Value Team– 2010 - P0

Value Team as enabler of the

“cloud” ecosystem

March 2011
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P1

Summary

•  Organizations are facing extensive and radical changes in the

competitive landscape: new players coming out of nowhere,
international turmoil, rising costs of raw materials, energy and
labour, limited access to qualified knowledge workers and an
ever accelerating pace of technological innovation

•  In this environment, managing change has become the key

challenge: staying on track, supporting effectively the strategic •  Value
Team, with its competences,
business objectives and at the same time keeping operating methodologies and experiences, helps
costs under control customers in exploiting the full potential
of Cloud Computing, by serving the market
•  On the ICT front, CTOs and CIOs must be able to provide their
organisations with an expanding set of solutions, thus making
as a Cloud Services Enabler
effective orchestration of ICT resources the key success factor
•  Value
Team supports organisations in
•  Cloud Computing can provide a substantial help in reaching implementing an effective “cloud
this goal, but as a possible “disruptive” technology it might also governance”, by evaluating the
add further uncertainty to the picture opportunities and risks of adopting Cloud
•  ICT governance, in this relatively new paradigm, is a question of
Computing, and addressing themes such
balancing the competitive cost of not using the cloud, against as quality of service as well as data and
the risks of actually using it infrastructure security

1
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P2

• Cloud Computing: an overview

• Value Team vision of Cloud Computing
• Value Team approach to Cloud Computing
• Attachments

2
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P3

An overview of Cloud Computing: a definition

? “Cloud” what?

Cloud Computing is a model that enables on-demand access to a pool of resources (e.g., network, server, storage,
application, services) which can be easily provisioned or decommissioned on a “per-use” criterion

1.  Self-provisioning and configuration of services

2.  Seamless access via network
3.  Virtualisation of shared resources
4.  Measurability of provided level of service
5.  Elastic provisioning and decommissioning of resources

3
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P4

An overview of Cloud Computing: drivers and enabling factors

Drivers Enabling factors

- Competitive pressure demanding for: - Technological advances in computing power (CPU), storage
-  Shorter Time-to-Market for new service activation and support to size at constant costs, network and routers speed (from 10
new business initiatives Mbps in 1996 to 100GbE in 2011)
-  Reduction of overall and variable IT costs in line with the
evolution of business
- Virtualization technologies for the "elastic” management of
-  Operational flexibility of applications and supporting IT systems,
activity, size and delivery of ICT resources
even for temporary needs, such as marketing campaigns to be
run "one-off“
-  Leverage of all the information available about the customers and
- Pervasive broadband connectivity
processing of huge data sets, even on a sporadic basis, for
market / customer intelligence
- The “Hyper-connected Consumer”: - Standardization of application frameworks
-  About 2 billion people using regularly the Internet and 5 billion
phones active, while 600 million consumer devices are connected
wirelessly - Previous investments in SOA
-  Mobile devices with high computing capacity, good visualization
and easy interaction
-  "Blend" between of the consumer and enterprise contexts

4
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P5

An overview of Cloud Computing: status and trends

Cloud adoption Market forecast in Italy

across sectors

- Rentokil Initial (Facility Management)

•  e-mail migrated to “Google Mail”
•  20,000 employees + 15,000 staff online
•  -70% in email expenditure Y.o.Y.

- Aviva (Insurance)
•  Cloud of Enterprise Content Management & BI on Microsoft SharePoint
(Azure)

- Universal Music (Consumer services)

•  e-commerce of “Venda”, a retail shop online serving all of Europe

- City of Los Angeles (Government)

•  Adoption of “Google Apps” for document production and management. (e.g.
Personal productivity, archive...)
•  34,000 employees

- Netflix (rent-by-mail / streaming video)

•  All platform has been moved to Amazon (AWS)
•  16 million registered users
•  Hosting 100,000+ DVD titles

Source: Press – Value Team elaboration Source: Net Consulting *Does not include Virtualization

5

Cloud Computing can tackle both tactical and strategic goals
STRUCTURAL
Business innovation
ADVANTAGE
Extend boundary of operational
capabilities
Ensure service levels of variable
load environments like portals,
customer interaction channels
SPECIFIC
(project, function,
process) “Test-drive" new business
processes with no investment in
ICT resources (OPEX only)
Provide extra capacity to
applications undergoing
performance optimization
Point solutions
OPPORTUNISTIC
SCOPE
Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P6
Transformation
"Mash-up" internal capabilities and
external services to meet and
anticipate business demand
Redefine model for IT cost
allocation
ENTERPRISE-WIDE
Offload IT of evolution and
maintenance of environments like
mail, DM/KM
Replatform obsolete legacy
environments
Rationalisation
6
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P7

Cloud Computing intended as “computing as a utility” has the potential to

reconcile the needs of both Business and ICT

or

Optimise operations

•  Reduce ICT costs

•  Mitigate operational risks
•  Assign ICT costs
Enhance business •  Manage load balance

•  Experiment new solutions/opportunities Can the •  Guarantee security level

• 

• 
Support and provision new initiatives
Open new markets and sales channels
“cloud” be the
•  Overcome ICT rigidity answer?
•  Satisfy in real-time customers’ needs

7
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P8

• Cloud Computing: an overview

• Value Team vision of Cloud Computing
• Value Team approach to Cloud Computing
• Attachments

8
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P9

Our mission: being the Cloud Computing enabler

Cloud Computing offering Services Market
aggregation

Business Users
NEEDS

SOLUTIONS

Cloud Services
“Pure” cloud providers (AWS, Rackspace etc.), Telco
operators, Hosting providers etc. •  Value Team is positioning and proposing itself to the market as a player
ICT Services and Platforms:
that enables the aggregation of different models around the "cloud”

Various vendors (e.g. ERP, CRM, BSS, OSS etc.) •  Value Team puts together the necessary skills to understand business
processes, applications and resources in the ecosystem where they were
SLA platforms and
Brokering platforms conceived and developed and is able to build solutions configured to
Few Innovators (Brokerage service providers) support the needs of customers
New products from established vendors
(EMC, VMWare, HP, IBM,...)

9
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P10

Can the “cloud” be the answer?

? Yes, managing SLA

Translate business SLAs into strategies for the usage of ICT resources

Implement governance tools that map strategies as rules

Provide governance tools with feedbacks on health status of ICT resources

Manage elastically the allocation/release of ICT industrial elements

SLA-DRIVEN ICT RESOURCES ORCHESTRATION

Fulfill the requests for delivery of services in accordance to business SLAs by managing
internal and external ICT resources dynamically

10
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P11

Implementing the delivery model of “cloud” requires to govern

a complex ecosystem

External context

Enterprise

Business Connection of
Business
requirements
Business SLA
Governance of to ICT
ICT systems
ICT
Security
Fine-tuning of
technical SLA
Application Performance
Monitoring
with respect to
Application business SLA

Intercloud SLA Broker

Platform

vComputing
Management & Control External
vNetwork Peak overflow ICT
resources
vStorage
Adaptable Automation

Governance - Provisioning / de-commissioning) of the ICT industrial elements

which allow the deployment of services (service factory)

11
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P12

The role of SLA Management tools in the Cloud Computing

scenario
Business
Consulting and system
Business processes integration players like
Business rules Value Team
Tiered service quality

SLA Management •  SLA Management tools keep

service and process aggregation
aligned with the ICT “factory”

Cockpit/Dashboard Rule engine •  Service quality metrics and

traditional business
requirements are coded into
rules that define how virtualised
ICT resources are used to
deliver required service at
optimal “cost”
Mail/DM
CRM

ERP

...

Oracle, SAP, Microsoft,...

IT Applications Virtualisation

ICT Infrastructure (“metal”) VMWare, Xen,...

Public cloud providers

IBM, EMC, Cisco, Oracle,...

Amazon, Google, Rackspace ...

12
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P13

Service Level management in the cloud context can be cut

across the different layers of the ICT system

SLA anywhere

- Governance of SLA in the cloud means to

be able to discriminate among different
systems and different use of applications

- Governance processes and solutions deliver

direct feedback on the state of health of
services, guarantee the security of the
environment, provide visibility of critical
components, and deliver effectiveness in
respecting Service Levels (Security,
Management & Control, Application
Performance Monitoring, Adaptable
Automation)

- SLA Compliance is ensured between

business KPIs and ICT services/resources
(e.g., Intercloud SLA Broker, Peak Overload,
Dynamic Work Load Management, etc.)

13
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P14

Example: SaaS with (real) SLA

SLA for Software as a Service

Channel for higher margin SaaS

solutions to customers with guaranteed
business SLAs
- automated multi-tenant elastic
management
- offer higher SLA for higher margin
service
- 'throttle' resources to 'just' satisfy “Sense” automatically
SLA to customer (saves cost) provisions (and releases)
appropriate resources to
SaaS tenants

Source: Sensible Cloud with Value Team elaboration

14
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P15

Example: Peak Load Buffer

Peak Load

High value business application must

automatically cater for planned and
unplanned peak activity many times
above usual load….
- reduce in-house footprint while
maintaining level of service
- automate load provisioning and
transfer Sense detects peaks and
acquires (or releases)
- business intelligent load additional resources as
balancing (across hybrid cloud) needed

Server farm

Source: Sensible Cloud with Value Team elaboration

15
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P16

Example: Virtualisation Management

Virtualisation SLA Manager “Sense”

monitors and manages
Assuming that Virtualization strategy hybrid virtualisation and
cloud resources based on
has been selected and implementation SLA target
started, SLA management is key to
manage the park of virtual resources to
match business application needs and
objectives, for example:
-  increase 'overbooking
algorithm’ (number of VMs per
server)
-  prioritise high value services for
preferred VM allocation
-  manage down energy use more
quickly
-  increase resiliency of business
critical applications

Source: Sensible Cloud with Value Team elaboration

16
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P17

• Cloud Computing: an overview

• Value Team vision of Cloud Computing
• Value Team approach to Cloud Computing
• Attachments

17

Our Approach is based on three “pillars”
Consulting
Design
Component Plan the adoption of the
Cloud Computing
paradigm
Goals Build the business case for
Cloud Computing adoption
and define the optimal
strategy to capture the
opportunities offered by the
new paradigm:
-  Select areas of higher
potential return
-  Identify prerequisites and
constraints
-  Detect and mitigate risks
-  Estimate required effort
and investments
-  Prioritise actions
-  Define roadmap of
initiatives
-  Select reference
technologies and vendors
Solution Delivery
Build
Put in place processes
and tools for Cloud
Computing governance
Introduce governance
criteria and tools that allow
to maximise benefits and
control the impact of Cloud
Computing in the enterprise
context:
-  Guarantee service levels
-  Keep service levels
aligned to business KPIs
-  Coordinate and optimise
consumption of cloud
services
-  Manage attribution of IT
service costs to business
units
Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P18
Run
Support business with
cloud-based solutions
Leverage the SaaS solution
delivery paradigm to
support more effectively
emerging business needs:
-  Implement quickly
application solutions for
new business models and
processes
-  Reduce solution cost
-  Move solution costs from
CAPEX to OPEX
-  Make solution cost variable
with business volume and
operational requirements
18
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P19

The goal of the first “pillar” is to define the strategy and

roadmap for the adoption of Cloud Computing
Design
Component
Plan the adoption of the
Cloud Computing paradigm

Activities -  Perform a quick assessment of the enterprise ICT scenario in terms of infrastructure, platforms and applications
-  Identify business goals and needs – possibly also tactical, short-term ones – that can be addressed by a “cloud”
approach (e.g., cut ICT costs, quick start-up of application solutions supporting new processes and organization units,
interim provision of extra computing capacity for critical projects or customer interaction environments such as web sites/
portals)
-  Analyse technical and infrastructure requirements, constraints (e.g. operational, organisation, regulatory) and risks
-  Identify infrastructure and application environments that can be migrated or started in a “cloud” logic, define the required
architectural changes and evaluate the relevant effort
-  Build the business case and define priorities for actions
-  Define the roadmap of initiatives for Cloud Computing adoption

Methodologies Tool Description Deliverables Rationale

Checklists Checklists are a key component of the - Specialised checklists for different -  IT vs. Business
interview guidelines used by VT staff to areas (e.g., Security, alignment
assess customer needs and propose Infrastructure, applications, -  Effective and easy-
prioritisation of budget allocation to business etc.) to-use tool
areas with higher opportunities for - Centralised feedbacks
adoption - Inputs for “service
solutions” (service KPIs)

19
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P20

Value Team has developed cross-sector and sector-specific

frameworks for “Cloud Readiness” assessment EXAMPLE

Opportunities Constraints Risks Facilitators

Core and CRM •  Manage “tactical” high-
systems volume campaigns
•  Support the launch of new
products and services
•  Start-up new sales networks
•  Complex process and •  Confidentiality of sales
application integration information
•  Customisation of packaged
software

Support systems •  Prepare adoption of BPO •  Auditability •  Vendor lock-in •  Outsourcing already in place
(e.g., HR) •  Management of personal data

Horizontal systems •  Functional richness of •  Perception of security of •  Service availability

(e.g., mail, document services sensitive data and
and knowledge •  Quick technological update information
management) with no effort and impact •  Regulations on location of
stored data
Portals, •  Manage effectively peak •  Adoption of new platforms
multichannel loads and methodologies for
customer software development
interaction

ICT infrastructures •  Share investments among •  Technological inhomogeneity •  Redesign of business

different business contexts
and platforms
and processes
•  Manage IT cost accounting
more effectively
•  Legacy architectures and continuity criteria
platforms
•  “Disposal” of existing
infrastructure assets

20
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P21

The second “pillar” aims at implementing the governance tools

supporting the Cloud Computing environment
Build

Component Put in place processes

and tools for Cloud
Computing governance

Activities -  Define the service levels to be guaranteed depending on the business requirements and the expected impacts of
service quality disruption
-  Analyse risk factors and define criteria for their mitigation
-  Define criteria and rules that allow to meet and sustain required service levels also in case of transient or anomalous
conditions (e.g. activation of an additional service/provider to deal with peak loads or faults)
-  Integrate, configure and deploy cloud governance tools (such as Sensible Cloud’s) to implement the rules in the
operational IT environment, ensuring service performance, continuity and measurement
-  Define guidelines for the contractual agreements with the technology vendors and service providers
-  Define IT process and organization changes

Methodologies Tool Description Deliverables Rationale

Solution Mock-Up In the mock-up, the service logic
is simulated on a demo
environment (e.g., AWS or Value
Team) using customer rules and
fictitious data
- Identification of impacts on
SLA management
-  Explore capabilities on a sample
process, before the actual target
process is selected
-  Zero impact on the customer IT
systems

PoC The PoC is the tool by which the
(proof of concept) customer can have a “first
hand” experience of Cloud
Computing. An environment is
built with real customer data e.g.
on a test environment
- Improvement of the
customer process by
optimisation of the “active”
SLA management logic
-  Address an issue with “in-house”
capabilities (e.g., managing peak
loads on a web portal)
-  Identify possible impacts on IT
systems

21
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P22

The third “pillar” aims at supporting the business by means of

SaaS applications
Run
Component
Support business with
cloud-based solutions

Activities -  Identify the target application areas by taking into account:

1.  Mapping of present application portfolio to current and emerging business needs
2.  Business relevance, potential impacts, implementation issues and constraints
3.  Economics and issues of large-scale in-house application management and delivery (e.g. size and skills of
supporting staff, need for scarce competencies)
4.  Readiness and maturity of SaaS market offering
-  Test the SaaS delivery model on a subset of application users and data
-  Plan and execute application migration or start-up

Value Team has built and is expanding its own portfolio of SaaS solutions, that currently includes:

- Cross-industry solutions: - Industry-specific solutions:

1.  Workforce Management and Field 1.  VTPie – Payment/Core Banking
Force Management
2.  VTDocs – Document Management
3.  Identity & Access Management

22
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P23

Value Team SaaS portfolio: Workforce Management (WFM)

solution

WFM is a modular, flexible and scalable solution for planning and control of the activities of staff working on shifts, for
instance the agents in a Call/Contact Centre. The solution ensures a broad support for Italian regulations, laws and
standard contracts

Functions Plan resource

Anticipate needs Manage shifts Analyse and monitor
allocation

Modules Planning, Time Tracking,

Forecasting
Scheduling Management Monitoring

Objectives Analyse prospective Plan activities and Perform a precise React quickly and
needs and define actions, on the basis evaluation of the effectively to any
accordingly the of the actual availability working time of change with respect to
required number of of resources resources forecast
staff and their skills

Who What How much Actual vs. planned

23
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P24

Value Team SaaS portfolio: Workforce Management (WFM)

solution functional map

Functions
Plan resource
Anticipate needs Manage shifts Analyse and monitor
allocation

Modules Planning, Time Tracking,

Forecasting
Scheduling Management Monitoring

Functional WFM
blocks Forecasting Schedulers Interactive Attendance Record
Skill-based Data Reporting

Traffic trend analysis Training Planner Real-time Processing

Adherence Monitoring
Working Time
What-if analysis Messaging
Management

Common storage

24
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P25

Value Team SaaS portfolio: the VTPie solution

With VTPie, Value Team delivers a complete set of modules that allow banks to address both
compliance to standard guidelines and competitive differentiation of their offering, by
implementing value added services (VAS) for their customers

Technological & business drivers Value proposition

Alignment to new •  Built-in scalability to cope with the

•  Ability to manage high volumes of
international evolution of the market
multi-channel transactions
standards in terms of •  Flexibility to support different
•  Full integration with legacy systems
process, payment organizational models
•  Re-use of the customer’s existing
instruments and •  End-to-end solution tracking the
Market demand

service components
regulations whole payments process

•  Support different types of payments/ •  Business requirements (AOS*)

collections as an integrated platform
Re-definition of the
•  Flexibility of the process engine to
offering model in
minimize the need of writing code to
upcoming competitive
implement new features
contexts
•  Low OPEX due to adoption of
commodity technologies
implemented via a process library
•  Innovative payments (mobile, pre-
paid credit cards, etc.)
•  Integration with organizational
processes (e-invoicing, financial
value chain, etc.)
*Additional Optional Services

25
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P26

Value Team SaaS portfolio: VTPie Payments Platform

Payments Wallet & Mobile

Contains a set of innovative
Multicurrency Credit transfer payment tools: management
Ensures integrated and of payment accounts, P2P
consistent processing of payments, micro-payments, etc.
domestic, SEPA and
international bank transfers
within a single application VTPie End-to-End Tracking
Stores payment information in a
single repository that keeps track
Advanced Direct Debit of all orders sent and received:
Module that supports the the database contains all events
processing of direct debits, both of the payment lifecycle, from the
receivable and payable initial input or reception by the
network to subsequent events
likeposting, automatic and/or
manual processing, channeling,
Access Bridge settlement and debit/credit to the
Satisfies the need to interface customerʼs account.
one’s back-end systems with This allows identification of the
external systems and Networks events associated with the
various stages of the
transactions, ensuring
Clearing & Settlement HUB compliance with PSD
Manages transactions with other
banks efficiently and
consistently, supporting the
Kernel
choice of exchange and
- transactional engine
settlement channels for outgoing
- Workflow management
payments
- SOA repository
- integration adapters

26
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P27

• Cloud Computing: an overview

• Value Team vision of Cloud Computing
• Value Team approach to Cloud Computing
• Attachments

27
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P28

sense™ - overview architecture

28
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P29

Supported virtual and cloud IaaS environments

29
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P30

sense console - 'SLA health' cloud map

30
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P31

Example: Balance across VM technologies

Balance across VM’s

Apply business policy to

balance load across multi-vendor
virtualization and cloud installations
-  avoid vendor lock-in
-  cost/performance quality of service
drives cloud use
-  use existing VM technologies too
(Sun, HP, IBM, etc)

“Sense” uses business

rules to dynamically
balance between and
across VM’s (& cloud
providers)

Source: Sensible Cloud with Value Team elaboration

31
 Value Team – Cloud Computing March 2011 - P32

Key security issues in the Cloud Computing context

Issues Areas to address

•  Sensitive data assessment and

•  Access management in mixed public/
privilege definition
private model
•  Mission critical data segregation and
•  Identity provisioning and user lifecycle
protection (on-premise)
management
•  Business Continuity plan revision to
•  Data privacy compliance (Data
address RTO and RPO SLA
Protection Directive 95/46/EC)
•  Identity and Access management
•  Business Continuity and Disaster
platform and solution integration in
Recovery posture
mixed on-premise/cloud models

32