Integration has always been an information technology issue, since the days when software applications were islands of isolation and there was no such thing as the USB, or mobile computing and communications devices. Things have changed, but although integration is now less of a problem than it used to be in some ways, in others it is even more of a challenge., says FSN contributing editor, Lesley Meall.
So, whilst myriad technology companies and service providers are (disingenuously) positioning the cloud computing as the cure for all ills, it is actually creating at least as many integration issues as some of its architectural ancestors.
‘Cloud computing is driving unprecedented data volumes and fragmentation challenges,’ says analyst Brad Whitt of Gleacher & Co, and he’s not alone in noticing this. Corporates, public sector bodies, and even the smallest businesses in the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) category are all accumulating growing amounts of data, at multiple (logical and physical) locations inside and outside the cloud. This is, as Whitt observes, ‘driving data integration and data quality up the IT priority list,’ as organisations struggle to gain control.
Software developers are doing their bit to ease communications between applications inside and outside the cloud, with APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), connectors, and a growing range of integration tools (which FSN covered here and here). But as cloud computing becomes increasingly diverse, and more workers bring more of their personal mobile devices into the workplace, all sorts of new challenges are emerging, and sometimes, they’re closely followed by solutions – which is fortunate, because things are changing so fast that just keeping on top of the possibilities can be as demanding as exploiting them.
Not long ago, cloud zealots were insisting that public clouds would be the death of the data centre, but this now looks unlikely. As finance professionals probably always suspected, many organisations want to retain control over their sensitive and valuable corporate data (in the finance function and beyond), so private clouds are proving a big growth area, with some organisations building and running their own and others opting for hosted solutions. But even organisations that want to keep their Crown Jewels behind a brick wall and a firewall, still want to exploit the flexibility of the cloud – hence the hybrid.
Combined or integrated?
There is some debate about what does and does not constitute a hybrid cloud (and the internet is awash with definitions), but even if we ignore the semantics, questions remain about whether or not the public and private clouds that comprise these hybrids are merely combined or truly integrated, and what the implications of this are for those using or planning to use them. The Intercontinental Hotel Group (IHG) has dealt with many of these issues by building its private cloud in a way that makes it easier to connect to public cloud services, if and when it wants to.
IHG’s private cloud uses open source APIs (from Eucalyptus Systems) and virtualisation software (from VMware), both of which offer compatibility with the public cloud services provided by Amazon EC2 and Verizon vCloud (both of which IHG uses). So an internal call for a VM server or cloud storage, for example, won’t need to be changed if IHG decides to deploy the same application in one of these public clouds. ‘It was critical we have the integration that this will allow us to obtain,’ says Bates Turpen, senior VP, technical operations, IHG.
Not all organisations are in a position (or have the foresight) to plan ahead in this way, but as hybrid clouds gain traction, new products and services are being developed to help businesses migrate to and manage these mixed environments. IHG had the support of the VMware vCloud Director, but more open tools are also emerging, such as the recently launched CloudForms, from the open source veteran Red Hat. Products such as this can help to eliminate the lock-in of some cloud products, and make it easier and less costly to migrate from physical to virtual servers – and better utilise legacy IT.
CloudForms offers the ability to create hybrid clouds using existing computing resources, including:
- Virtual servers, from many different vendors (such as Red Hat and VMware);
- A broad range of public clouds, from Red Hat certified cloud providers such as Amazon, IBM and NTT Communications;
- Traditional in-house or hosted physical servers, including high-density racks and blades.
‘This level of choice and portability is unique to open source solutions,’ asserts Scott Crenshaw, VP and general manager, for cloud business at Red Hat. More importantly, as he adds: ‘It gives users an easier way to build hybrid clouds and manage what they really care about: applications.’ With CloudForms, applications can be deployed and managed on any type of server: physical, virtual and public cloud. ‘This is different to cloud products from virtualisation-only vendors, which focus on managing virtual machines, not applications,’ he explains, and which can create complexity and costs.
Mobile mayhem
Of course, the need to manage and maintain connectivity and integration (between applications and the data they are linked to) does not just create complexity and costs as a consequence of the planned and deliberate actions of enterprises. The democratisation of technology means that organisations face an uncontrolled (and often unwelcome) increase in the presence of personal mobile devices in the enterprise, and this raises all sorts of thorny IT management issues in areas ranging from data fragmentation and governance to security and support.
Some organisations have dealt with the problem (so far) by limiting the links between personally owned mobile devices and the corporate system – or relying on employees to do this themsleves. At the professional services firm Crowe Clark Whitehill, for example, although personal devices are not supported, the accountant Steve Livingston uses his personal iPad as his ‘personal office’, and takes it into numerous corporate scenarios with him – whilst being scrupulous about the way that data moves on and off the corporate system.
‘I import my PowerPoint presentations into it,’ he explains, because he likes to carry some generic presentations around to show clients, and because the apps he can access from his iPad make it much easeir for him to ‘tweak’ his presentations than it would be on the corporate system. ‘Initially, I saw the iPad as just a consumption device, but I am using it more and more for productivity,’ he reports, ‘although I don’t put sensitive corporate data onto it.’ If he needs to transfer material from his iPad to the coroporate system he emails himself, then processes it as usual.
This is very responsible of him – but it’s also (arguably) a waste of his time and the resources that he could access from his iPad (or any other tablet device or smart phone), if it were easier for IT departments to control and manage integration with the corporate system. Many organisations have already taken steps to do this. When Forrester Research asked enterprises in North America and Western Europe about their policy during 2010, more than 50 per cent said that they were already providing support for some personally-owned devices including iPads and smart phones.
The research found more than half of enterprises already supporting more than two mobile platforms, with 29 per cent supporting three or more. This diversification in mobile platforms is unlikely to become less of an issue: although Android is expected to overtake the iPhone as the commonest consumer and commercial mobile platform during 2011, Windows Mobile won’t be far behind it, and neither one is expected to become dominant. Some of the related issues may be easier to handle when HTML5 is more prevalent (as FSN covered here); meanwhile, organisations that want to control the influx of personal devices need ‘mobile device agnostic’ management tools.
Economies of scale
They may also want to opt for web-based systems that provide centralised controls. ‘You need to manage mobile devices and you can’t do this one device at a time,’ says Chenxi Wang, principal analyst at Forrester Research. ‘If you have more than 50 mobile devices, it is time to think about a mobile device management system that would give you the scale and automation you would need to support them, as you did with desktops,’ she suggests, and where possible, to minimise the impact on resources by using an integrated management system.
All singing all dancing enterprise communications and lifecycle management solutions are not cheap. So many organisations use a mixture of legacy and emerging applications – and although the latter have necessarily trailed behind the influx of personal devices into the enterprise, they are becoming easier to find (if not afford). They already range from enterprise content and mobile device management solutions, through end-point security solutions, to telecoms expense management systems; then there are virtualisation systems, that will help enterprises to both manage personal mobile devices and exploit their employees willingness to buy them.
‘At the moment a lot of enterprises have to compromise on the security and liability concerns raised by the employee-owned devices that people bring to work,’ says Hoofar Razavi, director, product management, with the virtualisation specialist VMware. Enterprises also have to waste a lot of money providing corporate smart phones for employees who carry multiple mobile devices around with them because they can’t bear to be parted from their personal smart phone or tablet. So VMware has developed its Mobile Virtualisation Platform.
This enables enterprises to partition an employee-owned smart phone, so that personal and corporate platforms sit side by side but run in isolation: an app on your smart phone will simply switch your phone into ‘work phone’ mode (and you can learn more about how here). ‘Workers will be able to use any device they choose,’ says Razavi, and exploit the associated features, whilst employers will have the means to safely allow them to access the office network, which will be good news for corporate data – even if it won’t bring back personal data such as contacts and photographs if your beloved goes walkabout.
