Cloud computing represents a fundamental shift in the way IT services are sourced and delivered. With IT services decoupled from underlying technology, services can be requested and employed from any location, and data can be stored anywhere. Processing power can be purchased at the moment it is needed and de-provisioned once it is no longer needed.
The increased speed and fluidity in such an environment creates exciting opportunities for organizations, yet it also presents significant management challenges. Most traditional IT management tools were built for siloed, static environments and are ill-suited to meet today’s dynamic demands.
The cloud revolution comes at a time when many IT organizations are still in the process of converting to a service-oriented model through the implementation of IT Service Management (ITSM) tools. ITSM is a discipline for orchestrating IT resources across an organization and providing a coordinated point of contact for all consumers of IT services.
ITSM and the underlying concepts and practices set forth in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) are designed to give businesses control and visibility into critical IT functions. The idea is to dynamically link business-related services to underlying applications, workloads and infrastructure components to deliver greater insight into how technology assets are impacting business. To fully align IT with business goals, the organization must have this end-to-end view of all services — whether on-premises or cloud-based.
Ready or Not?
However, 51 percent of IT professionals who participated in a recent global survey say they do not think their ITSM processes are mature enough to effectively manage cloud-based services. Another 23 percent of those responding to the survey by ITSM provider Axios Systems said they are unsure, with the remaining 26 percent saying they believe their organizations’ process are cloud-ready.
The survey also revealed that only 8 percent of organizations currently use their ITSM tools to manage cloud-based services. Another 19 percent think their current tools could support management of cloud services, but they have not started to do so. About one-third (31 percent) indicate that their current ITSM tools would not support the management of cloud-based services, while the remaining 42 percent are unsure.
Nevertheless, the survey indicates this uncertainty won’t slow the cloud’s growing momentum. Sixty-eight percent of the organizations surveyed said they expect to adopt cloud-based services in the near future. Twenty-eight percent have already adopted a cloud strategy in one or more areas, 5 percent plan to implement cloud services in the next three months, 16 percent plan to adopt within six months and 20 percent say they will roll out cloud services in six months or beyond.
The Big Picture
The survey indicates that most organizations believe their approach to service management will have to be reconsidered once cloud services are adopted. Yet, the basic principles of ITSM and ITIL will still play a critical role in managing cloud services.
Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), a leading IT and data management research and consulting firm, says organizations should look to implement ITSM tools and processes in ways that support a “cross-domain service management strategy” to support both on-premises and cloud-based IT services.
In a recent EMA survey of 155 IT professionals in North America, Europe and Asia, 70 percent of respondents reported they had to rethink or redirect cloud initiatives once begun. As a result, 59 percent say they now have a cross-domain services management organization responsible for managing and planning all IT services.
“Rarely have I seen such strikingly consistent data pointing to the values of both organizational and process transformation, along with key technology adoptions,” said EMA VP of Research Dennis Drogseth. “The notion that cloud technologies are disruptive and catalytic is clearly true. The notion that cloud, therefore, negates best practices and technologies associated with advanced IT Service Management, on the other hand, couldn’t be more bogus.”
Evolving Management
EMA anticipates that within two to five years, cloud adoptions will continue to grow in importance as options in support of strong service management organizations. At the same time, cloud is reshaping priorities for how service management technologies must evolve — toward more dynamic awareness and higher levels of automation. The research firm says these trends will continue to value core service management requirements for service modeling, user experience management, dynamic visibility into service interdependencies, and superior analytics.
In short, Drogseth says, ITSM is the key to moving cloud initiatives beyond experimental or fragmented deployments toward a more cohesive strategy backed by meaningful organizational, process and technology commitments.
“While it’s impossible to predict the future in an absolute sense — even for those of us who are paid to do so — I am very optimistic about the intermediate and longer-term impacts of cloud computing technologies on all sizes and classes of businesses,” said Drogseth. “ This is true not only because of inherent advantages within the technologies themselves but also — perhaps even more — because of the transformative value they will have on IT organizations seeking to become more responsive, more business-aligned and more cohesive in how they approach service delivery.”
