If 2011 was the year of the cloud, with increasing adoption across the market, then this year will see the technology move into its awkward adolescent years - and like any growing solution, it will be difficult to keep under control. Critical for 2012 is that cloud services can operate within a hybrid architectural environment, and deliver truly enterprise-class services. To realise this, the outsourcing industry will have to adopt an approach which adheres to a more industrialised method.
Recent reports from both Gartner and IDC have identified industrialised models as an emerging trend and highlight that it will become increasingly important to standardise IT processes in 2012. In order to cope with growth, change and the ability to react quickly to business demands, standardisation of IT process will extend beyond platform standards (already implemented by many organisations to replace the bespoke application-per-environment design and implementation practice of the past) and into standardisation of IT management practices; from the service catalogue of what can be delivered to what SLA; through to the underpinning tools and process which cover service design, service transition and service operation.
Industrialising such services makes them infinitely more scalable, repeatable and transparent. Such industrialisation relies on the adoption of standard practices, but also on the management tools and systems which will support – and indeed govern – IT practices. Integrated service management tools will underpin consistency in delivery, and also facilitate the automation of service management activities.
With ever more pressure to deliver effective, lower cost IT services, 2012 will see the increasing adoption of automation, and increasing emergence of autonomics. Rather than chasing the promise of low cost resources around the globe, delivering IT services using adaptive self-learning technologies will not only reduce costs, but also offer improved scalability, flexibility, and compliance.
Automation is beginning to see mainstream adoption; organisations are starting to recognise it as an essential tool for industrialisation and a key level in reducing costs and improving consistency. But self-managing, self-governing, and self-healing technologies are also emerging strongly. From appliances and products that can proactively detect and heal problems, through to holistic support infrastructures that automate not just execution of activities, but decision making based on multiple inputs and circumstances.
The critical difference between automation (systematic execution of a series of tasks) and autonomics (self-governing systems) is that ability to automate complex decision trees, and add contextual awareness to such decision making. To extend this capability across multiple disparate systems that underpin a complex business service requires the integration of monitoring, management and automation technologies into a single platform with the ability to continually learn and improve based on experience.
Naturally the automation of activities reduces reliance on IT staff who would otherwise be required to undertake these tasks. Firstly, automation is a much more robust approach to staff efficiency than the typical and traditional labour arbitrage through offshoring. Secondly, automating low level, systematic and often mundane tasks actually liberates expensive, intelligent IT staff to focus on change programs and services which add business value. All CIO’s, bar none, would love to refocus their teams away from “run the business” and on to “change the business”. Automation provides a great way to realise this desire.
