One Chapter Ends

Three and a half years ago, I had joined a new start-up called Cassatt. At the time, I was working in the Java Web Services group at Sun when I got the call from Cassatt's recruiter. I wasn't closely following Cassatt back then, but it was on my radar. In late 2003, I remember reading about Bill Coleman's departure from BEA to form a new enterprise software start-up. And then in April 2004, Rich Green left Sun to join Cassatt. When I joined Cassatt, I didn't fully understand what Cassatt was trying to do, but I knew it was developing some cool, transformational technology. Bill has this saying "Go big or stay home." Well, I don't ever remember staying home during my time at Cassatt.

When I joined in October 2004, we had just started developing the Collage 3.0 product release, with the codename "Armstrong." The longer codename was "Armstrong, the moon guy, not the bike guy." That was one of the years Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France, but the release was named after Neil Armstrong. After shipping Collage 3.0 in February 2005, we took that one small step and firmly planted our flag in the sea of utility computing. (Remember, it's a moon metaphor.)

Over the next 15 months, we released three more versions of Collage. In January 2006, Collage 3.2 "Apollo" introduced support for Solaris. In April 2006, we shipped Collage 3.3 "Spyglass" which introduced support for managing virtual machines. Along the way, we ended our era of space-flight codenames and started a new era of famous golf courses. Okay, you can aim for the stars, but as far as I know only Alan Shepard has teed it up on the moon.

After the Collage 3.4 "Starbuck" release in February 2007, we transitioned to a new development process. Large releases were replaced by small projects that could integrate to Head of Tree asynchronously. There were two invariants: Head of Tree was always shippable, and projects integrated when they were complete and bug-free. At anytime, there were about a dozen projects "in flight." (Okay, we didn't get away from all the aerospace metaphors. We have too many pilots in Cassatt for that to ever happen.)

This was a pretty significant change in how PD operated, but the results were great for the company and the customers. In 2007, there were over 80 integrations to Head of Tree, and the time to deliver new features to customers was dramatically reduced. There was a renaissance of product functionality. We added support along many dimensions: new hardware from Sun, 64-bit support, Xen VM's, new VMware versions, additional networking support, performance enhancements, stability and robustness.

And then in November 2007, we launched the new Cassatt Active Response 5.0 product line. While supporting our utility computing mission, we added support for power management of engineering labs and dev/test environments. Since then, we've continued to add features incrementally. Just recently, Cassatt Active Response 5.1 introduced demand-based policy that should prove very helpful in power-management and utility-computing environments.

So as I leave Cassatt, I leave with mixed feelings. I've enjoyed my time at Cassatt and look back at fondly at our accomplishments. I will miss all the talented folks I had the chance to work with. But I know "it's a small valley" and our paths will cross again.

Desktop Virtualization

Check out my new column at Virtual Strategy Magazine. I will contribute to their new "Insights" section, which features contributions from several other authors. This month, I talk about why desktop virtualization is a bad idea (and why it's not new either). (Read all about it)

Let me know you what you think.

Forrester's Views on Web 2.0 Security

Dr. Chenxi Wang, a Principal Analyst at Forrester, presented a session on Web 2.0 Security Strategies. Here are some highlights from her session:

Web 2.0 is moving into Enterprises, whether you like it or not. She calls this the “consumerization” of enterprises. This is one of the most significant trends in enterprise computing today. All of the existing business software vendors are eyeing this market.

Web 2.0 applications bypass traditional controls that enterprise IT has in place for business data and processes, which introduces an additional need to mitigate external threats. However, Wang advises against blocking 100% of Web 2.0 content in organizations in order to avoid employee backlash.

If you’re developing your own Web 2.0 applications or services, security must still be considered. Web 2.0 apps are more difficult to secure than traditional apps.

Information security considerations

• Content governance: much Web 2.0 content is unstructured. Content moves freely between the web, email, IM, P2P, FTP, RSS. This moves outside normal security tools.
• Data security and control
• Identity management
• Archiving and retention
• Compliance
• Privacy and Intellectual Property: IP is owned by the web 2.0 site. Businesses should understand IP ramifications of using Web 2.0 sites. For example, content posted to Facebook is owned by Facebook and not the author.

Procter & Gamble's IT Organization

I just wrapped up this morning's last keynote at Forrester's IT Forum. Marta Foster discussed the transformation of Procter & Gamble's IT organization at her keynote entitled "Bringing IT from the Back Office to the Boardroom."

Procter & Gamble was founded in 1837 with headquarters in Cincinnati and $76.5 Billion annual sales. P&G has 23 billion-dollar brands. Between 1985 and 1999, P&G expanded from a US-focused company to and international company, entering 55 new markets and increasing operations to 86 countries.

During these 15 years, P&G expanded IT capabilities around the world, resulting in duplication and inefficiency. In 1999, P&G underwent a major re-organization to address some of the inefficiencies from the period of growth. P&G created global business units (e.g., Laundry) with global P&L, market development organizations, and Global Business Services.

At the time, most of the business leaders considered IT to be a cost, but the IT group wanted to become an innovation agent for the company. At a company level, P&G commits to 4%-6% annual growth to its shareholders. IT wanted to find ways to contribute to this top-line growth.

P&G’s Approach

• Unite IT and core Business Services. Current Global Business Services consists of 8500 employees, of which 4000 are IT.
• Drive shared services across Business services.
• Shift thinking from “technologies” to “solutions.”
• Change the back office to become a business driver.

P&G organization: Global Business Units, Market Development Organization, Global Business Services, Corporate Functions. IT was renamed to Information & Decision Solutions (IDS) to reinforce the change in mission and vision.

Three structural drivers: global organization (3 data centers), think holistically across business processes, orgs, and technologies), grow the partnerships. (HP, IBM, Jones Land LaSalle for facilities). Narrowed down from dozens of partners to 11 global partners.

Three core strategies for how they work

• Run as a business: changed approach from being a cost center (focused only on cost reduction) to (cost, service levels, value creation, service management, “total user experience”) aligned to P&G approach (P/L, market share, sales volume, brand management, consumer benefits).
• New IT strategy aligned to business needs: virtualization (replace physical product mock-ups with virtual reality applications), personalization, and real-time decision-making. (decision cockpits that can be personalized by employees – 20,000 cockpits now, growing to 35,000. Goal is for employee not in manufacturing to have their own cockpit – about 70,000 in total.). Virtual Solutions are now used on 79% of all P&G initiatives. Personalization: pampers.com began as support for one site. 49 countries, 26 million visitors/year.
• Measure for success. For every service, measure client satisfaction, service levels, user sensing, employee survey, scorecards, top-to-top connections with a 10-point scale for each category. Over past 3-4 years, $600M cost savings to date, 16% increase in user satisfaction, client sat at 8.7 (highest ever).

The IDS (IT) team has adopted a “Flow to Work” Design that attempts to breakdown traditional organizational "silos." People are encouraged to work across the organization and take a top-level business view on projects instead of focusing on their functional area or place on the org chart.

The acquisition of Gillette demonstrated some of the recent changes. P&G integrated Gillette and achieved all synergies in 15 months, whereas previous acquisitions of that size have taken 3 years. Marta’s org has 2000 people. Normally, people are on 2-year assignments. With 1/3 of organization, she’s trying to change so that folks have 6-month assignments.

Lessons learned

• Maintain top-to-bottom focus on mission
• Top management support is essential.
• Communicate, communicate, communicate.
• Commercialization is critical. All new technologies must find a home/purpose in delivering a product to market.
  
• New models need new skills and capabilities.

P&G's green initiatives

• Reduction of daily paper printing, focus on reducing consumption in facilities.
• P&G has started measuring and reporting on carbon footprint for the company.
  
• P&G is also involved in green initiatives with key customers (Walmart, Target) with a focus on the reduction of product packaging.
• Reduction in travel: P&G is Cisco’s largest installation of tele-presence rooms. Global travel budgets reduced by 15%, IDS reduced travel by 40%, used a portion of the travel savings to fund video conferencing.

Now, I'm off to lunch. Late this afternoon, I'll be back on-line to blog about the afternoon sessions.

Forrester IT Forum - Day 2

Welcome back to the Forrester IT Forum in Las Vegas. I started my day at 7am on a conference call with folks back in the office to discuss one of our key customers. After getting caught up on my e-mail, I was back at the Venetian for the day's sessions and analyst meetings-- the first one with Evelyn Hubbert, Senior Analyst at Forrester. Jay Fry, Evelyn, and I had a very productive chat about data center automation, ITIL, process automation, and the current state of tools. I'm now finishing up a keynote session by Marta Foster from Proctor & Gamble. (Stay tuned for that post.)

On a side note, today was a more balmy day in Las Vegas. Yesterday, the high was a blistering 104 degrees (yes, but it was a dry heat!). Today, I was greeted by cool breezes and 76-degree weather, with an expected high of 86.

Simon Yates Talks about IT Infrastructure and Operations at the Forrester IT Forum

The clock has almost struck 12 (literally) on the first day of the Forrester IT Forum, but Vegas is still hoppin'. After a long day of sessions and 1-1's with Galen Schreck and Simon Yates, Jay and I decided to have some nice Venetian cuisine at one of the cafe-style restaurants in the faux Piazzo St. Marco at the Venetian Hotel. (I've been to the real Piazzo in Venice, and let's just say the replica is "close, but no cigar." Okay, maybe not even close, but there was one pigeon in the Venetian's replica.)

Earlier in the afternoon, I attended a session by Simon Yates, a Forrester VP analyst. The session was entitled "IT Infrastructure and Operations: The Road Ahead."

Yates covered many different topics during his session.

Success imperatives for IT that he is seeing from Forrester's clients (mostly large enterprises):

• Stay ahead of next-generation data center technologies.
• Consolidate IT for cost, efficiency, and simplification. Yates seeing a lot of interest in consolidation from their clients—very high demand over a short period of time (6 months).
• Deliver always-on, always-available infrastructure within an ever-tightening budgetary envelope. One interesting quote: “Every year is a recession in IT operations.”
• Enable user productivity through mobility.
• Automated and simplify IT processes. ITIL, Forrester is developing research around IT management and automation.
• Maintain and optimize core IT systems.

Technology change

• Virtualization everywhere: servers, storage, networks, and clients. Improving server manageability and server flexibility is the number one reason for virtualization (41% consider very important and 46% consider important). Reducing hardware costs is the next reason (43% very important, 39% important) CIO's are “talking about virtualization at cocktail parties like it’s their favorite martini.”
• Next-generation data center technologies could fundamentally. Change the economics of IT. Cloud computing has burst onto the scene. This could have a profound impact on how people build data centers.
• Mobility requirements are driving investments in infrastructure to support a changing workplace.

Gaps in the virtualization portfolio

• Management tools: need management that is common across silos. Most management tools from the “Big Four” are designed for physical things.
• Sercurity tools can’t see into or protect virtual instances.
• Licensing: still a black art that gets even more complicated. MSFT licensing is even more complicated in a virtualized environment.
• Organization challenges: ownership and responsibility as virtualization bridges traditional functional domains (e.g., storage management).

Cloud computing is on the horizon. Yates urged attendees to get ready for the onslaught of cloud-computing products and initiatives from systems vendors. Most enterprises are not ready, and most cloud-computing providers are not ready yet either.

Organizational change

• 87% of CIO’s plan to restructure IT operations, and 60% have already started. Basically looking at traditional silos, such as storage, and looking at realigning to business imperatives and changing technologies.
• Consolidation of everything- data centers, storage, applications, and IT staff. Automation will drive the consolidation of IT staff.
• New requirements drive IT ops professions to develop new business and technology skills. CEO’s and CIO’s want to invest in the personnel they have.

Changes that will happen in IT:

• Distributed authority will give way to centralized oversight. Instead of many mini-CIO’s, control will be centralized under the CIO.
  
• Bottom-up projects will be replaced by top-down initiatives from the CIO.
  
• Tech silos will be broken down and replaced by tech interdependency. There’s a push for IT service management instead of functional silos. There will be ITIL projects in the coming 6 months.
• Technology specialists will transform into personnel with cross-technology skills. These individuals will be required to “see beyond their silos” and understand how IT affects (and can improve) the business.
• Traditional tech metrics will give way to business-centered metrics. IT performance will be measured at a business level.

IT skills requirements are changing: technical versatility, business knowledge, interpersonal skills.

Process change

• IT departments are shifting from the management of things to the automation of process and services.
• Increasing interest in ITIL and increasing adoption in tools for automation. After consolidating hardware, companies are turning to ITIL (to consolidate process after they’ve consolidated everything physical.

Well, that wraps up day 1 at the Forrester IT Forum. And if you're still wondering, there were no cookies during the afternoon break between sessions. There was a selection of fresh fruit and granola bars. So, no cookie for me, but I did have gelato after dinner. So good things do come to those who wait! Check back on Wednesday for updates on day 2. Ciao.

Cloud Computing at the Forrester IT Forum

I'm posting this blog entry during the afternoon break at the Forrester IT Forum. Okay, so I'm probably missing out on some chocolate chip cookies, but I really don't need them anyway. The third keynote I attended this morning was from Rick Lechner, VP Enterprise Systems at IBM. His talk was entitled "The New Enterprise Data Center: Enabling Business Innovation." As with any vendor talk, it was part annecdotal and part product pitch.

Here are some highlights from his keynote.
IBM sees three business drivers that are impacting IT today:

1. The changing face of globalization (transformation from exporting to multi-nationals to truly distributed global enterprise).
2. The rising tide of information (more devices, need for real-time analytics).
3. New business models that are evolving as new technology arrives (B2B, B2C, new uses of the Internet, rise of social networking).

IBM has developed and deployed a cloud that is used internally by Researchers. From an internal portal, Researchers request a set of compute resources, they’re provisioned in minutes, and then provided to the Researchers. When done, the resources are returned to the cloud. (As an aside, one of our Cassatt customers is developing such an internal cloud using Cassatt Active Response and our programmatic interfaces.)

Lechner spoke about several cloud-computing efforts in industry, academia, and government:

• Google, Univ of Washington, and 6 other universities are working on how to design apps for the cloud.
• Vietnam has deployed some clouds to foster collaboration between the government and university.
• China has deployed some clouds to provide compute resources to software start-ups.

Well, I'm done posting for now. I'm off to find that chocolate chip cookie now...