Growing Interest in #CloudComputing Calls for New IT Governance Tools. People Just Beginning to Wake Up.

EMC announced their new cloud service recently; buried within the announcement, was this quote:

...a field of growing importance in enterprise computing circles as businesses try to set and enforce limits on who can access the cloud, and what they can put there. (via gigaom.com)

The service catalog is a central tool for providing those controls to IT. Here's how it works at newScale:

1. We have defined standard configurations in the service catalog,
2. We provide guides that help the user choose the best path, such as "Intranet server," "Sharepoint set up," or "Small Linux test servers".
3. Wizards then assist the requester to ensure the proper workload goes to the proper option. For example, certain workloads require privacy considerations so they automatically stay in the private cloud.
4. Configurators assist the user in making changes to their environment without deviating from the standard.  Think like a Burger King Whopper can be requested with extra pickle, or no onion.  The configurator also prevents mistakes.

This is but the tip of the self-service iceberg.  There's a lot more I'll share at another time. Regardless, the private cloud will require this kind of actionable service catalog. 

No catalog. No cloud.

Comments

[Cary King]

A new governance tool is necessary to control what already should be controlled?

Management discipline, Service Request Management and standardized work order bundles to deliver consistently through a service fulfillment process would seem to cure this problem quickly.

We always recommend that Standard Changes and Service Requests be handled in a Service Catalog.

But, a whole new tool? Really?