Business Cloud Summit 2010
At the BusinessCloud Summit 2010, held at the Novotel London West on November 31st, delegates got the opportunity to hear from organisations - both private sector and public sector - that are facing up to both the challenges and the opportunities of the Cloud – enabling IT to support the wider commercial and strategic objectives of the business.
Attendees, including IP Performance, were able to listen, and contribute to, panel discussions and interactive Q&A sessions from technology professionals who are using the Cloud Computing model to innovate, to deliver huge efficiencies, and to improve customer service, including:
- David Jack, CIO, Trainline
- Mark O'Neill, CIO, Department of Culture, Media and Sport
- Adrian Steel, Head of Infrastructure Management, Royal Mail
- Mark Leonard, CIO, Colt Telecom
- Ian McDonald, Head of IT, Symbian Foundation
- Andy Burton, Chairman, Cloud Industry Forum
- Professor Leslie Willcocks, Technology, Work & Globalisation, London School of Economics
- David Wilde, CIO, Westminster City Council
- Dr Paul Calleja, Director of High Performance Computing Service, Cambridge University
- Jürgen Strahwald, Vice President Corporate Information Technology Governance, Siemens
...among others.
Whilst IP Performance do not directly supply or resell Cloud Computing platforms or Software, Hardware, Platform or Infrastructure as a Service (SaaS, HaaS, PaaS, IaaS) solutions, our connectivity solutions underpin physical Cloud Infrastructures and many of our vendor partners' product and solution portfolios rely in part on Cloud-hosted services, whether for security updates or distributed database purposes. Many of our appliance-based products are available as virtual instances and can form part of cloud-based solutions, so keeping abreast of this nascent technology and emerging market is key to IP Performance's role as a Network Integrator and VAR.
The event was divided into two streams of keynote speeches, plenary sessions, panel debates, industry presentations and open debates - Public Sector and Private Sector, centred around an Exhibition area and networking lounges.
Both streams were well attended although it was clear that the Public Sector stream agenda and attendance had been scaled down, presumably as a consequence of squeezed Central and Local Government budgets announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review in October.
The Public Sector stream kicked off with a discussion panel comprising Dr Richard Sykes (Independent Advisor and member of the G Cloud and App Store), Lord Erroll (Merlin Hay, the Earl of Erroll), Chris Middleton (Editor, Professional Outsourcing magazine) and Andy Burton (Chair, Cloud Industry Forum), tackling the thorny subject of Public Sector service delivery after the Comprehensive Spending Review. The panelists seemed to agree with Chris Middleton's statement that in the past, "Government outsourcing contracts have been massively flawed and not always successful, so a rethinking of how the government buys technology is now necessary". Lord Erroll confirmed this and laid the foundations of a discussion based on outsourcing to the Cloud: "Centralised buying creates artificial barriers to innovation, efficiency and cost saving. Centralised system kill innovation. The benefits of Cloud come with pick & mix applications". While not all applications would be suitable for exporting and extrapolation into the Cloud (and some legacy systems would have to be front-ended), Dr Sykes commented that "All the evidence suggests that with proper management, 85% of government business could be done on the Public Cloud". Andy Burton added that "One of the biggest barriers to entry into the Cloud is knowing who you're dealing with", which brought us onto the closing topic of the panel debate, security and accountability. Lord Erroll was of the opinion that "Security needs to be built in from Day One, engineered in the design of products", while Chris Middleton concluded that "In the public sector, security isn't a technology problem, it's a management one. Most problems have been connected to people losing data sticks, sending discs in the post...it's down to human error."
"Government and the Cloud" was another panel discussion with two Public Sector officials: Mark O'Neill, CIO of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and David Wilde, CIO of Westminster City Council. The subject, as the title implies, centred around the impact that Cloud Computing had had on central government departments and local government authorities, and the efficiency gains that have been made as a result as well as challenges and obstacles to adoption.
Much of the discussion was around innovative SMEs, systems integrators and developers, who are successfully delivering Cloud services into their departments. As Mark O'Neill commented, "it's very difficult to get real Cloud-based propositions out of the managed service providers. The public sector is medieval in nature. We put everything in a vault and have a guard for that vault and then run into problems when someone needs data from within it. What we don't have is an agile engagement model which allows us to work effectively with external suppliers. G-Cloud will have to be a mixed economy: incumbents, small suppliers & new business types we haven't heard of yet. Some things will have to go on the private Cloud (as opposed to public, or hybrid) because the constraints around that information and the risks connected with that are too great ". David agreed, "We undermine the ability of start-ups to enter the sector. We need to unlock access to innovation. The Government doesn't need to drive it, it just needs to take part".
Echoing an earlier comment by Professor Leslie Willcocks that "Cloud computing is a misleading term. Asking 'what is cloud' focuses too heavily on IT, not on business benefits", David stated "We need to dump the term G-Cloud because it creates confusion about what it needs to do".
David was more upbeat about the experience Westminster City Council had had in reducing their infrastructure and moving to a Cloud-based model. "The move to zero infrastructure made perfect sense to us. It gives us the resilience and security we require and a means to save money. We're getting a Cloud-based managed service. So what's the debate all about? The real sell on moving to an infrastructure-free environment for the council was in making it quicker to log on, making sure remote access services were quicker and more flexible, making sure security was tight. My challenge remains less around the core offerings - those are mature, commoditised and spot-on - the challenge is around legacy systems. It's in working with those providers to move things along".
In conclusion, Mark O'Neill said "The Cloud undermines organisation-specific infrastructure. It's a good opener for dialogue with other organisations and finding out how they operate. Cloud is a good enabler for shared services, but it won't make shared services happen. Culture is what drives that". David Wilde added: "Shared services only work when they're faster, cheaper and better than what you can do for yourself. If it's not all three, then there's no point in doing it. The fundamental challenge for any shared service is the infrastructure. Cloud removes that issue. Regional development allows quicker procurement, quicker transition and allows us to start disrupting the market sooner. It's a difficult journey but a necessary one, and one which the public sector knows it has to take - and fast".
Over in the Private Sector stream, there followed an interesting Case Study session, "The Story of a Cloud", detailing the roll-out of Cloud services to the Royal Mail's 28,000 internal users. The panel comprised Adrian Steel, Head of Infrastructure Management, Royal Mail; Richard Watson, Alliance Partner, Microsoft; and Glyn Knaresborough, CSC (Systems Integrator). The panel was moderated by Stuart Lauchlan, Head of Editorial, Sift Media. What became apparent as the presentation and ensuing conversations went on was that to get a smooth and seamless transition (transparent to users) of 30,000+ devices in only 12 weeks, a lot of groundwork and business transformation has to be carried out in all participating organisations, before any migration commences. Said Richard Watson: "We did stakeholder engagement top to bottom in Microsoft, CSC and Royal Mail." Added Glyn Knaresborough: "When you enter into a three-way partnership, have a three way contract. Get it nailed down early on. Introduce shared viability into the contract. We had to disrupt our own business as well as Royal Mail's to make it a success."
Other presentations throughout this well-attended day included sessions on Healthcare, Education and the Third Sector - Charities (Public Sector) and the effect of Cloud servives to HR, CRM, Sales Force Automation and Finance (Private Sector), as well as another Case Study from Jürgen Strahwald of Siemens on the world's largest Cloud applications rollout.
Many of IP Performance's vendor partners products leverage Cloud Computing resources or services in delivering their unique functionality, are implemented as virtual instances, manage or otherwise optimise virtualised environments. For example, the award-winning Xangati virtual network management suite, Avocent's virtual infrastructure management systems or Zeus Technology's traffic management and application delivery products manage and optimise virtualised environments. Web Security and Bandwidth Optimisation vendors such as Blue Coat Systems and Allot Communications use Cloud-based delivery mechanisms to update their appliances with security policies, whitelists/blacklists and patches. Meru Networks' unique SCALE single-cell wireless solutions leverage the power of virtualised Access Points, while Bluecat Networks DNS, DHCP and IPAM solutions are available as virtualised appliances. LogRhythm provides a comprehensive, fully integrated, enterprise-class log management, log analysis and event management solution that empowers organisations to comply with regulations, secure their networks and optimise IT operations.
