First step to the cloud white paper

www.encanvas.com

SITUATIONAL APPLICATIONS:

FIRST STEP TO THE CLOUD

November 2010

Ian Tomlin

WHITE PAPER

2 © 2010 Encanvas Inc.

WHITE PAPER | Situational Applications: First step to the Cloud

Contents

Overview ................................................................................................................................................... 3

Cloud computing versus web hosting .......................................................................................... 4

Why situational applications are the first step .......................................................................... 5

A typical roadmap ................................................................................................................................. 6

Why are situational applications the start-point for cloud initiatives? ............................ 7

Use case examples ................................................................................................................................ 8

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 10

Contact information and intellectual property ....................................................................... 11



This article describes why situational applications are the obvious first step into

cloud computing for federal organizations.

Overview

Faced with depressing predictions of looming budget cuts cloud computing has come

to the fore of discussions to uncover relatively short-term economies in IT functions

within the public sector. But how much of the cloud story is hype? How different are

cloud architectures to the web-server farms that organizations have had the means to

access for well over a decade? And how realistic is it that core business systems will

move out of the data centre to the cloud?

Many CIOs are quite rightly sceptical of the real-world practicality of large-scale

porting of business critical apps to the cloud. They site concerns over data security,

business continuity, administration and the realistic challenges of running a

relationship with a vendor that will need to provide robust administrative tools to

manage day-to-day support activities.

Even those CIOs who brush through all of these concerns with optimistic verve, there

are still huge issues to take onboard about the scalability of databases and commercial

structures supporting cloud platforms.

And what about the proprietary nature of the various cloud platforms? It’s a very new

industry and the entire market is experiencing a sharp learning curve.

DEPARTMENTAL

SITUATIONAL

APPLICATIONS

First step to the cloud



Cloud computing versus web hosting

What’s the difference between cloud computing and traditional web hosting?

Experts of cloud computing will allude to a small number of very pointy differences

between cloud computing and traditional web server hosting. The first clear difference

is the potential for multi-tenancy – the ability for individuals and companies to buy

into a share of a computing platform that has a seemingly endless supply of processor

and storage capacity.

They will site dramatic advances in technology that have made possible new levels of

virtualization and scaling that is unprecedented in the industry.

Other enthusiasts of cloud computing will point to a step-change in the possibilities of

deploying virtualized applications made possible by the administrative tools and

technologies that the competitive bun-fight for cloud computing has inspired by the

major vendors.

Whilst these advances in the framework of tools for applications design, deployment

and administration might not be exclusively the domain of cloud computing, this is

most definitely the ‘flag’ that these new innovations fly under.

Having stepped through the minutia of the cloud debate we conclude that it doesn’t

really matter whether cloud architectures are fundamentally different; or whether the

software tools that cloud computing has levered to the surface are part of the cloud

computing story or not. What matters to hard-pressed IT leaders in the public sector

is that – thanks to cloud computing - more opportunities exist for virtualizing server

platforms, and achieving economies by adopting smarter means of running key

processes including the design, deployment and operation of business applications

than ever before.

Cloud computing provides a greater ability to leverage the competencies and

resources of third party vendors (with smarter technology) while organizations only

pay for what they use.

But with so many concerns over the robustness, database scalability, administrative

tools etc. of cloud computing, what is the first step that IT leaders should take on this

journey?



Why situational applications are the best first step

While some private sector organizations like easyjet are taking the lead in cloud

computing by adopting policies whereby all future application should be considered

for deployment on the cloud before any other justification is considered, the majority

of public sector organizations are adopting a more cautious approach. The first

applications most organizations are considering for cloud deployment are the

departmental and ‘situational applications’ that we describe later in this article.

For departmental managers and executives, IT budgets have always been a lottery.

There are so many business processes that occur in any public sector organization, and

their operation is to tangentially different to the private sector, that most departments

have to make do with the majority of users gaining access to a core administrative

system while workers that need a bigger bag of different systems are required to make

do with spreadsheets, slides and flat-file databases to fill in the cracks in their

information management. The gap between information needs and information

systems capability is forever growing while IT teams lack the resources or budgets to

respond to every need with a shrink-wrapped software tool. Even today, most middle

managers report they lack the information they need to discharge their roles and the

information they do get is often not in the format (or completeness) to make it useful.

Developments in Rich Internet portals technology spearheaded by investments into

cloud computing are now reaching the market. They provide users with the level of

user interface experience and responsiveness to queries comparable (if not better)

than the systems resident applications they’re used to using. Rich Internet portal

platforms like Encanvas engineer a new marriage between so-called ‘data mashups’

technology, building block applications design and pain-free deployment and

operation needed to support near infinite numbers of secure and live community

spaces in the cloud.

Rich Internet portal solutions for the Microsoft® Azure™ cloud like Encanvas

Secure&Live™ are purposely designed to meet enterprise requirements for situational

applications; described by thought-leader Luca Cherbakov of IBM as “applications

developed by small teams in response to new business situations that possess the

economics that mean once used they can be discarded”. Experiences gained in the

last decade on the use and deployment of situational applications suggest that while

situational applications start simply as a robust IT answer to a business problem,

generally solutions mature into business critical IT systems as users and stakeholders

benefit from their use and start to mature their role. Many of these applications start

within a department (to serve a departmental need) and grow because of their

usefulness and practical rewards.



A typical roadmap

The way communities and teams tend to mature their situational applications takes on

a common roadmap:

Applications start with the need for ‘secure and live’ community spaces

providing access to collaboration and participant interaction.

Then the need to acquire data from different data sources emerges.

Next, users call for more enquiry and analysis screens and capabilities.

The need for more formalized business processes materialises.

Finally, (and only in some cases) requirements for predictive engines emerge–

providing the ability to anticipate the likelihood of events and impacting

scenarios that might impact on the community.

While the majority of IT users are adequately supplied by a small number of systems

(such as sales administrators that will spend all of their time on a CRM system, or an

accounting clerk who will live in their SAP or Oracle portals) there are a smaller

number of department managers, marketers, R&D and creatives that demand robust

IT solutions to serve themselves with richer sources of insights and smarter tools to

rationalise the information overload of the digital age.

Situational applications are seen as the remedy to the ‘long tail of demand’ for

business applications coming from this very important minority community of IT users

scattered across the enterprise that make innovation happen and spark competitive

advantage. Unfortunately, at the outset of these departmental and situational

software development projects, it’s often not clear what the return-on-investment

might be for investing in the development of a robust IT solution. Equally, there can be

relationship and organizational pressures surrounding a software development project

that mean cooperation is not assured and data acquisition and aggregation may be

prohibited by practical IT roadblocks or the unwillingness of parties to play ball.

It’s in this complex arena of information change management that the unique blend of

economics and functionality manifested in cloud computing platforms like Encanvas

comes to the fore; where the cloud represents a more neutral zone for cooperation

(with each contributing party owning its own data and ability to regulate access

permissions while sharing the same technology platform).



Why are situational applications the start-point for cloud initiatives?

The main reasons are these:

Most organizations have too many software products and supplier

relationships. Reducing the number of discrete software applications through

harmonisation offers a direct route to savings in IT expenditure while the

ability to deliver more applications right first time through situational

applications is assured.

Cloud architectures provide a faster and more painless means of designing,

deploying and operating custom built applications. They’re more economic

and can scale to whatever size they need to grow so there’s no risk of

outgrowing the hardware platform.

The cloud is seen to be a secure and live ‘neutral territory’ for organizations

seeking to share data and collaborate with their communities – there is less of

an emotional issue towards where data resides.

Making a start on the cloud journey with situational applications addresses the

‘long-tail of demand’ for business applications so IT teams can be seen to

deliver responsive IT solutions to emergent business needs by serving up

robust IT solutions at very low cost.

While situational applications can grow to become business critical, there’s a

big difference between starting from day one with new applications on the

cloud and attempting to port the much less numerous core transactional

platforms that are critical to business continuity.



Use case examples

Here are three use case examples that show how situational applications can mature

into best-fit business critical information systems; ideal early stage candidates for

cloud computing.

1. Streetworks (local government department)

At the introduction of the Traffic Management Act in 2004, the Traffic Manager of

West Sussex County Council identified that the current information management of

the department was unworkable if all aspects of the new legislation (calling for

improved cooperation with streetworks undertakers and demonstration of parity on

planning decisions) were to be met. With the current IT systems, no mapping

functionality existed that could provide a single page view of all planning aspects.

Engineers were required to reference six different internal systems to build a clear

picture of the planning considerations – and even then mistakes could be easily made.

Another major challenge was the impact of TMA legislation on the administrative

overheads of the department demanding that the Council input all of its own

streetwork assets, activities and events in order to demonstrate parity with other

streetworks undertakers (before TMA 2004 this information was not reported).

An urgent solution was needed to comply with the TMA requirements – otherwise the

Traffic Manager estimated that at least 2 additional FTEs would be required simply to

keep up with the administrative overheads (at a time when skilled staff with

appropriate qualifications were scarce due to demand driven by the new legislator

framework). An interim situational application was developed by IS consultants NDMC

and West Sussex County Council to provide a bridging solution to respond to the new

information demands of the TMA 2004 legislation in advance of core business systems

being brought up to date.

The project team identified the sources of data from across the department and

mapped out a requirements specification. Samples of each of the data sources were

gathered and a ‘start-point’ proof of concept was developed.

This application was presented to a workshop of users and stakeholders who spent a

day discussing the format and operation of the system. By the end of this one-day

workshop, the majority of the systems design was completed and a fully functioning

test system was deployed onto the Encanvas system within 2 days.

As the result of this project, the WSCC streetworks team was comfortably able to

service the anticipated peak in demand for noticing of works without needing to

create new posts and West Sussex County Council became the first local authority in

the southeast, outside London, to operate and full EToN3 compliant system.



2. Credentials Management (professional services)

A global professional services organization found that it was unable to satisfactorily

provide credentials of past projects in support of new client engagement bids owing

to the lack of retained information. While some detail of contact information was held

on a Lotus Notes intranet, project information was either not captured or was to be

found in different systems. The current situation meant that evidencing capabilities

was proving to be difficult and was risking future business growth.

In response to this challenge, the organization worked with IS consultants NDMC to

create a suitable application using Encanvas. This was created in 6-days with the

project team developed through workshops. Data integrations technology built into

Encanvas was used to acquire data from disparate sources – including the Lotus Notes

Intranet, a third party database (held in .CSV format) and project systems. User search

and enquiry forms were created that used drop-down filters and free-text weighted

search to simplify the enquiry process. Once filtered queries were returned, the

resulting records could be downloaded in a templated form for instant inclusion into

bid documents and proposals. As the result of the deployment, senior partners could

harness the credentials of the global knowledge center operations in support of future

bids. An ROI was achieved within the first 6-weeks of use.

3. Compliance Management (electronics sector)

A global electronics company found that in order to comply with new regulatory

demands from its parent in Japan, it needed to install a license management and

reporting solution. The European operation was afforded scant notice of this new

requirement and was challenged to get a system in-place within 6-weeks!

The project manager elected to work with IS consultants NDMC to design and deploy

an interim situational application using the Encanvas Rich Internet platform. Through a

one-day workshop the project team devised a data model and website design. Taking

advantage of the data connectors provided by the Encanvas platform, the project team

was able to import historical licensing data held in MS Access and spreadsheet files to

deploy a working solution within five days.

Following a period of user testing, a second workshop was initiated to recommend

iterative changes that were subsequently implemented using the code-free design

environment of Encanvas; changes that took only a ½ day to implement.

Having the license management system on a web hosted environment meant that the

Japanese parent company is now able to access report data for compliance purposes

directly 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This interim solution has now been running

since 2005 and continues to satisfactorily meet compliance reporting requirements.



Conclusion

The idea that IT functions will achieve step-change reductions in operational costs is

unlikely to happen without harmonising the hundreds of software applications

organizations use down to a manageable number. Migrating the many homemade

and spreadsheet systems to a common ‘secure and live’ cloud architecture presents

immediate opportunities for short-term cashable economies.

Platform-as-a-Service solutions like Encanvas Secure&Live provide a mechanism to

economically serve the long-tail of applications demand that exists within all

organizations today; improving internal customer satisfaction towards IT.

So if you’re looking to make the move to cloud computing, consider taking baby steps

first with situational and departmental applications - and just make sure you’re able to

reach the cloud before you leap!



Contact information

About the Author

Previously holding a series of Sales and Marketing Management and Directorship

positions in the European IT industry, in 2002 Ian Tomlin co-founded the

International Management Consultancy NDMC Ltd whose portfolio of clients includes

some of the world’s largest public and private sector organizations. With Nick

Lawrie he co-authored ‘Agilization’, a guide to regenerating competitiveness for

Western World companies. Ian Tomlin has authored several other business books

and hundreds of articles on business strategy, IT and organizational design including

‘Cloud Coffee House’, a guide to the impact of cloud social networking on business

and ‘Social Operating Systems’, an exploration into the next generation of enterprise

computing platform.

About Encanvas

Encanvas® software makes the workplace work better. We bring added value to the

Microsoft® enterprise platform by creating the technologies organizations need to

spend less and receive more from their software investments. We’ve created the

world’s first Integrated Computer-Aided-Applications-Design (CAAD) Software

Platform. Our Secure&Live™ platform enables the near-real-time design, deployment

and operation of applications without coding in workshop environments all made

possible by a single tightly coupled architecture. It facilitates the massive scaling of

portal architectures; so users can communicate, share information and their

applications in real-time while operating in ‘secure spaces’ that protect systems,

data, identity and intellectual property.

Encanvas Inc.

2710 Thomas Avenue, Cheyenne, Wyoming 82001 USA.

(Americas) +1 201 777 3398

(Europe) +44 1865 596151

www.encanvas.com

All information of whatever kind and which is contained in this documentation shall be called for the purposes of this

project ‘Confidential Information’ and remains the property of Encanvas Inc. All trademarks and trade names used

within this document are acknowledged as belonging to their respective owners.

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