IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH, INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH, INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
Optimizing Cloud for Service Delivery
Report Highlights
An ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES® (EMA™) Survey-based Research Report
Written by Dennis Drogseth, Vice President of Research February 2012
Table of Contents
Optimizing Cloud for Service Delivery (Report Highlights)
Executive Introduction ...1
Methodology ...1
A Few Highlights ...1
Overall Cloud Adoption Patterns in 2012 ...2
Business Services as They Map to Cloud Adoptions ...2
Drivers for Cloud Adoption in Support of Business Service Delivery ...3
©2012 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
Optimizing Cloud for Service Delivery (Report Highlights)
Page 1
Executive Introduction
Optimizing Cloud for Service Delivery reflects the more advanced
position of cloud adoption patterns today. While it still addresses core drivers, objectives, and obstacles as they are evolving, Optimizing
Cloud makes what may well be the industry’s most granular
assessment on how management technologies and cloud accelerants (e.g., converged infrastructure) are being combined into successful clusters or footprints. Indeed, just as there are many different types
of clouds in the skies—from cirrus, to cumulus, to nimbus to combinations such as cumulonimbus,
Optimizing Cloud for Service Delivery begins to shade in a meaningful taxonomy of technology patterns,
organizational focus, and cloud success.
Methodology
EMA collected data from 160 global respondents with a very strong emphasis on North America (81%) and a secondary focus on Europe and the U.K. in particular (16%) in early December of 2011. EMA also leveraged ancillary focal interviews from this and other research to address cloud in real-world context.
A Few Highlights
The selected highlights below reflect year-to-year differences across EMA’s cloud adoption research, as well as unique insights in Optimizing Cloud on specific management technologies and cloud accelerants. The highlights below are indeed far from a complete attempt to summarize the content of the report— which is itself a summary of more than 1,000 pages of content analysis.
• Cloud has advanced to become significantly more critical in importance to a wider range of IT organizations than ever before.
• Who owns “cloud” within IT? The trend towards a dedicated “Virtualization or Cloud” Organization continues with a dedicated group called cloud or virtualization support, followed this year by the cross-domain IT architecture or infrastructure services.
• Service Level Management (SLM) and or User Experience Management (UEM) are collectively the single most pervasive management technologies deployed in support of delivering business services over cloud.
• CMDB/CMS is the least pervasive management technology, but correlates to the highest level of maturity and success in delivering a wide range of business services over cloud. Not surprisingly, Unfied Service Desk deployments strongly parallel CMDB/CMS deployments in value.
• As cloud grows in both acceptance and importance, IT organizations are beginning to expand their definitions of “cross-domain” and “virtualized infrastructure” to become more multi-dimensional. • Large/mid-tier enterprises (5,000-20,000 employees) are the clear frontrunners in delivering
business services over cloud – in terms of both pervasiveness and levels of maturity. This is consistent with other EMA research, suggesting that very large IT organizations (supporting businesses with 20,000 employees or more) may be more politically challenged to break through siloed fiefdoms and establish meaningful cross-domain leadership.
Optimizing Cloud for Service
Delivery
reflects the more
advanced position of cloud
Optimizing Cloud for Service Delivery (Report Highlights)
Overall Cloud Adoption Patterns in 2012
One of the more striking indicators that cloud is indeed on the rise in Optimizing Cloud is shown in Figure 1 – where 48% viewed cloud as “essential” versus 33% in 2011, and this did not include the 17% generating revenue from cloud services.
1% 12% 8% 9% 22% 48% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% It is planned for adoption
It is currently adopted and mostly supplemental to other types of computing We are or plan to generate revenue through
delivered cloud services
We are currently generating revenue through delivered cloud services
It is currently adopted and an important part of our business
It is currently adopted and an essential part of our business
How would you describe the extent at which could computing has been adopted within your business/organization?
Figure 1: One of the most dramatic advances between 2011 and 2012 was the degree to which cloud technologies have become “essential” versus just “important” (48% versus 33%) a fifteen percentage
point jump, not including IT organizations leveraging cloud for revenue generating services.
Business Services as They Map to Cloud Adoptions
The top five most prevalent business services (out of a list of sixteen) were: 1. Messaging and e-mail-related services – 47%
2. CRM application services – 44% 3. Desktop productivity – 43%
4. Custom-developed applications – 39%
5. Externally facing Web and Web 2.0 applications – 38%
But the top five most prioritized business services out of the same list were when respondents were asked for their top three:
1. CRM application services – 32.5% 2. Desktop productivity – 31%
©2012 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
Optimizing Cloud for Service Delivery (Report Highlights)
Page 3
Not surprisingly, larger enterprises are more likely to have custom application, SOA and Web Services requirements for cloud. In contrast, externally directed (at customers or partners) Web and Web 2.0 services were a higher priority with smaller businesses than larger ones.
Drivers for Cloud Adoption in Support of
Business Service Delivery
Figure 2 highlights drivers for cloud adoption in 2012. These have been tracked year-to-year with common wording across all three EMA research reports. This year, as is visible in Figure 6, Improving
the performance and resiliency of business services takes a lead for the
first time, modestly edging out cost-related priorities, e.g., reducing
operational expense, which had been top priority in the prior years.
This was yet more apparent among those IT organizations who classified themselves as “very successful” – where more responsive provisioning of new and existing services and service performance goals were even more significantly prioritized over cost objectives.
62% 58% 56% 55% 54% 52% 1% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% Improve the performance/resiliency of
business services
Reduce operational expense in delivering business services
Accelerate the deployment/provisioning of new and/or existing business services Accelerate end-user access to new and/or
existing business services Reduce capital expense in delivering business
services
Accelerate the creation of new business services
Other (Please specify)
Why is your organization seeking to accelerate, optimize or otherwise improve the delivery of business services via cloud...
Figure 2: This year’s research reflects a meaningful shift towards service quality and value over and above cost reduction as a driver for cloud adoption.
IT organizations who
classified themselves as “very
successful” – where more
responsive provisioning of
new and existing services and
Optimizing Cloud for Service Delivery (Report Highlights)
Conclusion
As the third in EMA’s annual series on strategic cloud adoption, Optimizing Cloud for Service Delivery clearly underscores the continued success in terms of the pervasiveness, the criticality and the benefits of cloud-related technologies and services in mainstream IT. However, in 2012, this research data suggests that rather than viewing cloud adoption as a monolithic phenomenon with linear characteristics, it is very much a multi-dimensional phenomenon. This research data highlights “clusters” or “patterns” of cloud and service management technology that should become more and more meaningful over time as both cloud, and service management in response to cloud, mature.
In this regard, Optimizing Cloud also underscores the continued drumbeat towards a more cross-domain focus for cloud adoption far beyond the initial focus on systems-centric virtualization. The process, organizational and management technology implications of these new cross-domain requirements are still very much in the early stages of being “played out.” But EMA believes that they will become positive catalysts for many of the core requirements for effective service-centric management that many in the industry have been advocating years before the term “cloud” meant anything other than “wide area network” in IT.
In 2012, this research data
suggests that rather than viewing
cloud adoption as a monolithic
phenomenon with linear
characteristics, it is very much a
multi-dimensional phenomenon.
About Enterprise Management Associates, Inc.
Founded in 1996, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) is a leading industry analyst firm that provides deep insight across the full spectrum of IT and data management technologies. EMA analysts leverage a unique combination of practical experience, insight into industry best practices, and in-depth knowledge of current and planned vendor solutions to help its clients achieve their goals. Learn more about EMA research, analysis, and consulting services for enterprise line of business users, IT professionals and IT vendors at www.enterprisemanagement.com or
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