OK. I hate open letters. I hate the faux header, footer, salutation, etc..
But, if I were of the wont to create such a thing, this is the closest I have come. I saw a tweet which pointed me to this article headlined:
Microsoft's Ballmer: 'Come on in, the cloud's lovely - just don't forget to retrain'THIS MAKES ME CRAZY!
This is how Cloud Computing can fail in the enterprise (which is where Microsoft lives these days, they are not a darling of the Web 2.0 crowd).
I run into this "meme" plenty enough in the cloud circles - so it isn't Steve Ballmer alone.
And it isn't his fault I am limit up on this concept, but the message of "Hi, we are new, we are different, and in order to use us you have to re-architect, re-configure, re-learn everything!" is a pretty rotten message AND IT IS NOT TRUE!
One of the things that is so great about cloud is that super smart people have spent hundreds of millions of $$$ (billions?) at this point (thanks AWS, IBM, et. al.) so that I can un-learn a lot of things.
That is much better then re-training. I would love to have more things to forget. But so far I am happy forgetting how to manage datacenter hardware for one big category of cost savings.
Another great thing about cloud is that it runs x86 workloads. And you know what? My enterprise is full of those darn x86 workloads. And to make it even better, those x86 workloads don't need to be infinitely scalable, they don't need to run as formalized SaaS, they don't need to run as PaaS. They are "POA" - plain old applications. And I just need them to run somewhere. Hey - cloud is somewhere. Can't I use that?
Back to "plain old apps". If I have to re-learn, re-train on everything what is the point? First of all, why would I re-learn, retrain to use MSFT technologies in the cloud? If I am going to re-learn, re-train why don't I learn Linux, or the Oracle stack, or SalesForce and Force.com, or Google AppEngine for that matter.
However, if I just want my x86 Windows workloads to run - do I have to re-train to use the cloud? If I am a Microsoft Partner do I really need to re-learn and re-train just to move my products or services to the cloud? Blechh.
Questions:
1) Can't I just move my Windows servers in some relatively easy way shape or form to "the cloud" and get going?
2) Do I have to boil the ocean and move whole datacenters at a time?
3) Can't I get value and ROI on my investment one business application at a time, with only incremental training activities (say maybe way less training investment then understanding migrating from Windows Server 2008 R1 SP2 to Windows Server 2008 R2)?
Answers:
1) YES
2) NO
3) YES
if the cloud you use is the IBM SmartCloud Enterprise or Amazon EC2 (along with others).
This is what is so confounding about the re-learn, re-train, re-do everything mantra. Amazon EC2 runs
Windows 2003 and Windows 2008 quite nicely. IBM SmartCloud runs
Windows 2003 and Windows 2008 quite nicely.
So let's recap.
- I have zillion dollar data centers with more guards, guns, gas (halon), glass and metal than I can imagine, run by dedicated teams monitoring 24x7 at the hardware and virtual infrastructure layer.
- I have a web portal that allows me to, oh gosh, "START" and "STOP" and "REBOOT" Windows Servers. Degree of difficulty about that of learning how to check out books at your library.
- I have cheap and cheerful ways of connecting those cloud images to my data center as if they were just another LAN, using common industry equipment that my network admins use every day.
- At this point, (without learning anything about the almost immediate ROI I get out of quite simple yet powerful offerings from the likes of CohesiveFT, RightScale or Enstratus), I have Windows Servers up and running in the cloud but behaving as if "on my network", ready to use whatever automation, monitoring, naming, identity, authentication that I use in my datacenter today.
Where was the re-learning in that?
Re-learning, Re-training, Re-Doing means RE-SPENDING!!!
Do
not
do
that.
Are there things to learn? Of course there are. Cloud automation solutions for image automation, topology automation, network virtualization, backup, recovery, IDS, etc. are all available at TOPOLOGY PRICING not enterprise pricing.
This is super. Migrate. Evolve. Learn (not re-learn). Get quick ROI on simple, clear and immediate wins. Scale as appropriate over the next decade.
You are in the midst of the largest IT migration since the Y2k, but there is no forced end date.
From early 2007 to today, cloud quality and reliability has skyrocketed, prices have dropped, vendors have shaken out, investment has grown, 10s of thousands of successes have been had. This path and pace will continue and you get to decide what to move, and when.
The hoopla of "Infrastructure as a Service" (the part of Cloud CohesiveFT focuses on) is deserved:
- improved time to market
- improved automation
- ROI at the application level
- incremental value
- etc..
But at the end of the day these are x86 computers that we collectively install software on and run. Broadly the same, whilst rewardingly different in subtle, incremental ways.
Please try to learn that first.
(Cheers - Pat K)