Tag Archive | "SaaS"

Seven Ways to Bust Your IT Budget – Baseline

Tags: Business Service Management, Cloud, IT Management, ROI, SaaS, Transformation


The Hub Commentary_

I agree that costs need to be managed, however, there comes a point of no return.  Justifying the business value and return on investment is the shift IT organizations need to make in order to be competitive with the cloud and SaaS providers.

There needs to be focus on cost cutting where possible, however, there needs to be more focus on the delivery of value and growing the business with technology.  It is great to spend on technology when you can illustrate gains in revenue through the use of technology whether it be customer retention and quality of service or a differentiating service in the market.

Are you merely counting pennies or spending to gain?

Michele

___________________

Companies overspent by more than $207 billion on technology and telecom purchases last year, according to NPI, a consulting firm specializing in the management of IT spending. Many enterprises were dealing with budgets that had been slashed during the Great Recession, even as new projects were expected to drive the innovation necessary for growth.  (Read Full Article…)

Transparency In The Cloud, Part III: 2 More Questions to Ask Every SaaS Provider – SaaSBlogs

Tags: Business Service Management, SaaS, Service Providers


The Hub Commentary_

Flexible pricing and flexible services (or features), both great questions to explore as Matt describes.  However, the reason some software and services are more suitable in an as-a-Service model is because it is standard.  The pricing is cheaper due to economies of scale created by sharing the same service with many.

The more one off it needs to become, the less suitable it is for an as-a-Service model.  Highly custom engagements are really more in line with standard outsourcing services.  I highly encourage organizations to embrace the SaaS model and adopt the standard services as lower cost options and put the cost saving toward their value add services to grow their businesses as I wrote in a previous post defining services for value.

I do not disagree with the author, the questions are worthy to explore to understand what is configurable in terms of the service and pricing, however, realize there is a difference between configuring and customizing.  Customizing comes at a high cost, just as it does in software to service and support it as a non-standard.

Do you configure or customize your cloud services?

Michele

___________________

Continuing on the theme of Parts I and II, this article provides two more questions that all consumers of B2B SaaS should ask their providers.  While the questions in Part II were centered around providers’ ability to maintain speedy and reliable service, the remaining questions focus on their ability to be flexible in pricing and customization of their offering.  (Read Full Article…)

Understanding the Different Levels of Cloud Computing

Tags: Business Service Management, Cloud Computing, Enterprise IT, IaaS, PaaS, SaaS


Business Service Management Commentary on IT Service Management, Service Level Management & Performance ManagementBusiness Service Management Commentary on IT Service Management, Service Level Management & Performance ManagementAs you look at cloud computing, it’s useful to understand that there are three types of services offered:

  • Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): This gives you access to storage and servers in the cloud. Examples of vendors in this space include Amazon, IBM, Rackspace and Verizon. The advantage of this approach is that you can expand and contract as needed. If you anticipate having a rush coming such as a big sale, you can expand your servers to meet the increased demand, then go back to your normal numbers when the sale period is over. It prevents your system from going down from because you don’t have the server capacity to handle the traffic. This elasticity (scaling capacity up and back as needed) and paying for what you use are two of the hallmarks of using IaaS.
  • Platform as a Service (PaaS): This service provides a platform on which you can build applications usually linked to a particular vendor. A good example of this is Salesforce.com’s Force.com service, a cloud-based development environment for building applications on top of the Salesforce.com service. Force.com gives you access to a number of developer services you can tap into to help you build your applications.
  • Software as a Service (SaaS): Perhaps the most recognized of the three cloud computing types, it provides access to a software service in the cloud.  There are countless examples of this available today  such as Google Docs or Gmail, which gives you access to word processing and email in the cloud. No documents or mail are stored locally and you can access your content from anywhere. All backups and updates are handled on the back end by the provider, greatly simplifying software maintenance.

Once you have a basic understanding of how cloud services break down, it’s useful to think about how these different levels of cloud services could affect your IT environment, how comfortable you might be farming out some of these services to the cloud and what impact it would have on your ability to understand and monitor these different services as part of your overall IT job function.

Photo by Lucien Savluc on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.

Top Considerations for Moving to a Cloud-based ITSM Deliv Model-BMC Comms

Tags: BMC Communities, BSM, Business Service Management, Cloud, IT Management Tools, SaaS, Transformation


The Hub Commentary

SaaS is a delivery model and all services delivered by IT need to be categorized for their cost and value to the organization and the then the delivery model mapped to the service.  Highly custom, competitive advantage, differentiating services are not well suited for outsourced or SaaS delivery models.

Those services that are not unique to your organization and less integrated are very well suited for SaaS and outsourcing.  While you are likely offering a premium service to your organization, it is not necessary and outsourcing is just the ticket to standards and right sizing the service.

Many IT organizations hang on to the commodity because they have resources that can do it.  Just because they can do it, doesn’t mean they should do it.  Use your expensive in-house resources for the mission critical, unique, revenue driving services and shift the routine, commodity out of house.

ITSM and monitoring has often been something that could be offered as a service removing the infrastructure and the requirement for you to maintain resources that have knowledge of monitoring tools rather than you mission critical services.  We are fast approaching the day where much of the management is commodity and should be outsourced.

Are you right sourcing your IT management?

Michele

__________________________

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is more than just a cloud-based delivery model. It is a service approach that IT organizations are considering for meeting their IT service management needs. With a SaaS model, IT organizations can focus their staff and infrastructure on high-priority activities and initiatives while still enjoying access to IT service management productivity solutions.  Read more

How SaaS Will Impact 6 Key Software Categories – CIO

Tags: Business Service Management, CIO, SaaS


The Hub Commentary_

I agree with the categories and the applications.  Think about those that are commodity and easily defined in a box and easily outsourced.  IT has a hard time doing this and evolving roles as they adopt business service management practices.  It’s about categorizing the services and defining the appropriate deployment option.

IT management and many of the monitoring fuctions are easily suited for SaaS offerings where the knitting together of the data from multiple vendors and/or in-house options are suited for the value-add of IT as the role evolves to a service provider.  The end-to-end service performance is the responsibility of IT and will require an integration platform strategy going forward to stitch together the fabric of service providers and in-house services as an end-to-end service to the business.

SaaS is a deployment option, it is the categorization of your services that should drive the appropriate deployment options.

How are you using and measuring your SaaS options?

Michele

___________________

SaaS will steal the show in certain categories but remain a bit player in others, Forrester research shows. Here’s a look at how SaaS will affect IT management tools, ERP applications and more, for the next two years.  (Read Full Article…)

Improving the Business Value of SaaS Apps – Cloud Computing Journal

Tags: Business Service Management, Cloud, Cloud Computing Journal, IT Management, SaaS, Service Providers, Service Value


The Hub Commentary

SaaS has the ability to move the cost of supporting infrastructure and applications from the in-house staff to a service provider, but these are the commodity services.  We have discussed in previous business service management posts that it is important to categorize services as value-add, differentiators or commodity, manage for cost.

While I agree with the author on his points of flexibility, configuration and customization, I caution that if it is a service that requires customization than: either 1) you need to reconcile if it is a commodity service and the standard can be accepted or 2) that it is a differentiating service and should stay in-house.

Services that are easy to defined, contained and non-differentiating are well suited for outsourcing.  Accept and embrace the standard, not all services are created equal and take the opportunity to impose standards for the commodity to drive down costs.

Do you have a service map for commodity versus value?

_______________________

Michele

Of all the three models of cloud computing: IaaS, PaaS and SaaS…SaaS (Software as a Service) is the one that has the most appeal and potential to evoke interest from enterprise CIOs.  The popularity of SaaS is expected to grow several times in the near future.  Read full article

Where Does the Cloud Go from Here? – ITBusiness Edge

Tags: Business Service Management, Cloud, IaaS, SaaS, Service Providers, Service Value


The Hub Commentary_

Wow!  We haven’t adopted or widely deployed the Cloud and are already asking where it goes.  As I’ve said many times before as part of a business service management practice, it is a delivery vehicle and as part of defining services we must evaluate the best delivery vehicle for the service based upon cost and value to the organization.

As a game changing technology, it is not the killer app.  It provides flexibility in capacity as an IaaS, it provides a low cost option as SaaS for commodity services and enables your in-house staff to concentrate on the value add to the business.  The Cloud will not grow your revenue as a technology, but as an enabler and a delivery vehicle in the right situations.

In the end, it takes a sound business service management practice and strategy to drive growth and be a game changer in revenue to your organization.

How do you define game changer in your data center?

Michele

___________________

Even as many enterprises continue to struggle to determine what, exactly, the cloud is, there is perhaps an even more important question to ponder: “Where, exactly, is the cloud going?”  (Read Full Article…)

Switching to SaaS? Consider Cost & Convenience-Data Center Knowledge

Tags: Business Service Management, Data Center Knowledge, SaaS, Service Level, Service Providers


The Hub Commentary_

The other consideration is value to the business and uniqueness to the business.  Those services that are similar across industries and even within your industry, lend themselves to outsourcing.  Cost saving is not the only reason and in the long run, outsourcing is often not cheaper than in-house.  However, decisions need to be made how to best use your in-house resources and right source the commodity.

Outsourcing occurs to drive change.  Some of the change is adherence to standards driving down the cost of services as well as support for services where not all services are created equal.  Both of these changes are difficult to drive from within a business unless there are good business service management practices in place driving cost and value discussions.

It is relevant to consider the right sourcing option for all services and right source the environment to drive change and allow for flexibility.  As part of the sourcing engagement will how you will measure and monitor the service provider.  This is critical to insure perception and reality are in synch.  Managing the relationship of the service provider becomes the new role of IT as part of the end-to-end service provided by the business.

How are you right sourcing IT?

Michele

___________________

There is a misconception that switching to SaaS or a cloud-based IT infrastructure is solely a cost-savings measure. The reality is, most companies today are looking to switch to SaaS for its convenience and simplicity – not cost savings alone.   (Read Full Article…)

Standards in Support and Taxes for the Luxory

Tags: Business Service Management, CIO, Cost Reduction, IT Management, IT Management Tools, SaaS, Support, Transformation, VDI


I’ve seen a bit in the news about support, the consumerization of devices in the workplace and virtual desktop infrastructures that has brought this post together.  We seem to ebb and flow with new toys in the workplace and standardization of support.  The plain truth is that the standard environment is the most cost efficient.  If the role did not dictate that a given device be provided by the company to the individual, why would we assume we must support it?  I understand it did not come with a capital expenditure and made the employee accessible, if they choose to be, however, it does carry a significant cost burden that is often overlooked.

Service and support is commodity.  It is something that can and should be easily outsourced and the service provider will either standardize the support or will tax the customer for the varying types of devices that are supported.  I know that sounds harsh, but in these days where we should be seeking to spend less on operating and more on innovating this is one of the easiest and biggest cost saving area.  In most IT Operations budgets, the service and support function represents about 10% of the budget.  Tools no longer need to be in-house and custom if the business would rather not outsource, there are good SaaS offerings on the market to at least alleviate the burden of supporting the tools, paying the big boys maintenance taxes and paying for customized support of a commodity function.

I’ll make another bold statement, we care too much about the “end user” for the wrong reason.  No one outside of a data center even really knows what an “end user” is, but we all know who is our customer.  IT has to make this transformation to drive business growth and this is one of those starting places in knowing who is really the customer.  Whether or not our “end user” in the business is really happy or not with IT services is a debateable point.  The most important factor is whether or not we are able to transact business and support our buying customers that grow the business.  This is the mindset shift that needs to occur.

So supporting the latest version of iPhone from whichever provider and carrier and how happy our “end users” are when we re-image their machine because it is far cheaper to re-image to standard than figure out what they downloaded that broke something.  It’s about keeping the business productive, growing and making the customer of our goods and services happy and buying.  We should be automating the operations and shifting this attention, focus and resources on the growth side of the see saw.

I know this post is a bit controversial.  This is something that happens with each new toy that comes to market and budgets loosen, we forget the good efficiency practices we put in place in lean times.  I’ve answered hundreds of inquiry calls on this subject just before this function gets outsourced, the services are cheaper because the service provider will impose a standard and tax for the luxory.  We should be doing the same with good business service management practices shifting our focus and resources to the growth of business.

Are you taxing for the non-standard or spending more reacting and maintaining?

Michele

___________________

Network World — Cost-saving technologies remain a priority for IT in 2011 and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), with its ability to streamline operations, is one of the technologies at the top of the list.  (Read Full Article…)

Deutsche Telekom Introduces SaaS Offering for Energy Industry – CBR

Tags: Business Service Management, CBR, Deutsche Telekom, Energy, IT Management, SaaS, Service Providers, Transformation, Trends


The Hub Commentary_

This is the second offering like this I’ve seen in a week.  The first was the British Airways announcement with the software and service provider vendor.  This is a classic example of  a shift in the market and commoditization of some back office functions.  Great examples of business service management functions and knowing which services are commodity for cost versus those that are value and differentiate your services in the market place.

These are offerings and movements that enterprise IT shops should watch and take notice of in determining what is really value add and unique and most of all needs to be unique in your organization.  Leverage service offerings for the commodity services and accept standard processes so as to drive down costs and evolve your organization and roles to drive business growth with technology.

Are you merely powering the business or are you driving the business with technology?

Michele

___________________

Supports energy and network providers in their daily back office business with its portfolio of modular IT offerings

Deutsche Telekom has introduced complete Software as a Service (SaaS) package via the Internet for the energy industry.  (Read Full Article…)

Competitive Benefits Drive Businesses to Open Source – CIO

Tags: Business Service Management, CIO, IT Management Tools, Open Source, SaaS, Transformation


The Hub Commentary_

Open Source is gaining in adoption.  I find this part of the business service management swell and transformation trend to evaluate the automation and driving down of operational costs to focus on the use of technology to drive business growth.  Just look at “Watson” on Jeopardy, powered by SUSE Linux.  It’s the Watson analytics that is relevant, not the cost of an operating system to drive it.

This same transformation will cut across the whole of the IT commodity monitoring and support functions with SaaS service and support tools and open source monitoring tools that have been on the market for quite some time and proven stable.  If you aren’t leveraging it, I guarantee your competition is using it.  It’s time for IT transformation and re-thinking that which is commodity and that which drives and differentiates your business.

Have you stopped paying the Big Boys the taxes to monitor your command center yet?

Michele

___________________

Vendors of proprietary software are fond of warning potential customers that open source software isn’t ready for business, typically citing subpar features or a higher total cost of ownership (TCO).  (Read Full Article…)

Forrester: SaaS Won’t Succeed with Some Apps – CIO

Tags: Business Service Management, CIO, Forrester, IT Management, SaaS, Service Providers


The Hub Commentary

SaaS as the article describes is followed with a ton of hype in these days of the cloud and transformation to business service management versus the commodity at the lower level.  The short term cost appeal with the subscription model and ease at which you can subscribe generates a lot of the hype.  I believe in the model and again always suggest first going back to basics and identify your services and classify them giving you a sense of what you need to service and support.

Once you understand the value of a service to your business, you can start evaluating whether it is a commodity process or specialized, market differentiators for your business.  Specialized services do not lend themselves well to these types of models.  Well defined and common services/process es are well suited for these models and should be used for that purpose.  In fact, they should be employed to drive standards into your organization and right size your service and support, which is hard to do from the inside once high levels of service have been delivered.

Another factor to consider is not all software was developed to be effectively used in a shared model and may not offer the economies of scale that a true shared service can offer.  As the folks at Forrester indicate, the commodity management, monitoring and lower in the stack items are well suited for this model as they should be standardized and common so your valuable resources can focus on driving business growth with technology over monitoring “box on / box off” lights.

Michele

___________________

Given all the hype SaaS (software as a service) has garnered, you might be inclined to think every category of software will be delivered predominantly from the cloud at some point. Not so, says a new Forrester Research report.  (Read Full Article…)

More On Cloud Middleware – SaaSBlogs

Tags: Business Service Management, Integration, IT Management, SaaS, SaaSBlogs, Service Providers


The Hub Commentary_

I feel like changing things up here in Business Service Management land today.  This blog caught my attention as it describes the leap of going from an independent software vendor (ISV) to a SaaS offering.  It has challenges in how the software is architected so that it can then later be hosted and ultimately used by many customers in a single, multi-tenant environment to take full advantage of the economies of scale.  The fact is most are run in dedicated environments to short cut this challenge.

The piece I find curious and would debate is why should an ISV turn into the service provider?  I would be highly speculative of these situations as most lack the experience to make that leap to manage a data center.  Best to partner with a hosting provider with th expertise in managing and running software and stick to what you know best – the application.

Now relating this back to the topic of Business Service Management, the application needs to be instrumented or as I call it, service enabled.  Data needs to be sent to the monitoring and management technology to provide basic health and availability and thus the need for that middleware testing the performance of the hosting provider as well as application performance data.  The cloud and service provider models bring great agility, but all point to the requirement for an integration platform to provide that end-to-end service view.

How are you measuring your service providers?

Michele

___________________

Sinclair’s recent post Cloud Middleware: The Language Shared by Network Engineers and Developers posits that the cloud space has seemingly maintained a bias towards infrastructure offerings (IaaS) and is now at an “inflection point” where a common layer – the cloud middleware layer – will be required by developers and network managers alike to, as Jeff Kaplan puts it: Bridge the Great Divide in Cloud Computing.  I’d like to expand on this theme.   (Read Full Article…)

IT Service Management Good Starting Point for SaaS – CIO

Tags: Business Service Management, CIO, Cloud, Integration, ITSM, SaaS, Service Level


The Hub Commentary ___

In a previous post (Accidental Cloud Leaders – Stealth Cloud Followers – Which Cloud is your IT On?) I wrote about these practices and cited a couple of industry articles.   My advice has always been that you outsource the commodity, why do in-house what everyone else has to do as well?  Why re-invent the wheel, accept a process and tool set that works for the rest of the world.

Focus on that which is unique to your business and is the value add to drive growth.  Unique and custom are seldom good candidates for outsourcing unless you are outsourcing the whole of your IT function and have a service provider also developing your value add innovations in the market.

This will bring a shift in the roles and skill sets in the data center as we know it today.  Service providers managing services with business savvy.  There will be requirements to focus on monitoring and managing the vendors and the requirement for an integration platform that brings the picture together as an end-to-end service regardless of where it is operating.

By all means, embrace the Cloud and as-a-Service providers for the commodity.  Learn how you will monitor and manage it on the commodity.  Apply those learning for the move to the more dynamic IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) to provide agility and on-demand capacity to your mission critical services.

Michele

______________________

Companies looking to go down the SaaS route will find that IT service management is a good starting point says Ovum.  (read full article…)