System Integration Morphs To Cloud Service Integration

Getting Your Network in the Cloud

By G C Network | May 25, 2016

Join us with Virtual Newsmakers on Saturday, May 28th at 11:00am for a YouTube Livestream on cloud computing. Virtual Newsmakers is a webcast show featuring virtual newsmakers, who are bridging…

Enterprise Networking in a Cloud World

By G C Network | May 17, 2016

Enterprises must rethink network management in the cloud computing world. This new reality is driven by the rise of software defined networking, the virtualization of everything and a business imperative…

The Game of Clouds 2016

By G C Network | May 13, 2016

In the mythical, medieval land of AWS, a civil war brews between the several noble Cloud Services over rulership. Meanwhile, across the sea, the former controlling dynasty, Traditional IT, attempts…

10 Ways to Flash Forward

By G C Network | May 7, 2016

Not to long ago I was honored to be included as a storage expert in the Dell ebook, “10 Ways to Flash Forward: Future-Ready Storage Insights from the Experts.” This…

The Future of Storage

By G C Network | April 28, 2016

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of doing a Blab on advanced storage with Daniel Newman and Eric Vanderburg.  We covered some pretty interesting points on enterprise storage…

DevOps and Hybrid Infrastructure Synergy

By G C Network | April 3, 2016

(This post first appeared in IBM’s Point B and Beyond) The definition of DevOps emphasizes collaboration and communication between software developers and other IT professionals while automating the software delivery…

Are electronic medical records worth it?

By G C Network | March 23, 2016

The use of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) by medical professionals has increased dramatically. According to HealthIT.gov, 2015 statistics show that 56 percent of all U.S. office-based physicians (MD/DO) have demonstrated meaningful use…

Finding a Framework for Hybrid Cloud Risk Management

By G C Network | March 6, 2016

 (Sponsored by IBM. Originally published on Point B and Beyond) Hybrid cloud is rapidly becoming essential to today’s information technology processes. This is why hybrid cloud risk management has become…

Cancer, cloud and privacy shield

By G C Network | February 23, 2016

(Originally published in Dell PowerMore) For more than 10 years, the rapid rise of cloud computing has enabled an even more rapid application of cloud to genomic medicine. In fact,…

Hybrid Cloud Versus Hybrid IT: What’s the Hype?

By G C Network | February 3, 2016

(Originally posted on Point B and Beyond) Once again, the boardroom is in a bitter battle over what edict its members will now levy on their hapless IT organization. On…

Cloud Service Brokerage is changing from an industry footnote toward becoming a major system integration play.  This role has now become a crucial component of a cloud computing transition because they help organizations aggregate multiple cloud services, integrate services with in-house applications, and customize these services to better meet customer needs. CSBs also help by consulting and recommending the best fit cloud services according to business requirements and goals. Cloud brokers may also be granted rights to negotiate with different service providers on behalf of their customers. This transformation is driven by the rapid rise of cloud computing, which has risen from under $6B in 2008 to a point where the market is expected to almost reach $160B in 2020. The global Cloud Service Brokerage Market itself is expected to grow from $5.24 Billion in 2015 to $19.16 Billion by 2020. 
Since CSBs merge the functions of reseller, systems integrator and independent software vendor (ISVs) into a convenient service delivery model, they deliver solutions by aggregating cloud services sourced from multiple cloud service providers. They can also customize those services to meet unique business requirements. Although CSBs often deliver transactional cloud services, their real value lies in the unique ongoing operational support they provide.  Unlike financial or real estate brokers that typically end their customer relationship after the sale, CSBs:
  • Enable cloud service arbitrage based on cost, performance or operational need;
  • Help companies migrate operations to the cloud and assist with staff augmentation and training;
  • Provide cloud service auditing and SLA monitoring services;
  • Help in focusing and managing organizational cloud service demand;
  • Provided toolsets to assist in the migration and integration of enterprise applications; and
  • Help in change management and the selection and integration of other managed services.

 
By automating and operationalizing the governance of cloud services, CSBs can efficiently multi-source services and augment them with third party metering and monitoring. Using CSBs, organizations also accelerate their transition to hybrid IT models. This marketplace is typically segmented type of services: cloud brokerage and cloud brokerage enablement, wherein cloud brokerage enablement is further segmented into internal and external brokers. When used internally, cloud enablement platforms helps enterprises adopt the new hybrid IT and multi-sourced operating model. By building organic expertise, companies can personalize IT service consumption and unify
IT service delivery through the use of a corporate self-service store, a dynamic service marketplace, and continuous delivery. This centralized, supply chain approach unifies the order, execution, and management of multi-sourced solutions across legacy and cloud resources, by centrally delegating and tracking execution.
Another important management capability they deliver is performance auditing. Cloud Service Provider (CSP) price/performance has been shown to vary as much as 1000 percent depending on time and location. High levels of variability have also been seen within the same CSP processing the exact same job. This also means that the cost for an enterprise to processing the exact same job in the cloud could vary by this much as well. 
Changes in instance types, pricing, performance over time and availability of services by location highlights the inadequacy of traditional benchmarking philosophies and processes. The use of “performance quotas” by service providers may also lead to operational cost increases. This generally happens if a customer meets a CSP-determined management quota and the performance of relevant instance is reduced. Active metering and monitoring by a CSB can help companies detect and avoid this hidden cost.
As the cloud service brokers market matures, they are destined to replace the traditional system integrator. Maturation of technologies and CSB offerings will also make this service a “must-have” for the foreseeable future.

 

 (This post was brought to you by IBM Global Technology Services. For more content like this, visit Point B and Beyond.)
 

Cloud Musings

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