.(LinkedIn Account required).  I quote his whole reply below.  It inspired me to write some more in response to people arguing that ITSM is needed in the cloud (I agree, but it's a different kind of ITSM). Any way enjoy.

How much does ITSM cost? How much value does it add? Put another way: how big is the ITSM bump on the critical path to more revenue? Would we care if it died, or would we be happy?

Agree with Rodrigo that ITIL/ITSM pro's should understand cloud rather than dismiss it. People who don't understand cloud often choose to dismiss it as either (a) a new tech fad, or (b) an old tech fad, when neither is true. There are no excuses for not knowing a definition of cloud because they are everywhere. If you can't explain it... then you aren't relevant.

I had five years of ITSM people putting bumps in the path of virtualization when virtualization delivered significant benefits (and if you don't agree that it saves money, then you are beyond hope!). Here we are again with ITSM people doing the same thing with cloud so I would say that the only similarity that Cloud has to things like Virtualization is that ITSM is getting in the way again, adding cost and no value.

The DC, Ops, ITSM guys I know that are running seriously large enterprises have no love for ITIL nor ITSM which they perceive as expendable tools. Ever seen a room of people roll their eyes in unison? It happens when some consultant mentions ITSM. In fact, these folks would look like heroes to the business if they got rid of ITSM because (a) it would save significant money, and (b) it would speed things up. Don't assume that everything fails without ITSM: we still have our common sense, that thing we had before ITSM existed and what we will have when ITSM is gone.

Beyond the ops teams who cares about ITIL? Infrastructure vendors, designers, application developers, business folks: do they? I think not. The only people I see loving ITSM are the practitioners and people who charge large sums for training, certifications and vague consulting.

I see cloud doing IT a great service in wiping away the excesses of the ITSM generation, and best of all it is the forward-thinking ITSM pro's who are helping make it happen by embracing cloud and getting excited by the future instead of scared.

via www.linkedin.com

Cherries, Heuristics & Dopamine: Creating a da Vinci-style Service Catalog

Continuing with my guest post series, here is a two part series from my talented, witty and charming colleague, Carol Dirig (@caroldirig), who is in charge of our self-service portal. In all the rush to self-service in the cloud, I see is that usability and aesthetics got left behind.

In our 10 years of experience deploying self-service catalogs, we know that means adoption of 2% vs. 80%, low transaction rates and zero improvement in process efficiency. In other words, the store is out of business.  Take it away.

Creating a da Vinci-style Service Catalog

I’m setting aside the ubiquitous cloud conversation for a second to focus on cherries. Like, the kind you put on your Sundae. (I KNOW Rodrigo’s penchant for food metaphors, so I’m giving him a blog Sundae!)

Do you remember how you felt when you first held your shiny new iPad in your hands? Or slid into the leather seats of your first ever new car? That emotion is the result of a dopamine surge, a neurotransmitter responsible for (among other things), our sensations of reward and pleasure.

 

It’s also the science behind why we like certain art and music, and yup, web sites and applications.

 

Dopamine Surge

 

Six months ago I was asked to revamp the interface of an IT Service Catalog for a large, globally recognized company. I won’t mention names, but they tend to sell things like frozen entrees and cereal. You can join their club and get discounts!

Anyway, surveys showed that users were unhappy with their experience trying to “interface” through their Service Catalog. The unhappiness created a lot of misgivings for IT, causing their reputation to take a hit.

The user interface was just one part of the equation, but an important one (other parts were workflow and process related). As we hear all the time, most IT people aren’t trained in usability or have aesthetic sensibilities. And that’s ok, right? So I was asked to vavavoom the cosmetics of their Service Catalog and create a more usable experience. Essentially they gave me a focus group and told me to surge their dopamine.

 

Beauty & the Scientist

When we talk about dopamine and user interfaces, there are at least two equally important facets to consider: (1) The usability that creates a consistently wondrous experience, and (2) the cosmetics that cause someone to go “wow!”. 1 is like the sundae and 2 is the cherry on top. Together they make a memorably delicious experience. This post focuses on part 1 – usability.

Usability. Luckily, usability has a science behind it. One approach is to apply web usability heuristics. These heuristics apply to Service Catalogs, cloud portals, or any interface you stick in front of users. There are ten basic heuristics, which you can read about all over the web and Human Factors textbooks, including here. But to summarize for you busy folks, those heuristics are:

What you can do right now?

A very simple thing you can do right now is run your application, portal, or Service Catalog through this heuristic checklist. How well does it meet the heuristic guideline? What required changes fall into your sphere of control?

 

Let’s use newScale RequestCenter as an example (since I work on it!). If you are a RequestCenter customer, you may not realize how much control you have over the user experience. Just a few examples:

 

Here’s a visual of a RequestCenter implementation from the customer mentioned above (their name has been censored for both of our protection), showing how we applied various heuristics to their RequestCenter home page.

 

Here's the same image for a better view, without the callouts:

Part 2 of this post series will focus on the aesthetic athletics of your Service Catalog, and the science behind beauty.

 

The SMLXL Standard, Or What T-Shirts Have Taught the Cloud. Reflection on Cloud Standards

Do we need Cloud API Standards? asks Sinclair Schuller in new blog post.

My answer is, like Sinclair, over time yes, but immediately, no. Like him, I see lots of innovation going on and premature standardization will either stifle that innovation or be so over-complicated that no one will use it.

Sinclar makes a good point, which is we already have early de facto standards, like Amazon EC2. We work with Eucalyptus, for example, because newScale already used the Amazon EC2 API.

Given Amazon’s API penetration, a market “gold standard” has been created just by shear adoption, and I think people will naturally flock to a proper abstraction like Eucalyptus because of sheer necessity to ensure compatibility with the gold standard while preserving the ability to experiment with new solutions.

But there are other areas for which standards would be useful to have, like service definition standards.  In fact, I think the most useful standard to emerge from Amazon is NOT only the API, but rather the service definition that introduced t-shirt sizes to IT. I'm talking about Amazon's Small, Medium, Large, Extra Large compute instances.

With SMLXL, Amazon brought merchandising and standardization to the data center.  I've noticed that every cloud provider is forced to speak in these terms even as they try to differentiate, because SMLXL is the baseline. 

Yes,SMLXL are not a perfect fit for everyone (pun not intended)in clothing but they allow for mass production of clothes at prices that are a fraction of custom tailored clothes. Because once we have standard "product" definitions, it's possible to apply automation to the factory and supply chain.

The same thing happens in the cloud. Once we have standard service offerings, it's possible to industrialize the data center, the supply chain and management functions, like capacity.  Think how much easier capacity management if compute requests are one of 4 types, all fungible and all demand driven by self-service.

Yet as simple as SMLXL is, there is room for variability. 

Amazon AWS offers a Small VM which can be Linux or Windows, it can included SQL or not, you can select monitoring or not, you can assign it an IP or not and finally, you can select an image that loads an application or just simple opt for the OS.  On the other hand, Go Grid offers a load balancer, which Amazon didn't offer.

And Terremark's vCloud Express offers CPU, Memory and Storage capacity in bulk which is independent of the number of instances/VM's a customer chooses to run. So you can specify your VM's RAM and you can change the RAM as you wish. Amazon does not do that.

The point is that there's a tremendous variation in the offerings.  From an API perspective, it's possible to abstract like jclouds or libcloud do so all clouds look roughly the same.

But for newScale, and our customers, we have to go a lot deeper.

We need to present the offering in English, explain all the options, allow for comparison and selection.  Then we need to be able to configure the request (for example, do you select monitoring or not). It's the configuration of the request against both the values required / allowed by the cloud vendor API and internal policies and rules of the company it's where things get tricky and valuable.

So as much as we need an API, we need to have a standard format for exchanging catalog information. This is what we are trying to do with SPACL,provide a simple XSD format to express the service offering. And yes you can express SMLXL in a SPACL document.

There's a precedent for this type of work.

During the B2B e-commerce wave, a lot of attention was placed on transaction standards. Yet all of them ended up needing something like Ariba's Catalog Interchange Format, because before a transaction could be made, the customer needed to know the product name, sku, description and price. We are in a similar place today with cloud.

Over time SMLXL is not sufficient. We will need the equivalent of colors and sizes as well, but for now, just making SMLXL type packages would be a good step.

Oh and here is the movie version of this post

Clouderati vs. Itilista: Thoughts on the Linkage of Cloud and ITIL and Where Twain Fails to Meet

Recently I was speaking with project manager implementing ITIL for the whole service lifecycle. For those, unfamiliar, ITIL is a process framework of 22 processes to manage a service from "Should we do it?" to "How are we are designing it," "How do we operate it" and the end, "We are getting rid of it."

Somewhere in there, the whole how to do it requires a service catalog to design, assemble, offer, order, and deliver the service. - which is why we were talking.

So far so good.

But the project manager, she struggled with how to make all this process framework relevant to her customer, to get the project funded.  So I asked her, "are you building a private cloud?"

A bit of hemm and haw, and out comes a torrential downpour of projects for virtualization, cloud public and private, etc, etc. And her customers she had to sell were the people who were running these projects.

Which explained the focus on the service lifecycle?! It's no good to make server provisioning 5 minutes, if architecture reviews, requirements, design, change management, etc, are all done manually as one-of's bespoke projects that take 6-18 months! 

The real issue is how do you accelerate the throughput of the whole cycle! At the top level, the execs understood this is the real challenge, but down in the implementation level, every one doing the best they can, the forest gets lost, the link unbroken.

So far my observation can be summarized as:

ITIL	Cloud
Focused on process	Focused on automation
Focused on customers	Focused on infrastructure
No linkage to automation, dismissive even	No linkage to business, take that for granted

I don't want to imply that one is better than the other, rather to point out that these are two cultures that need each other, but may not be articulating their concerns and objectives in ways that each can listen and help.

For example, the cloud requires automation of process and policies to speed provisioning of services. Which is why they get annoyed by the ITILISTA focus on manual process.

And ITIL focus on being a  common language sounds plain condescending when your customer truly talks different. "Hey, it's the common language so learn it if you want to be talk right!" just infuriates data center folk

Finally, ITIL lack of focus on automation, getting rid of process steps and rigid definitions completely disables people building clouds from bringing in their objectives, tools, language to the table.

Take change management. Please. <drumsounds>

ITIL prescribes a cumbersome process, very manual, with meetings, etc. In the cloud, we are looking for self-service, instant delivery of computing resource. Should that go through change management?

Your answer will determine whether you are an ITILista or a Clouderati.

Until then, it remains cloudy, with a chance of ITIL.

Is ITSM / ITIL Keeping Up with the State of the Art in Cloud Computing? Doubts Emerge. PART 2

I wrote this post, Is ITSM / ITIL Keeping Up with the State of the Art in Cloud Computing? Doubts Emerge, a while ago

So does this mean that ITSM process are not needed?  Actually, it does mean that. To be specific: some processes will go away; some change management will not be needed. Also the manual ways we go about doing ITSM will need to go away.

Here's my latest from-the-field-notes from talking with a customer who is planning to deliver a private  cloud and the questions that surface.

First, they need to figure out what will be the basic services they will offer.

Should they start with Amazon type instance sizes? If so, how do they differentiate? This means they are preparing their technical services catalog and the requests that will drive it.

So now it's not really about documenting processes. It's about being competitive in the market place.

And that means they need create a group that will define, design, configure, and deliver the cloud offerings and other professional service offering within newScale's suite.

This team has to think from the point of view of the market and then work with the technical teams to define, design, configure, and deliver the requestable component services. These will be actionable in the newScale catalog to enable the operational day-to-day delivery of the cloud services.

The outcome? The customer can go to their own self-service portal, see specific configurations, configure their request, order and be provisioned in minutes. 

All the catalog work is about making it happen, then tracking consumption. Other things that we need to provide are account management, customer on-boarding, subscription, life-cycle management, and of course billing.  In the back office, it will run some manual process, but many more automated provisioning processes.

But all begins with the first question: What are the offerings? What's included? How is it priced?

In all this discussion, ITIL never came up.

We spoke of the need of a product manager to continually work with customers and service owners to keep their services competitive.  The concept of a product manager is not in ITIL. To be fair, there are ton of role definitions in the books from which you could maybe figure out a job description...

But if my business depended on getting it right? 'd go here and use the Pragmatic Marketing Framework. 

I've written about this before in the Product Manager Role and also here, and here.

Hence my doubts.  In the thick of it, I am forced to rely more on traditional product management skills than ITSM skills. Competition is wonderfully focusing.

Is ITSM / ITIL Keeping Up with the State of the Art in Cloud Computing? Doubts Emerge

This is a provocation. I am not arguing that ITSM / ITIL is not useful but I am thinking it may be falling behind.

How did I get here?

Over the holidays I took some time off to refresh my brain. Partly it was reading novels and poetry, and partly playing around with technology and concepts that are not necessarily part of my daily routine.

So where we seem to be headed is towards a world with vast resources available on demand, running on architectures that self-heal themselves, move workloads as needed and basically stay up much of the time. Basically many applications will move to the cloud, become services and be complete blackboxes to IT organizations.

So does this mean that ITSM process are not needed?  Actually, it does mean that. To be specific: some processes will go away; some change management will not be needed. Also the manual ways we go about doing ITSM will need to go away.

Like robots on a factory floor displacing workers and eliminating the need for some skills, we'll see the same thing happen in IT service management. Someone will still need to make robots, but those people will need different skills. 

So ... what ITSM skills are going to prosper? Which ones go away?  Who is thinking this?

I am not hearing much out there.  Thus this provocation.

Bending Metal, Or How Cloud Computing Will Change How We Define IT Services #Cloud #ITIL #ITSM

In my discussions with customers about how to define IT services there's always an issue of granularity. How small, how large, what level of detail should it be included.

One of my recommendations has been to borrow from service providers who do it for a living and emulate / imitate.

Recently, I've learned another angle to this approach as I've met people who specialize in helping companies negotiate outsourcing contracts.

Before an organization can outsource it needs to create a list of services (a catalog), with specific service definitions, outcomes, and expectations.  Then it needs to benchmark its services against other offerings. 

This makes sense. You need to define which services you will outsource, and then figure out how the internal IT organization stacks up: are you a lower cost provider? Are there others who do better worse?  What does it cost you to provide a 100M Outlook Inbox?  What is the ongoing price for an e-mail inbox? And what's included?

The concept is sometimes called "market-sizing" services. This means defining services in a way that they match what external providers offer.

Here's a simple thing. What does it cost an organization to provide a small Linux box with 1.7G of RAM, 160G disk. Here's the benchmark against Amazon which includes this and costs $0.085 per hour.

This means you end up with buckets:

1. Services and tasks for which there a variety of external providers, like the small Linux box
2. Services and activities for which there are no external viable providers because they are too specialized, regulation / laws don't permit outsourcing, represent core IP of the enterprise, or are just cheaper to do in-house (this is true).

This second bucket is usually problematic. It's where you find services that need to be done, like support which may not provide differentiation, or services that are unique and provide you competitive differentiation, and of course, crap/waste. Stuff that adds no value, and no one knows why it's there.

Market sizing can help you fix that.

And, it seems cloud computing is accelerating this trend.   James Urquhart, writes inCloud computing and the big rethink about this change. 

Enterprise IT will begin to bend enterprise and solutions architectures to align better with what is offered from the cloud. I may not agree with some that the cloud will stifle differentiation in software systems, but one thing is very true.

As end users select software-as-a-service applications to run core pieces of their business, meet integration and operations needs from the cloud, and generally move from systems providers to service providers, the need to reduce customization will be strong. This is both to reduce costs and strengthen system survivability in the face of constant feature changes on the underlying application system.

Which is why I think the next step in service definitions is bending metal -- meaning, bending IT infrastructure service definitions to match what cloud providers are delivering.

It's inevitable that these questions will be asked: what do you do, how well you do it and what does it cost on per unit basis.  This is at the heart of a service catalog.

Growing Interest in #CloudComputing Calls for New IT Governance Tools. People Just Beginning to Wake Up.

EMC announced their new cloud service recently; buried within the announcement, was this quote:

...a field of growing importance in enterprise computing circles as businesses try to set and enforce limits on who can access the cloud, and what they can put there. (via gigaom.com)

The service catalog is a central tool for providing those controls to IT. Here's how it works at newScale:

1. We have defined standard configurations in the service catalog,
2. We provide guides that help the user choose the best path, such as "Intranet server," "Sharepoint set up," or "Small Linux test servers".
3. Wizards then assist the requester to ensure the proper workload goes to the proper option. For example, certain workloads require privacy considerations so they automatically stay in the private cloud.
4. Configurators assist the user in making changes to their environment without deviating from the standard.  Think like a Burger King Whopper can be requested with extra pickle, or no onion.  The configurator also prevents mistakes.

This is but the tip of the self-service iceberg.  There's a lot more I'll share at another time. Regardless, the private cloud will require this kind of actionable service catalog. 

No catalog. No cloud.

Is ITSM / ITIL Going to Get Run Over by CloudComputing? Yes, If Gets in the Way

There's a lot of discussion / questions going on about the relationship between ITSM / ITIL and cloud computing.  At some level, cloud computing is nothing but IT; of course ITSM will play a big role ... no? 

Yes, but there are also big differences. And there's a great need to begin to understand those differences. To understand what changes, what remains the same, what gets emphasized, and what gets diminished.

Two examples: Change Management and Service Catalog.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes Management

The singular focus on Change Management CAB as the ONE process to add stuff to the infrastructure is either irrelevant in cloud computing or has to be vastly changed, automated and and made policy driven. Heck, there's a request process now in ITIL v3.

It cannot remain the same because in the cloud servers come and go.  The speed of configuration and deployment needs to be much faster than a once a week meeting can handle.

And by the way, moving those to be pre-approved changes is a nice semantic pirouette that solves nothing for an infrastructure team under pressure to adopt virtualization and a cloud computing operating model.

We will have change management, but a huge number will now need to be standard requests off a catalog that go directly provisioning and lifecycle management, and not change management.

The other case is the service catalog. 

I'm seeing great interest from infrastructure teams trying to create self-service provisioning that goes directly to the cloud. They are defining packages, processes, trying to define their standards, etc. 

On the other side of the company, I see ITSM team still thinking a static document is the catalog and struggling with service definitions.

So there's this conflict brewing between the infrastructure group that is in hurry to adopt a cloud operating model and the ITSM group that is only focused on process. There's a good chance the ITSM group will get run over if it gets in the way.

The Cloud Operating Model is a tremendous opportunity for ITSM groups, but only if they can speak the language of cloud. And I'm not seeing that happening. 

The Future of IT Services: How to Prepare - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership

The Future of IT Services: How to Prepare - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership.

New Delivery Models The lines between products and services are blurring — Software-as-a-service (SaaS), solution accelerators (pre-built code that systems integrators use to kickstart client projects), and cloud services are all examples. And while these hybrid solutions are often pitched as being less expensive in the near term, buyers also want them for more long-term strategic reasons too — more transparency into the cost structure of their IT delivery and less dependency on dedicated assets are two key long-term benefits. One utilities firm told Forrester that while they could justify SaaS on cost alone, they were actually implementing it to get services to their business users faster, helping IT develop a better relationship with its constituents.

The Future of IT Services: How to Prepare - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership

The Future of IT Services: How to Prepare - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership.

New Delivery Models The lines between products and services are blurring — Software-as-a-service (SaaS), solution accelerators (pre-built code that systems integrators use to kickstart client projects), and cloud services are all examples. And while these hybrid solutions are often pitched as being less expensive in the near term, buyers also want them for more long-term strategic reasons too — more transparency into the cost structure of their IT delivery and less dependency on dedicated assets are two key long-term benefits. One utilities firm told Forrester that while they could justify SaaS on cost alone, they were actually implementing it to get services to their business users faster, helping IT develop a better relationship with its constituents.

The Future of IT Services: How to Prepare - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership

The Future of IT Services: How to Prepare - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership.

New Delivery Models The lines between products and services are blurring — Software-as-a-service (SaaS), solution accelerators (pre-built code that systems integrators use to kickstart client projects), and cloud services are all examples. And while these hybrid solutions are often pitched as being less expensive in the near term, buyers also want them for more long-term strategic reasons too — more transparency into the cost structure of their IT delivery and less dependency on dedicated assets are two key long-term benefits. One utilities firm told Forrester that while they could justify SaaS on cost alone, they were actually implementing it to get services to their business users faster, helping IT develop a better relationship with its constituents.

Service Catalog Imposters: 7 Things You Need to Know

My marketing colleagues at newScale are preparing one wicked-useful and provocative webinar. It promises  eye-opening, pragmatic-advice you can use today, and it may be even funny.  The webinar is entitled: Service Catalog Imposters: 7 Things You Need to Know.

It's a much needed topic.

Service catalog is hot in 2009.  So a bunch of vendors painted lipstick on their pig and now some customers have catalog flu. This webinar is like a DNA test that will help you figure out which are real service catalogs and which are just fashion-forward pigs.

According to the Gartner, Inc. report "Magic Quadrant for the IT Service Desk " (Nov. 4, 2008) by analysts Kris Brittain and David Coyle, they wrote "Vendors are putting cosmetic enhancements on their self-service portals and are trying to call them full-fledged Service Catalog offerings... This is leading to confusion in the market." 

This is why i make the comment about fashionable pigs... You really can't paint a web form to your help desk and call it a catalog. Not if you are trying to implement an ITIL style service catalog.

If you want to learn what a service catalog tool needs to offer you, AND you want to be entertained at the same time, then DON'T MISS this webinar.

Here's the marketing copy.

• The seven limitations and fatal flaws of ITSM vendors' self-service request management modules;
• Real-world "horror" stories, case studies, and turn around strategies from IT shops that tried these tools;
• Why your service desk vendor may offer a "Service Catalog" module for "free" - and what that really means.

Service Catalog Imposters: 7 Things You Need to Know.

Service Catalog Imposters: 7 Things You Need to Know

My marketing colleagues at newScale are preparing one wicked-useful and provocative webinar. It promises  eye-opening, pragmatic-advice you can use today, and it may be even funny.  The webinar is entitled: Service Catalog Imposters: 7 Things You Need to Know.

It's a much needed topic.

Service catalog is hot in 2009.  So a bunch of vendors painted lipstick on their pig and now some customers have catalog flu. This webinar is like a DNA test that will help you figure out which are real service catalogs and which are just fashion-forward pigs.

According to the Gartner, Inc. report "Magic Quadrant for the IT Service Desk " (Nov. 4, 2008) by analysts Kris Brittain and David Coyle, they wrote "Vendors are putting cosmetic enhancements on their self-service portals and are trying to call them full-fledged Service Catalog offerings... This is leading to confusion in the market." 

This is why i make the comment about fashionable pigs... You really can't paint a web form to your help desk and call it a catalog. Not if you are trying to implement an ITIL style service catalog.

If you want to learn what a service catalog tool needs to offer you, AND you want to be entertained at the same time, then DON'T MISS this webinar.

Here's the marketing copy.

• The seven limitations and fatal flaws of ITSM vendors' self-service request management modules;
• Real-world "horror" stories, case studies, and turn around strategies from IT shops that tried these tools;
• Why your service desk vendor may offer a "Service Catalog" module for "free" - and what that really means.

Service Catalog Imposters: 7 Things You Need to Know.

Service Catalog Imposters: 7 Things You Need to Know

My marketing colleagues at newScale are preparing one wicked-useful and provocative webinar. It promises  eye-opening, pragmatic-advice you can use today, and it may be even funny.  The webinar is entitled: Service Catalog Imposters: 7 Things You Need to Know.

It's a much needed topic.

Service catalog is hot in 2009.  So a bunch of vendors painted lipstick on their pig and now some customers have catalog flu. This webinar is like a DNA test that will help you figure out which are real service catalogs and which are just fashion-forward pigs.

According to the Gartner, Inc. report "Magic Quadrant for the IT Service Desk " (Nov. 4, 2008) by analysts Kris Brittain and David Coyle, they wrote "Vendors are putting cosmetic enhancements on their self-service portals and are trying to call them full-fledged Service Catalog offerings... This is leading to confusion in the market." 

This is why i make the comment about fashionable pigs... You really can't paint a web form to your help desk and call it a catalog. Not if you are trying to implement an ITIL style service catalog.

If you want to learn what a service catalog tool needs to offer you, AND you want to be entertained at the same time, then DON'T MISS this webinar.

Here's the marketing copy.

• The seven limitations and fatal flaws of ITSM vendors' self-service request management modules;
• Real-world "horror" stories, case studies, and turn around strategies from IT shops that tried these tools;
• Why your service desk vendor may offer a "Service Catalog" module for "free" - and what that really means.

Service Catalog Imposters: 7 Things You Need to Know.

Momentum Builds: newScale Selected by Ford Motor Company for Service Catalog and Service Request Management

Momentum is building for us at newScale.  We are happy to have Ford join other stellar newScale customers like Boeing, Starbucks, HP and 100's of others. As we say around here, Americas' best loved brands choose newScale. 

So am I happy about this?  YOU BETCHA.

The Ford selection team chose newScale as its best-of-breed solution to meet their aggressive time line (time to value, as I wrote last week) and return on investment goals of their enterprise-wide request management project.

The ability to rapidly configure and deploy standard service request forms – leveraging pre-built service request templates and an easy-to-use service design module – was one of the primary considerations in the evaluation. 

Ford also selected newScale RequestCenter for its ease-of-use to drive adoption, support for key ITIL version 3 requirements, and proven ability to integrate seamlessly with its existing back-end IT service management tools. And our full range of “front office” functionality for IT Service Portfolio Management was another important deciding factor as all the different views of the service catalog are important eventually.

Here's the full release.

newScale Selected by Ford Motor Company for Service Catalog and Service Request Management

Automotive Industry Leader Standardizes on newScale RequestCenter® To Comply with ITIL Version 3 Request Fulfillment Process

San Mateo, CA – October 20, 2008 – newScale®, Inc., the market leader in IT Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Management software solutions, today announced that Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader, will implement newScale RequestCenter® to streamline the request management process for IT services across the enterprise.

"As a highly scalable and mature request management solution, newScale RequestCenter is ideally suited to helping us achieve our IT service management goals in the timeframe we required," said Jeff Lemmer, Manager of Global IT Infrastructure Services Delivery at Ford Motor Company.

This request management initiative is one of the strategic projects in Ford’s IT service management program. The objective is to implement a global service request management process to improve IT operational efficiency, reduce request fulfillment cycle times, and drive down costs. This required a Web-based self-service software system to streamline the input of all IT requests, track forecasted demand patterns, and analyze service request metrics to optimize fulfillment. The company selected the newScale RequestCenter software solution after an in-depth selection process, including a pilot of the service request management module offered by its service desk vendor.

"It is important to note that, despite the marketing hype to the contrary, the service request and self-service portal capabilities offered by IT service desk vendors do not address the full range of ITSPM requirements," according to the Gartner, Inc. report "Conference Polling Reveals Top-Priority Functions Being Evaluated in Early-Stage IT Service Portfolio Management (ITSPM) Implementations" (April 29, 2008) by analysts Kris Brittain and Debra Curtis.

“Innovation is a hallmark at Ford Motor Company, and they have an excellent reputation for optimizing complex and global manufacturing processes,” said Scott Hammond, CEO of newScale. “We are delighted that Ford has chosen to rely on newScale to optimize its IT request fulfillment process, improve the quality of service delivery, and provide better insight into its IT service operations across the enterprise. This latest addition to our customer base underscores our leadership in the Service Catalog market.”

About Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F)

Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Dearborn, Mich., manufactures or distributes automobiles across six continents. With about 229,000 employees and about 90 plants worldwide, the company’s core and affiliated automotive brands include Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Volvo and Mazda. The company provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. For more information regarding Ford's products, please visit www.ford.com.

About newScale, Inc. newScale, Inc. is the leader in IT Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Management software solutions, with more than 1.5 million users worldwide. newScale solutions enable IT organizations to catalog their portfolio of services, govern demand for services, manage delivery of services, and optimize service quality. newScale customers - including more than twenty percent of the Fortune 50 - benefit from increased operational efficiency, reduced costs, improved service levels, and greater IT/business alignment. For more information, please visit the newScale web site at www.newscale.com or call 650-403-7700.

Momentum Builds: newScale Selected by Ford Motor Company for Service Catalog and Service Request Management

Momentum is building for us at newScale.  We are happy to have Ford join other stellar newScale customers like Boeing, Starbucks, HP and 100's of others. As we say around here, Americas' best loved brands choose newScale. 

So am I happy about this?  YOU BETCHA.

The Ford selection team chose newScale as its best-of-breed solution to meet their aggressive time line (time to value, as I wrote last week) and return on investment goals of their enterprise-wide request management project.

The ability to rapidly configure and deploy standard service request forms – leveraging pre-built service request templates and an easy-to-use service design module – was one of the primary considerations in the evaluation. 

Ford also selected newScale RequestCenter for its ease-of-use to drive adoption, support for key ITIL version 3 requirements, and proven ability to integrate seamlessly with its existing back-end IT service management tools. And our full range of “front office” functionality for IT Service Portfolio Management was another important deciding factor as all the different views of the service catalog are important eventually.

Here's the full release.

newScale Selected by Ford Motor Company for Service Catalog and Service Request Management

Automotive Industry Leader Standardizes on newScale RequestCenter® To Comply with ITIL Version 3 Request Fulfillment Process

San Mateo, CA – October 20, 2008 – newScale®, Inc., the market leader in IT Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Management software solutions, today announced that Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader, will implement newScale RequestCenter® to streamline the request management process for IT services across the enterprise.

"As a highly scalable and mature request management solution, newScale RequestCenter is ideally suited to helping us achieve our IT service management goals in the timeframe we required," said Jeff Lemmer, Manager of Global IT Infrastructure Services Delivery at Ford Motor Company.

This request management initiative is one of the strategic projects in Ford’s IT service management program. The objective is to implement a global service request management process to improve IT operational efficiency, reduce request fulfillment cycle times, and drive down costs. This required a Web-based self-service software system to streamline the input of all IT requests, track forecasted demand patterns, and analyze service request metrics to optimize fulfillment. The company selected the newScale RequestCenter software solution after an in-depth selection process, including a pilot of the service request management module offered by its service desk vendor.

"It is important to note that, despite the marketing hype to the contrary, the service request and self-service portal capabilities offered by IT service desk vendors do not address the full range of ITSPM requirements," according to the Gartner, Inc. report "Conference Polling Reveals Top-Priority Functions Being Evaluated in Early-Stage IT Service Portfolio Management (ITSPM) Implementations" (April 29, 2008) by analysts Kris Brittain and Debra Curtis.

“Innovation is a hallmark at Ford Motor Company, and they have an excellent reputation for optimizing complex and global manufacturing processes,” said Scott Hammond, CEO of newScale. “We are delighted that Ford has chosen to rely on newScale to optimize its IT request fulfillment process, improve the quality of service delivery, and provide better insight into its IT service operations across the enterprise. This latest addition to our customer base underscores our leadership in the Service Catalog market.”

About Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F)

Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Dearborn, Mich., manufactures or distributes automobiles across six continents. With about 229,000 employees and about 90 plants worldwide, the company’s core and affiliated automotive brands include Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Volvo and Mazda. The company provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. For more information regarding Ford's products, please visit www.ford.com.

About newScale, Inc. newScale, Inc. is the leader in IT Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Management software solutions, with more than 1.5 million users worldwide. newScale solutions enable IT organizations to catalog their portfolio of services, govern demand for services, manage delivery of services, and optimize service quality. newScale customers - including more than twenty percent of the Fortune 50 - benefit from increased operational efficiency, reduced costs, improved service levels, and greater IT/business alignment. For more information, please visit the newScale web site at www.newscale.com or call 650-403-7700.

Momentum Builds: newScale Selected by Ford Motor Company for Service Catalog and Service Request Management

Momentum is building for us at newScale.  We are happy to have Ford join other stellar newScale customers like Boeing, Starbucks, HP and 100's of others. As we say around here, Americas' best loved brands choose newScale. 

So am I happy about this?  YOU BETCHA.

The Ford selection team chose newScale as its best-of-breed solution to meet their aggressive time line (time to value, as I wrote last week) and return on investment goals of their enterprise-wide request management project.

The ability to rapidly configure and deploy standard service request forms – leveraging pre-built service request templates and an easy-to-use service design module – was one of the primary considerations in the evaluation. 

Ford also selected newScale RequestCenter for its ease-of-use to drive adoption, support for key ITIL version 3 requirements, and proven ability to integrate seamlessly with its existing back-end IT service management tools. And our full range of “front office” functionality for IT Service Portfolio Management was another important deciding factor as all the different views of the service catalog are important eventually.

Here's the full release.

newScale Selected by Ford Motor Company for Service Catalog and Service Request Management

Automotive Industry Leader Standardizes on newScale RequestCenter® To Comply with ITIL Version 3 Request Fulfillment Process

San Mateo, CA – October 20, 2008 – newScale®, Inc., the market leader in IT Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Management software solutions, today announced that Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader, will implement newScale RequestCenter® to streamline the request management process for IT services across the enterprise.

"As a highly scalable and mature request management solution, newScale RequestCenter is ideally suited to helping us achieve our IT service management goals in the timeframe we required," said Jeff Lemmer, Manager of Global IT Infrastructure Services Delivery at Ford Motor Company.

This request management initiative is one of the strategic projects in Ford’s IT service management program. The objective is to implement a global service request management process to improve IT operational efficiency, reduce request fulfillment cycle times, and drive down costs. This required a Web-based self-service software system to streamline the input of all IT requests, track forecasted demand patterns, and analyze service request metrics to optimize fulfillment. The company selected the newScale RequestCenter software solution after an in-depth selection process, including a pilot of the service request management module offered by its service desk vendor.

"It is important to note that, despite the marketing hype to the contrary, the service request and self-service portal capabilities offered by IT service desk vendors do not address the full range of ITSPM requirements," according to the Gartner, Inc. report "Conference Polling Reveals Top-Priority Functions Being Evaluated in Early-Stage IT Service Portfolio Management (ITSPM) Implementations" (April 29, 2008) by analysts Kris Brittain and Debra Curtis.

“Innovation is a hallmark at Ford Motor Company, and they have an excellent reputation for optimizing complex and global manufacturing processes,” said Scott Hammond, CEO of newScale. “We are delighted that Ford has chosen to rely on newScale to optimize its IT request fulfillment process, improve the quality of service delivery, and provide better insight into its IT service operations across the enterprise. This latest addition to our customer base underscores our leadership in the Service Catalog market.”

About Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F)

Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Dearborn, Mich., manufactures or distributes automobiles across six continents. With about 229,000 employees and about 90 plants worldwide, the company’s core and affiliated automotive brands include Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Volvo and Mazda. The company provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. For more information regarding Ford's products, please visit www.ford.com.

About newScale, Inc. newScale, Inc. is the leader in IT Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Management software solutions, with more than 1.5 million users worldwide. newScale solutions enable IT organizations to catalog their portfolio of services, govern demand for services, manage delivery of services, and optimize service quality. newScale customers - including more than twenty percent of the Fortune 50 - benefit from increased operational efficiency, reduced costs, improved service levels, and greater IT/business alignment. For more information, please visit the newScale web site at www.newscale.com or call 650-403-7700.

Service Catalog - The Next Killer Application Has Arrived

Again from the folks at EMA -- who seem to have really picked up on the strategic importance of the service catalog.

The Service Catalog is most often known as the IT Service Catalog. Yet it is becoming a killer application for the enterprise and could more appropriately be called the Enterprise Service Catalog. Consider some additional data points. Nearly 20% of respondents use the Service Catalog exclusively for non-IT functions. Additionally, combined business and IT functions drive more implementations than IT alone.

The Service Catalog can no longer be viewed simply as an IT management tool used for storing, describing, requesting, and automating the fulfillment of IT service requests. The IT Service Catalog has expanded to become the Enterprise Service Catalog - a true killer application used by all business functions across a company. Through this expanded perspective, IT organizations can deliver even greater value to the overall business by supporting non-IT services in the Enterprise Service Catalog.

I agree. Many customers are deploying service definitions beyond IT. While IT end-user services are a good starting point, often the more valuable services are cross-functional by definition.  For example, new employee setups, transfers, and termination.These services involve human resources, facilities, security.  Once those groups see the catalog, they want to bring their services in.

The complete article here: Service Catalog - The Next Killer Application Has Arrived.

Service Catalog - The Next Killer Application Has Arrived

Again from the folks at EMA -- who seem to have really picked up on the strategic importance of the service catalog.

The Service Catalog is most often known as the IT Service Catalog. Yet it is becoming a killer application for the enterprise and could more appropriately be called the Enterprise Service Catalog. Consider some additional data points. Nearly 20% of respondents use the Service Catalog exclusively for non-IT functions. Additionally, combined business and IT functions drive more implementations than IT alone.

The Service Catalog can no longer be viewed simply as an IT management tool used for storing, describing, requesting, and automating the fulfillment of IT service requests. The IT Service Catalog has expanded to become the Enterprise Service Catalog - a true killer application used by all business functions across a company. Through this expanded perspective, IT organizations can deliver even greater value to the overall business by supporting non-IT services in the Enterprise Service Catalog.

I agree. Many customers are deploying service definitions beyond IT. While IT end-user services are a good starting point, often the more valuable services are cross-functional by definition.  For example, new employee setups, transfers, and termination.These services involve human resources, facilities, security.  Once those groups see the catalog, they want to bring their services in.

The complete article here: Service Catalog - The Next Killer Application Has Arrived.

Service Catalog - The Next Killer Application Has Arrived

Again from the folks at EMA -- who seem to have really picked up on the strategic importance of the service catalog.

The Service Catalog is most often known as the IT Service Catalog. Yet it is becoming a killer application for the enterprise and could more appropriately be called the Enterprise Service Catalog. Consider some additional data points. Nearly 20% of respondents use the Service Catalog exclusively for non-IT functions. Additionally, combined business and IT functions drive more implementations than IT alone.

The Service Catalog can no longer be viewed simply as an IT management tool used for storing, describing, requesting, and automating the fulfillment of IT service requests. The IT Service Catalog has expanded to become the Enterprise Service Catalog - a true killer application used by all business functions across a company. Through this expanded perspective, IT organizations can deliver even greater value to the overall business by supporting non-IT services in the Enterprise Service Catalog.

I agree. Many customers are deploying service definitions beyond IT. While IT end-user services are a good starting point, often the more valuable services are cross-functional by definition.  For example, new employee setups, transfers, and termination.These services involve human resources, facilities, security.  Once those groups see the catalog, they want to bring their services in.

The complete article here: Service Catalog - The Next Killer Application Has Arrived.

Great question from Microsoft CIO Tony Scott: "What is this app costing me, all up?"

From CNET.

There was a day when if you wanted to know car gas mileage you had to write down the mileage, then drive and write down the mileage again. Then you went to the gas station and did long division to figure out what your gas mileage was. Eventually as the world got interested in this a chip got built in every car. Most cars have a chip built in to tell you what your miles per gallon is. We don't have the functional equivalent to that in the IT world.

As a CIO, you really want to know, what is this app costing me, all up? It's the people resources and the energy costs. The tools to do it are emerging but we are not there yet.

It shouldn't be that hard. If the technology community works together and develops the right standards and interfaces, one day you will be able to say here's my compute factor or my miles per gallon in terms of the technologies we use. With that we should be able to do a better job of managing our resources. I'm hopeful we could get that done.

Interview: Microsoft CIO Tony Scott | Latest Microsoft News - CNET News - CNET News.

Great question from Microsoft CIO Tony Scott: "What is this app costing me, all up?"

From CNET.

There was a day when if you wanted to know car gas mileage you had to write down the mileage, then drive and write down the mileage again. Then you went to the gas station and did long division to figure out what your gas mileage was. Eventually as the world got interested in this a chip got built in every car. Most cars have a chip built in to tell you what your miles per gallon is. We don't have the functional equivalent to that in the IT world.

As a CIO, you really want to know, what is this app costing me, all up? It's the people resources and the energy costs. The tools to do it are emerging but we are not there yet.

It shouldn't be that hard. If the technology community works together and develops the right standards and interfaces, one day you will be able to say here's my compute factor or my miles per gallon in terms of the technologies we use. With that we should be able to do a better job of managing our resources. I'm hopeful we could get that done.

Interview: Microsoft CIO Tony Scott | Latest Microsoft News - CNET News - CNET News.

Great question from Microsoft CIO Tony Scott: "What is this app costing me, all up?"

From CNET.

There was a day when if you wanted to know car gas mileage you had to write down the mileage, then drive and write down the mileage again. Then you went to the gas station and did long division to figure out what your gas mileage was. Eventually as the world got interested in this a chip got built in every car. Most cars have a chip built in to tell you what your miles per gallon is. We don't have the functional equivalent to that in the IT world.

As a CIO, you really want to know, what is this app costing me, all up? It's the people resources and the energy costs. The tools to do it are emerging but we are not there yet.

It shouldn't be that hard. If the technology community works together and develops the right standards and interfaces, one day you will be able to say here's my compute factor or my miles per gallon in terms of the technologies we use. With that we should be able to do a better job of managing our resources. I'm hopeful we could get that done.

Interview: Microsoft CIO Tony Scott | Latest Microsoft News - CNET News - CNET News.

IT Service Catalog: To Build or Buy?

Paul Burns, a senior analyst with Enterprise Management Associates (www.emausa.com),  their importance, how it's used operational and the need for robust tools.  In other words, Build or Buy?

I know many of of you are confronting the question of how to build a service catalog and how to make it useful.  These questions can get intertwined, so many people just decide to start with a spreadsheet and quickly hit a wall.  Paul's article will be useful to help you explain to others what type of tools you might want to consider for your service catalog project.

Here is an excerpt and a link to the whole article below .

...to fully realize the benefits of a service orientation, the IT organization must go beyond adopting ITSM tools and processes internally. It must also provide an external view of the services it provides....

Takeaway, your catalog will have multiple views and need to integrate iwth a number of tools.

....take note that the spreadsheet based service catalog does not offer mechanisms to automate the requests for services or the fulfillment of those services.

Takeaway:  while a document might be a good beginning, it will not be actionable, therefore the major benefits will not be delivered. A tool is necessary to make this actionable..

...

As the central point for linking users and IT, the service catalog is well positioned to track or even control service demand. Leading offerings provide facilities for establishing service costs and corresponding prices.

While most IT organizations have not developed to the point of charging business units based on actual usage, service catalogs with integrated demand and financial management capabilities provide greater understanding and control of service costs.

Takeaway:  The service catalog becomes an operational system to channel demand for services and account for the costs of delivering those services.

Similarly, service catalogs with integrated service portfolio or service level management capabilities, provide far greater potential for the maturing IT organization.

The most common use case is automated request fulfillment, but IT groups need to consider their longer term growth and maturity. Organizations that build their own service catalogs will not position themselves to achieve higher levels of ITSM maturity.

Takeaway: If you build your own tools, they won't be keep up with all the uses the service catalog has to deliver.  A simple one I've seen: building your own form and workflow won't make that useful for cost accounting.

Instead they risk sinking their investment into tools with limited capabilities and lacking the quality, flexibility, scale and performance of commercial offerings.

Service catalog is becoming so much more than service visibility and automated request fulfillment. For the majority of IT organizations, the recommendation is to start with a commercial service catalog offering.

The complete article, here Service Catalog: To Build or Buy?.

IT Service Catalog: To Build or Buy?

Paul Burns, a senior analyst with Enterprise Management Associates (www.emausa.com),  their importance, how it's used operational and the need for robust tools.  In other words, Build or Buy?

I know many of of you are confronting the question of how to build a service catalog and how to make it useful.  These questions can get intertwined, so many people just decide to start with a spreadsheet and quickly hit a wall.  Paul's article will be useful to help you explain to others what type of tools you might want to consider for your service catalog project.

Here is an excerpt and a link to the whole article below .

...to fully realize the benefits of a service orientation, the IT organization must go beyond adopting ITSM tools and processes internally. It must also provide an external view of the services it provides....

Takeaway, your catalog will have multiple views and need to integrate iwth a number of tools.

....take note that the spreadsheet based service catalog does not offer mechanisms to automate the requests for services or the fulfillment of those services.

Takeaway:  while a document might be a good beginning, it will not be actionable, therefore the major benefits will not be delivered. A tool is necessary to make this actionable..

...

As the central point for linking users and IT, the service catalog is well positioned to track or even control service demand. Leading offerings provide facilities for establishing service costs and corresponding prices.

While most IT organizations have not developed to the point of charging business units based on actual usage, service catalogs with integrated demand and financial management capabilities provide greater understanding and control of service costs.

Takeaway:  The service catalog becomes an operational system to channel demand for services and account for the costs of delivering those services.

Similarly, service catalogs with integrated service portfolio or service level management capabilities, provide far greater potential for the maturing IT organization.

The most common use case is automated request fulfillment, but IT groups need to consider their longer term growth and maturity. Organizations that build their own service catalogs will not position themselves to achieve higher levels of ITSM maturity.

Takeaway: If you build your own tools, they won't be keep up with all the uses the service catalog has to deliver.  A simple one I've seen: building your own form and workflow won't make that useful for cost accounting.

Instead they risk sinking their investment into tools with limited capabilities and lacking the quality, flexibility, scale and performance of commercial offerings.

Service catalog is becoming so much more than service visibility and automated request fulfillment. For the majority of IT organizations, the recommendation is to start with a commercial service catalog offering.

The complete article, here Service Catalog: To Build or Buy?.

IT Service Catalog: To Build or Buy?

Paul Burns, a senior analyst with Enterprise Management Associates (www.emausa.com),  their importance, how it's used operational and the need for robust tools.  In other words, Build or Buy?

I know many of of you are confronting the question of how to build a service catalog and how to make it useful.  These questions can get intertwined, so many people just decide to start with a spreadsheet and quickly hit a wall.  Paul's article will be useful to help you explain to others what type of tools you might want to consider for your service catalog project.

Here is an excerpt and a link to the whole article below .

...to fully realize the benefits of a service orientation, the IT organization must go beyond adopting ITSM tools and processes internally. It must also provide an external view of the services it provides....

Takeaway, your catalog will have multiple views and need to integrate iwth a number of tools.

....take note that the spreadsheet based service catalog does not offer mechanisms to automate the requests for services or the fulfillment of those services.

Takeaway:  while a document might be a good beginning, it will not be actionable, therefore the major benefits will not be delivered. A tool is necessary to make this actionable..

...

As the central point for linking users and IT, the service catalog is well positioned to track or even control service demand. Leading offerings provide facilities for establishing service costs and corresponding prices.

While most IT organizations have not developed to the point of charging business units based on actual usage, service catalogs with integrated demand and financial management capabilities provide greater understanding and control of service costs.

Takeaway:  The service catalog becomes an operational system to channel demand for services and account for the costs of delivering those services.

Similarly, service catalogs with integrated service portfolio or service level management capabilities, provide far greater potential for the maturing IT organization.

The most common use case is automated request fulfillment, but IT groups need to consider their longer term growth and maturity. Organizations that build their own service catalogs will not position themselves to achieve higher levels of ITSM maturity.

Takeaway: If you build your own tools, they won't be keep up with all the uses the service catalog has to deliver.  A simple one I've seen: building your own form and workflow won't make that useful for cost accounting.

Instead they risk sinking their investment into tools with limited capabilities and lacking the quality, flexibility, scale and performance of commercial offerings.

Service catalog is becoming so much more than service visibility and automated request fulfillment. For the majority of IT organizations, the recommendation is to start with a commercial service catalog offering.

The complete article, here Service Catalog: To Build or Buy?.

Most People are Editors, Not Authors: New Pre-packaged Service Catalog Content for the Editor in Us

At newScale, we believe robust pre-defined catalog content is a key enabler for accelerating the development, deployment and maintenance of a meaningful service catalog. As I've heard say, "most people are editors, not authors." Having catalog content as a starting point saves a ton of time and money.

I'd like to introduce you today to some of the work being done by our content team.  Sorry for the advertising, but I am personally very excited by the work being done here so I thought I'd share it. 

We have a team dedicated to producing new content on a quarterly basis.  Unlike software updates, which everyone understands, Catalog content needs to be not only created, but also described, documented, and componentized to be truly useful. 

Our latest quarterly update includes enhancements to the ITIL v3 Service Process Library, Access Management, and End User Management. To give you some some sense of what this includes, let me get you a bit of detail.

Service Process Library for ITIL v3
This library helps an IT organization adopting ITIL to "activate ITIL"; this library defines all the requests, roles and role descriptions that are necessary to make ITIL processes operational. For example, this process library for ITIL v3 has a:

1. New Supplier Management category and services (to support all the supplier management processes)
2. New category images to simplify merchandising. 
3. Updated, streamlined email templates
4. Key design decisions,
5. Email templates
6. Enhanced service workflows across the library
7. Workflow suggestions, including Visio diagrams of service model flows
8. Pre-packaged data models and web forms
9. Pre-packaged KPI and reports.

This adds to the prior supported process such as Catalog, Service, Availability, Capacity, Change, Continuity, Supplier, and Portfolio  Management Process and roles. Here are just some o the 50+ process in this service catalog library:

Service Catalog Management

• Request a New Service
• Request a Change to an Existing Service
• Remove a Service from the Service Catalog

Service Level Management

• Review an Operational Level Agreement
• Request Change to an Underpinning Contract
• Propose Service Level Agreement
• Review a Service Level Agreement
• Change a Service Level Agreement

Access Management Library

This one has also been updated; there are now over 130 services defined.

•    18 new models & sample services have been added. These cover a variety of identity access requests.
•    The Configuration Guide has been enhanced and includes additional service design recommendations. 
•    New category images. May not seem important but they all need to be thematically and color-coherent.
•    Updated, streamlined email templates. These are written, pre-formatted, process ready notifications that let you do the whole Amazon, Dell type of experience.

End User Management Library

And of course, our proven and robust End User Management Library which contains all the end user services your catalog needs with over 260 service definitions. 

This is a foundation library. Each service includes published descriptions, pricing, and service levels to set customer expectations – and give business units the information they need to make cost-benefit trade-offs in order to better manage demand. The library also provides pre-built service request forms for each service area. Every pre-built form contains a variety of common service-specific data elements necessary to capture the upfront specifics for a service order. Each form is ready to use as-is –you may also reuse or configure the form elements to meet the specific needs of your customers.

These are a huge time-savers.  And we have new ones coming out on a quarterly basis. I also should mention our existing Facilities, Telecom, Network and Data Center Libraries--over 1000+ service definitions.

I'm very proud of our content team and the great strides their making. Sorry about the commercial; but this is not something most people are even aware exists. It deserved a post.

Most People are Editors, Not Authors: New Pre-packaged Service Catalog Content for the Editor in Us

At newScale, we believe robust pre-defined catalog content is a key enabler for accelerating the development, deployment and maintenance of a meaningful service catalog. As I've heard say, "most people are editors, not authors." Having catalog content as a starting point saves a ton of time and money.

I'd like to introduce you today to some of the work being done by our content team.  Sorry for the advertising, but I am personally very excited by the work being done here so I thought I'd share it. 

We have a team dedicated to producing new content on a quarterly basis.  Unlike software updates, which everyone understands, Catalog content needs to be not only created, but also described, documented, and componentized to be truly useful. 

Our latest quarterly update includes enhancements to the ITIL v3 Service Process Library, Access Management, and End User Management. To give you some some sense of what this includes, let me get you a bit of detail.

Service Process Library for ITIL v3
This library helps an IT organization adopting ITIL to "activate ITIL"; this library defines all the requests, roles and role descriptions that are necessary to make ITIL processes operational. For example, this process library for ITIL v3 has a:

1. New Supplier Management category and services (to support all the supplier management processes)
2. New category images to simplify merchandising. 
3. Updated, streamlined email templates
4. Key design decisions,
5. Email templates
6. Enhanced service workflows across the library
7. Workflow suggestions, including Visio diagrams of service model flows
8. Pre-packaged data models and web forms
9. Pre-packaged KPI and reports.

This adds to the prior supported process such as Catalog, Service, Availability, Capacity, Change, Continuity, Supplier, and Portfolio  Management Process and roles. Here are just some o the 50+ process in this service catalog library:

Service Catalog Management

• Request a New Service
• Request a Change to an Existing Service
• Remove a Service from the Service Catalog

Service Level Management

• Review an Operational Level Agreement
• Request Change to an Underpinning Contract
• Propose Service Level Agreement
• Review a Service Level Agreement
• Change a Service Level Agreement

Access Management Library

This one has also been updated; there are now over 130 services defined.

•    18 new models & sample services have been added. These cover a variety of identity access requests.
•    The Configuration Guide has been enhanced and includes additional service design recommendations. 
•    New category images. May not seem important but they all need to be thematically and color-coherent.
•    Updated, streamlined email templates. These are written, pre-formatted, process ready notifications that let you do the whole Amazon, Dell type of experience.

End User Management Library

And of course, our proven and robust End User Management Library which contains all the end user services your catalog needs with over 260 service definitions. 

This is a foundation library. Each service includes published descriptions, pricing, and service levels to set customer expectations – and give business units the information they need to make cost-benefit trade-offs in order to better manage demand. The library also provides pre-built service request forms for each service area. Every pre-built form contains a variety of common service-specific data elements necessary to capture the upfront specifics for a service order. Each form is ready to use as-is –you may also reuse or configure the form elements to meet the specific needs of your customers.

These are a huge time-savers.  And we have new ones coming out on a quarterly basis. I also should mention our existing Facilities, Telecom, Network and Data Center Libraries--over 1000+ service definitions.

I'm very proud of our content team and the great strides their making. Sorry about the commercial; but this is not something most people are even aware exists. It deserved a post.

Most People are Editors, Not Authors: New Pre-packaged Service Catalog Content for the Editor in Us

At newScale, we believe robust pre-defined catalog content is a key enabler for accelerating the development, deployment and maintenance of a meaningful service catalog. As I've heard say, "most people are editors, not authors." Having catalog content as a starting point saves a ton of time and money.

I'd like to introduce you today to some of the work being done by our content team.  Sorry for the advertising, but I am personally very excited by the work being done here so I thought I'd share it. 

We have a team dedicated to producing new content on a quarterly basis.  Unlike software updates, which everyone understands, Catalog content needs to be not only created, but also described, documented, and componentized to be truly useful. 

Our latest quarterly update includes enhancements to the ITIL v3 Service Process Library, Access Management, and End User Management. To give you some some sense of what this includes, let me get you a bit of detail.

Service Process Library for ITIL v3
This library helps an IT organization adopting ITIL to "activate ITIL"; this library defines all the requests, roles and role descriptions that are necessary to make ITIL processes operational. For example, this process library for ITIL v3 has a:

1. New Supplier Management category and services (to support all the supplier management processes)
2. New category images to simplify merchandising. 
3. Updated, streamlined email templates
4. Key design decisions,
5. Email templates
6. Enhanced service workflows across the library
7. Workflow suggestions, including Visio diagrams of service model flows
8. Pre-packaged data models and web forms
9. Pre-packaged KPI and reports.

This adds to the prior supported process such as Catalog, Service, Availability, Capacity, Change, Continuity, Supplier, and Portfolio  Management Process and roles. Here are just some o the 50+ process in this service catalog library:

Service Catalog Management

• Request a New Service
• Request a Change to an Existing Service
• Remove a Service from the Service Catalog

Service Level Management

• Review an Operational Level Agreement
• Request Change to an Underpinning Contract
• Propose Service Level Agreement
• Review a Service Level Agreement
• Change a Service Level Agreement

Access Management Library

This one has also been updated; there are now over 130 services defined.

•    18 new models & sample services have been added. These cover a variety of identity access requests.
•    The Configuration Guide has been enhanced and includes additional service design recommendations. 
•    New category images. May not seem important but they all need to be thematically and color-coherent.
•    Updated, streamlined email templates. These are written, pre-formatted, process ready notifications that let you do the whole Amazon, Dell type of experience.

End User Management Library

And of course, our proven and robust End User Management Library which contains all the end user services your catalog needs with over 260 service definitions. 

This is a foundation library. Each service includes published descriptions, pricing, and service levels to set customer expectations – and give business units the information they need to make cost-benefit trade-offs in order to better manage demand. The library also provides pre-built service request forms for each service area. Every pre-built form contains a variety of common service-specific data elements necessary to capture the upfront specifics for a service order. Each form is ready to use as-is –you may also reuse or configure the form elements to meet the specific needs of your customers.

These are a huge time-savers.  And we have new ones coming out on a quarterly basis. I also should mention our existing Facilities, Telecom, Network and Data Center Libraries--over 1000+ service definitions.

I'm very proud of our content team and the great strides their making. Sorry about the commercial; but this is not something most people are even aware exists. It deserved a post.

Do not invest too much in building your CMDB now!

Serge has a very interesting take on the CMDB Federation API published a short while ago. Link after the excerpt.

What does that mean concretely?

· In a few months (years?) vendors could sell Service Management solutions with a different metamodel

· Instead of using autodiscovery tools, vendors could provide these push pull mechanisms for companies which already have in place other platforms such as Asset Management systems, or system management platforms, or other inventory systems

· It becomes maybe un-necessary to build proprietary bridges with systems which contain important information to build a CMDB. This could be postponed.

· Vendors which actually come with tactical scenarios such as HP-Mercury with their UCMDB could change their strategy sooner than expected!

· Companies in a CMDB project may have to “migrate” in the future to another approach, based probably on a hub and spoke architecture · Taxonomy being a key challenge for such a project may impact existing CMDB implementation

Link: Serge Thorn's IT Blog: Do not invest too much in building your CMDB now!.

Do not invest too much in building your CMDB now!

Serge has a very interesting take on the CMDB Federation API published a short while ago. Link after the excerpt.

What does that mean concretely?

· In a few months (years?) vendors could sell Service Management solutions with a different metamodel

· Instead of using autodiscovery tools, vendors could provide these push pull mechanisms for companies which already have in place other platforms such as Asset Management systems, or system management platforms, or other inventory systems

· It becomes maybe un-necessary to build proprietary bridges with systems which contain important information to build a CMDB. This could be postponed.

· Vendors which actually come with tactical scenarios such as HP-Mercury with their UCMDB could change their strategy sooner than expected!

· Companies in a CMDB project may have to “migrate” in the future to another approach, based probably on a hub and spoke architecture · Taxonomy being a key challenge for such a project may impact existing CMDB implementation

Link: Serge Thorn's IT Blog: Do not invest too much in building your CMDB now!.

Do not invest too much in building your CMDB now!

Serge has a very interesting take on the CMDB Federation API published a short while ago. Link after the excerpt.

What does that mean concretely?

· In a few months (years?) vendors could sell Service Management solutions with a different metamodel

· Instead of using autodiscovery tools, vendors could provide these push pull mechanisms for companies which already have in place other platforms such as Asset Management systems, or system management platforms, or other inventory systems

· It becomes maybe un-necessary to build proprietary bridges with systems which contain important information to build a CMDB. This could be postponed.

· Vendors which actually come with tactical scenarios such as HP-Mercury with their UCMDB could change their strategy sooner than expected!

· Companies in a CMDB project may have to “migrate” in the future to another approach, based probably on a hub and spoke architecture · Taxonomy being a key challenge for such a project may impact existing CMDB implementation

Link: Serge Thorn's IT Blog: Do not invest too much in building your CMDB now!.

Good discussion thread

This is getting to be a good discussion.
ForumTopic138 - ServiceCatalogs.
(Must be a member. Membership is free)

Good discussion thread

This is getting to be a good discussion.
ForumTopic138 - ServiceCatalogs.
(Must be a member. Membership is free)

Good discussion thread

This is getting to be a good discussion.
ForumTopic138 - ServiceCatalogs.
(Must be a member. Membership is free)

Why IT Sucks

Pretty provocative article at CIO.  What do you think? 

Why IT Sucks

Monday, February 12, 2007

No one--not even you--believes that IT is good.

Even if you like IT and think it has benefits, there are doubts--many doubts. From the PC guy in the Mac ads (who doesn't just represent Windows but all of IT) to IBM's often funny but incessantly negative ads about IT haplessness, we just don't believe that IT has performed up to expectations. I hate to use mass media advertising to back up my argument, but precisely because I think mass media is so shallow and panders to our most primitive impulses, I think it is our best barometer in this context. We all have a core belief, affirmed by mass media, that IT is fundamentally bad--with a hidden (or not) subtext that IT people are inferior and that IT is a drag upon the world's success.

Link: CIO Blogs - Why IT Sucks.

Followed by this entry:  The Users Are Right to Hate IT

Last week my colleague Chris Koch wrote a post called “Why IT and Users Hate Each Other.” Chris’s argument is basically that users have unrealistic expectations for IT, and that IT thinks that users just don’t understand how difficult running a corporate IT department actually is.

Must be pile on IT day.  Happy Valentine.

Why IT Sucks

Pretty provocative article at CIO.  What do you think? 

Why IT Sucks

Monday, February 12, 2007

No one--not even you--believes that IT is good.

Even if you like IT and think it has benefits, there are doubts--many doubts. From the PC guy in the Mac ads (who doesn't just represent Windows but all of IT) to IBM's often funny but incessantly negative ads about IT haplessness, we just don't believe that IT has performed up to expectations. I hate to use mass media advertising to back up my argument, but precisely because I think mass media is so shallow and panders to our most primitive impulses, I think it is our best barometer in this context. We all have a core belief, affirmed by mass media, that IT is fundamentally bad--with a hidden (or not) subtext that IT people are inferior and that IT is a drag upon the world's success.

Link: CIO Blogs - Why IT Sucks.

Followed by this entry:  The Users Are Right to Hate IT

Last week my colleague Chris Koch wrote a post called “Why IT and Users Hate Each Other.” Chris’s argument is basically that users have unrealistic expectations for IT, and that IT thinks that users just don’t understand how difficult running a corporate IT department actually is.

Must be pile on IT day.  Happy Valentine.

Why IT Sucks

Pretty provocative article at CIO.  What do you think? 

Why IT Sucks

Monday, February 12, 2007

No one--not even you--believes that IT is good.

Even if you like IT and think it has benefits, there are doubts--many doubts. From the PC guy in the Mac ads (who doesn't just represent Windows but all of IT) to IBM's often funny but incessantly negative ads about IT haplessness, we just don't believe that IT has performed up to expectations. I hate to use mass media advertising to back up my argument, but precisely because I think mass media is so shallow and panders to our most primitive impulses, I think it is our best barometer in this context. We all have a core belief, affirmed by mass media, that IT is fundamentally bad--with a hidden (or not) subtext that IT people are inferior and that IT is a drag upon the world's success.

Link: CIO Blogs - Why IT Sucks.

Followed by this entry:  The Users Are Right to Hate IT

Last week my colleague Chris Koch wrote a post called “Why IT and Users Hate Each Other.” Chris’s argument is basically that users have unrealistic expectations for IT, and that IT thinks that users just don’t understand how difficult running a corporate IT department actually is.

Must be pile on IT day.  Happy Valentine.

Pricing for Value

Interesting article on charge backs in the current CIO.

If IT is to be perceived as valuable, it has to have a price. Usage-based chargeback is the best way to build a price-to-value relationship for IT services, and it is one of the cornerstones for running IT as a business within a business. As long as IT has a solid understanding of its operating costs, it can use pricing as a strategic tool for improving alignment with the business by giving executives better understanding and control over IT resources. Different models, with different classes of service, can be used to drive more cost-efficient consumption of IT and to achieve more effective matching of service to business need.

I am not sure it's absolutely necessary to go directly to chargebacks immediately.  The first step to controlling consumption comes from communicating price information -- letting customers, executives and users understand the cost of what they are requesting and consuming starts very healthy conversations about fairness, costs, service levels, and governance.  They put IT in the role of facilitator, rather than arbitreur.

The second step to emerge once you put prices to services is one of benchmarking and comparison.  Are the prices similar to others in my industry? Are our services levels too high or too low?  Do the services include different things?  Is this service core to my differentiation or is it a commodity?  is there competitive advantage to the way we do things?  These are all conversations about value.  A customer who understand what she pays, and how it compares to an external service provider can then create her own value equation in her mind. She might decide it's worth paying a premium because of competitive advantage reasons -- blackberry services for everyone  who interacts with a customer might be an example of a service that confers competitive advantage. 

Implicit to these observations:  chargebacks need a very good service catalogs.  If you can't communicate what you do, what the benefits are, how it compares,  putting a price on it will create more distrust.   

My critic of the article is that it jumps right into service models that are not tied to business value. Here's the article.