Midterm

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PMinIT_lesson6.pptx

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Applying Project Management Principles in IT

Carolina Dabbah Ceballos

Module 6

On-Premise and Cloud-Based Enterprise Solutions

Business case

Solutions overview

Cloud computing

More on the “hybrid cloud” approach

Agenda

Business Case

The IT Infrastructure Ecosystem

Chapter 1

Business Case: Selecting the Technology Platform for the MCP Application

Overview

You (the Modda Customer Portal/MCP project manager) and the MCP project team have just completed the planning of Phase 1A of the project (conducting and evaluating the POCs with three candidate CRM products: Salesforce, Microsoft CRM Dynamics and Oracle RightNow).

You also need to decide whether you will install the CRM on an on-premise, cloud, or hybrid platform.

An important input to your decision is the feedback from the CRM vendors who are setting up the POCs (as these vendors are also cloud service providers).

In addition though, you and the project team need to do the due diligence, specifically:

Research the on-premise and cloud-based (private, public, or hybrid) platform solutions

Conduct and document a comparative analysis of the above platform solutions and “preliminary assess” the one that best fit your needs

Gather additional information on the hybrid cloud solution (which, based on the “preliminary assessment” emerged as the best option for the MCP project)

Determine and document the main decision drivers.

The IT Infrastructure Ecosystem

There are seven major components that must be coordinated to provide the firm with a coherent IT infrastructure

Technologies and suppliers

Solutions Overview

Chapter 1

Business Case: Selecting the Technology Platform for the MCP Application

Step 1: Research on-premise and cloud-based solutions

You and the project team are commencing the first step of the “due diligence”.

As there is a vast amount of research material available, you narrowed it down to the following topics:

High-level review of the on-premise and cloud computing

Review the main cloud types: private, public and hybrid

Review the main cloud service models:

IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)

PaaS (Platform as a Service)

SaaS (Software as a Service)

Hardware, software (e.g. and applications are installed on company’s premises

Hardware (e.g. servers) are customarily installed in data centers

The company is responsible of

Procuring and maintaining the hardware, e.g.

Data servers

Application servers

Web servers

Procuring and maintaining the software, e.g.

Databases (MS SQL Server, Oracle, etc.)

The operating system (Windows, Unix, Linux)

Shared software

Microsoft Office

Reporting software (Crystal Reports, Tableau, Cognos)

Content management software (SharePoint, Documentum)

Storing and managing the corporate data

Preparing the Comparative Analysis

Virtualized data centers

Generally allow pooling of resources within existing organizational boundaries, that is

The corporate IT group virtualizes its workloads

Departments may or may not do the same

Advantages over “traditional servers”

Virtualization makes it possible for a company to handle its computer processing and storage using computing resources housed in remote locations.

Example: VMware is the leading virtualization software vendor for Windows and Linux servers. Microsoft offers its own Virtual Server product and has built virtualization capabilities into the newest version of Windows Server.

Virtualized Data Servers

It is the delivery of computing services over the Internet

Allow individuals and businesses to use a shared pool of computing resources that are managed by third parties at remote locations

It relies on sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economies of scale

Cloud resources are usually not only shared by multiple users but are also dynamically reallocated per demand

A cloud computer facility on the West Coast may be reallocated to server customers on the East Coast in a contingency / disaster recovery condition

“Moving to cloud" also refers to an organization moving away from a traditional CAPEX model (Capital expenses: buy the dedicated hardware and depreciate it over a period of time) to the OPEX model (Operational expenses: use a shared cloud infrastructure and pay as one uses it)

Cloud Computing Overview

For example, Envoy Media Group, a direct-marketing firm that offers highly targeted media campaigns across multiple channels, including TV, radio, and Internet, hosts its entire Web presence on Azimuth Web Services. The “pay as you go” pricing structure allows the company to quickly and painlessly add servers where they are needed without large investments in hardware. Cloud computing reduced costs about 20 percent because Envoy no longer had to maintain its own hardware or IT personnel.

Cloud Computing Overview

on-demand computing

The National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) definition of cloud computing identifies "five essential characteristics”

On-demand self-service

A consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, as needed automatically without requiring human interaction with each service provider

Broad network access

Capabilities are available over the network and accessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms (e.g., mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and workstations)

Resource pooling

The provider's computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand

Cloud Computing Overview

NIST’s "five essential characteristics“ of cloud computing (continued)

Rapid elasticity

Capabilities can be elastically provisioned and released, in some cases automatically, to scale rapidly outward and inward commensurate with demand.

To the consumer, the capabilities available for provisioning often appear unlimited and can be appropriated in any quantity at any time.

Measured service

Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service (e.g., storage, processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts)

Resource usage can be monitored, controlled, and reported, providing transparency for both the provider and consumer of the utilized service

Cloud Computing Overview

Depending on the cloud solution, remote computer resources may include one or more of the following

Hardware

Data storage

Networks

Servers

Software

Microsoft Office

Reporting tools (Cognos, Crystal Reports, etc.)

Specialized corporate and user applications

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERPs), such as: product lifecycle management, supply chain management, and HR.

Customer relationship management (CRMs), such as: customer data. customer interaction. access business information. automate sales.

Financial applications

Cloud Computing Overview

Private cloud

Cloud infrastructure operated solely for a single organization

Hosted either internally or externally.

Undertaking a private cloud project requires

Virtualizing the business environment

The organization to reevaluate decisions about existing resources

Have certain similarities with the on-premise solutions

Require the companies to provide intensive hands-on management of the installed computing resources (buy, build, and manage them)

Have a significant physical footprint, requiring allocations of space, hardware, and environmental controls

Public Cloud

Hosted externally

The services are rendered over a network that is open for public use

Generally, public cloud service providers (e.g. Amazon AWS, Microsoft and Google) own and operate the infrastructure at their data center and access is generally via the Internet

Cloud Types

Hybrid cloud

A cloud computing service that is composed of some combination of private, public and community cloud services, from different service providers

Provides ability to connect collocation, managed and/or dedicated services with cloud resources

Hosted either internally or externally

Allows to extend either the capacity or the capability of a cloud service, by aggregation, integration or customization with another cloud service

Use case for a hybrid cloud

Sensitive data stored in a private cloud

Non-sensitive data stored in a public cloud

Cloud Types

Various configurations allow businesses to install either part or all of the computing resources in a cloud environment

The most widely used configurations include

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Software as a Service

Pictures from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing

Cloud Service Models

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

For example, Amazon uses the spare capacity of its IT infrastructure to provide a broadly based cloud environment selling IT infrastructure services. These include its Simple Storage Service (S3) for storing customers’ data and its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service for running their applications. Users pay only for the amount of computing and storage capacity they actually use.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

For example, IBM offers a Smart Business Application Development & Test service for software development and testing on the IBM Cloud.

Salesforce.com’s Force.com, allows developers to build applications that are hosted on its servers as a service.

Software as a Service(SaaS)

Google Apps, which provides common business applications online and Salesforce.com, which also leases CRM and related software services over the Internet.

Cloud Service Model Examples

Source: Organizations, Management, and the Networked Enterprise by Kenneth C. Laudon and Jane P. Laudon

The most basic cloud computing model

Provides for the following services

The underlying operating systems

Security

Networking

Servers

Above services are owned by a service provider and offered to the customer on demand

Cloud Computing Model: IaaS

Recommended uses (*)

Cloud-native applications

Applications specifically architected to run in a cloud IaaS environment, using cloud transaction processing (TP) principles.

E-business hosting

E-marketing sites, e-commerce sites, SaaS applications, and similar modern websites and Web-based applications

They are usually Internet-facing

They are designed to scale out and are resilient to infrastructure failure

General business applications

General-purpose workloads typically found in the internal data centers of most traditional businesses

Intranet sites

Collaboration applications (e.g. Microsoft SharePoint)

Business process applications

The application users are usually located within the business

Many such workloads are small, and they are often not designed to scale out

They are usually architected with the assumption that the underlying infrastructure is reliable, but they are not necessarily mission-critical

(*) Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service, Worldwide (May 18, 2015)

Cloud Computing Model: IaaS

Recommended uses (continued)

Enterprise applications

General-purpose workloads that

Are mission-critical

May be complex, performance-sensitive or contain highly sensitive data

They are typical of a modest percentage of the workloads found in the internal data centers of most traditional businesses

They are architected with the assumption that the underlying infrastructure is reliable and capable of high performance.

Development environments

Related to the development and testing of applications

Assumed not to require high availability or high performance

However, likely to require governance for teams of users

Batch computing

Includes

High-performance computing (HPC)

“Big data" analytics

Other workloads that require large amounts of capacity on demand

Workloads do not usually require high availability, but may require high performance

Cloud Computing Model: IaaS

Examples of IaaS Vendors

Amazon Web Service (AWS)

CenturyLink

Google

IBM

Microsoft

Rackspace

VMware

Cloud Computing Model: IaaS

Recommended uses (*)

Cloud-native applications

Applications specifically architected to run in a cloud IaaS environment, using cloud transaction processing (TP) principles.

E-business hosting

E-marketing sites, e-commerce sites, SaaS applications, and similar modern websites and Web-based applications

They are usually Internet-facing

They are designed to scale out and are resilient to infrastructure failure

General business applications

General-purpose workloads typically found in the internal data centers of most traditional businesses

Intranet sites

Collaboration applications (e.g. Microsoft SharePoint)

Business process applications

The application users are usually located within the business

Many such workloads are small, and they are often not designed to scale out

They are usually architected with the assumption that the underlying infrastructure is reliable, but they are not necessarily mission-critical

(*) Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service, Worldwide (May 18, 2015)

Cloud Computing Model: IaaS

Provides for the following services

Typically, all IaaS services

The underlying operating systems

Security

Networking

Servers

Operating system (which may only be partially provided for by IaaS)

Middleware (1)

Runtime environment (2)

Above services are owned by a service provider and offered to the customer on demand

(1) Software that acts as a bridge between an operating

system or database and applications, especially on a network

(2) A virtual machine, such as the JRE (Java Runtime Environment) or CLR (Common Language Runtime) for .NET languages.

Cloud Computing Model: PaaS

Some providers make available “specialized” applications of PaaS as delivery models for data solutions, for example

iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service)

Enables customers to develop, execute and govern integration flows

Customers drive the development and deployment of integrations without installing or managing any hardware or middleware.

dPaaS (Data Platform as a Service)

Delivers integration and data management products as a fully managed service

The dPaaS provider, not the customer, manages the development and execution of data solutions by building tailored data applications for the customer

The dPaaS users retain transparency and control over data through

Cloud Computing Model: PaaS

Examples of PaaS Vendors

Google

IBM

Microsoft

Progress

Red Hat

Salesforce

SAP

Cloud Computing Model: PaaS

Cloud providers

Install and operate application software in the cloud

Provide for contingency / disaster recovery

Cloud users

Access the software from cloud clients

Do not manage the cloud infrastructure and platform where the application runs

Cloud Computing Model: SaaS

Examples of SaaS Vendors

For financial applications

Ariba (SAP)

SAP Financials on Demand

Expense management

Concur

ExpenseCloud

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Oracle RightNow

Pega systems (CRM / BPM)

Salesforce

Enterprise social networking

Chatter (Salesforce)

Yammer (Microsoft)

Cloud Computing Model: SaaS

Comparative Analysis

Chapter 1

Business Case: Selecting the Technology Platform for the MCP Application

Step 2: Conduct a comparative analysis of the platform solutions

You and project team have just completed your high-level research of the cloud, on-premise and hybrid solutions.

What you need to do now is to:

Conduct a comparative analysis of these solutions. This involves

Defining the evaluation criteria that you will use for your analysis

Set up a scorecard/evaluation card

Fill out the scorecard

Select the platform approach based on the scorecard results

Identify the decision criteria, by taking into account

Relevant business drivers

Time-to-market

Initial rollout

Functional enhancements; for example, providing additional access channels (such as mobile) in the future

Security

Protecting confidential information

Reliability

99.99%+ uptime needs

Scalability

Increased volume

Global reach / geographically-dispersed users

Financial drivers

Initial investment outlay (Amount required to start a business)

Total cost of ownership (a cost estimate to help the buyer determine the direct and indirect cost of a system or a product)

Developing the Comparative Analysis

Decision criteria (continued)

Non-functional / technical requirements

Flexibility

Controlling the time of CRM software upgrades

Contingency / disaster recovery availability

Data interdependencies with other applications

Operational support

Hardware

Operating system

CRM

Company’s capabilities, standards and policies

IT’s current operational support

Flexibility around CAPEX and / or OPEX cost model

Data retention policies

External factors

Maturity of cloud-based platforms (e.g. cloud-based a proven technology?)

Availability of cloud service providers

Developing the Comparative Analysis

Develop a scorecard that includes

The decision criteria

A high-level description of each criteria

A scoring scale (e.g. 1 thru 5, etc.)

Score placeholders for each criteria and each solution alternative

Comments sections, for each alternative and criteria, to explain the rationale behind each score

Importance weights for each criteria

Fill out the scorecard

Determine the importance weight for each criteria, based on feedback from various stakeholder groups, including

Business

Project team

Finance / project sponsor

Various IT groups, e.g. operations, infrastructure, architecture

Developing the Comparative Analysis

Fill out the scorecard (continued)

Determine the score for each criteria and solution alternative, based on input from

Project team

Internal (e.g. solution/enterprise architect) and / or external (e.g. solution providers, research firms such as Gartner, the Hackett Group, Forrester, etc.) subject matter experts/SMEs

Review and finalize the scoring together with project stakeholders

Select the solution alternative

Developing the Comparative Analysis

Exercise

1. Develop a comparative analysis for selecting the app MCP project using

The approach outlined in the “Developing the Comparative Analysis” slides, and

The information provided in the “Research Data” slides

2. Are there any additional criteria that should be included in the comparative analysis?

3. What course of action do you suggest in case the scoring team cannot reach a consensus on the importance weightings and / or the actual scores?

4. Should this comparative analysis also include

An evaluation of the cloud computing models (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS)? Why / why not?

An evaluation of the three candidate CRM products (Salesforce, Microsoft CRM Dynamics, Oracle RightNow)? Why/why not?

Private cloud / on-premise vs Public Cloud (Data Set #1)

Research Data

	Private Cloud / on-premise	Public Cloud
Pros	Greater level of security More control over the servers “Cloud bursting” – may switch non-sensitive data to public clouds to accommodate data spikes (private cloud only)	Easy scalability Cost effectiveness Increased reliability
Cons	Higher initial outlay Requires more “hands-on” management	Security is still perceived as a reason for concern Less flexibility in timing the software upgrades
Potential Concerns	Lack of resources to build an infrastructure Software licensing costs are too expensive for smaller companies Lack of resources, especially in IT Lack of technical know-how to maximize benefits of IT systems	Lack of full control over data and processes Customization and integration with custom systems may be more challenging

Private cloud / on-premise vs Public Cloud (Data Set # 2)

Research Data

Consideration	Cloud	On-Premise
IT Infrastructure	Limited or no internal IT resources and/or no desire to invest in or support additional IT infrastructure	Established IT support with software domain expertise and a solid backup and security strategy.
Access	Via the Internet or mobile device	Client server for local workers or Terminal Server or Citrix for remote employees.
Company Profile	Fast growing companies who want to invest in an affordable solution capable of growing with them and want the flexibility of anywhere, anytime access without investing in IT infrastructure.	Established companies with the ability to make the required upfront investment to purchase and implement the software. Minimum timeframe for an on-premise solution should be 5 – 7 years.
Remote Locations	Have multiple sites or many geographic locations but do not want to build or support remote access to existing network.	Have multiple sites across geographic locations and have a supporting network infrastructure.
Software Investment	License fee enables the company to use the software. One predictable monthly payment covers everything from infrastructure and vendor software support to daily back-ups and software upgrades.	License fee enables the company to own the software. Upfront purchase with annual maintenance / subscription renewals in the 20 – 25% range.

Private cloud / on-premise vs Public Cloud (Data Set # 2, continued)

Research Data

Consideration	Cloud	On-Premise
Initial Services Investment	Implementation services tend to be less than on-premise solutions since installation, infrastructure prep, and some configuration are completed by the SaaS vendor.	A good rule of thumb is to spend anywhere from $1 - $2 for every dollar spent on the initial software license.
Ongoing Services Investment	Business process consulting as necessary.	Software upgrades every 12– 24 months; technical support and business process consulting as needed
Software Customization	Think “configuration”, not heavy customization	In-depth customization and integration capabilities; appropriate for companies with a high-degree of customization or a need for extensive custom programming services.
Implementation Time	Varies by project size and scope, but implementation time tends to be less than on-premise solutions since installation, infrastructure prep, and some configuration are completed by the SaaS vendor.	Varies by project size and scope, but implementation time tends to be a bit longer and more involved, perhaps adding 1 – 2 months to the timeline of a comparable cloud-based implementation.
CapEx vs. OpEx	The subscription model converts traditional technology capital expenses into an operational expense.	Software and hardware are capital expenses