Hybrid Delivery

Author: William Dupley

Introduction to Hybrid Delivery Challenges

IT is reshaping the Global Economy. New forms of Knowledge-based in-depth data Big Data capture is rocking the foundations of many enterprises worldwide. Conventional service portfolio management and Enterprise Architecture are no longer meeting the needs of the business. Transformation and Innovation now go hand in hand as the creators of this new world order. It is not IT developing these new solutions, it is the business users themselves. The new business innovators exploit the myriad of new cloud services, such as SaaS, functions as a service, platform as a service to rapidly create new service offerings. These citizen Integrators are creating complete new IT solutions in days.

The historical approach to Enterprise Architecture and Service Portfolio management can be defined as the development of standards that businesses had to use. There was little freedom. It did not support creativity to enable a business to change quickly. To address today’s business reality rapid change is critical, so IT needs to change IT to accomplish this. IT needs to enable a business to assemble their own applications and systems and rapidly bring those new IT solutions to production very quickly and be able to change them daily under their own control and approval. All these changes are in complete opposition to conventional ITIL control processes.

The new Hybrid delivery model is the heart of this transformation. Enterprise architects must focus on creating an engine for change. Enterprise Architecture is no longer a puzzle made of parts that have to fit together to form a predefined outcome. It needs to be viewed as a game where there are predefined rules and fungible resources that players can utilize to create different results. Hybrid delivery delivers those services.

This does not mean that we abandon standards. Even a chess game has to have rules for the players, or there will just be chaos. An Enterprise architecture still needs rules to ensure systems are interoperable and adhere to governance rules such as record retention and security. Enterprise Architecture needs to focus on enabling citizen integrators to build their systems. This is called DIY (Do it Yourself). Hybrid Delivery must deliver this capability.

Business appreciates the ease of being able to order cloud services from providers such as Amazon. They want the same ease of provisioning for all their IT services. Hybrid Delivery must operate in the same way. A Hybrid IT Service delivery model acknowledges that all IT services are no longer delivered from within the walls of an IT organization. Services now can come from the public cloud, SaaS providers, private clouds, virtual private clouds, and traditional services. In a Hybrid Delivery Model, IT must become a one-stop shopping source for all IT services.

They need to deliver an Integrated Hybrid Service Portfolio of pre-approved cloud providers and SaaS suppliers that meet the service level expectations of their Business customers. They need to ensure those services adhere to the governance policies of their enterprise. The graphic below illustrates the Hybrid Delivery operational model.

Areas where a change in Hybrid Delivery is required

Historical IT services were delivered individually. Development and integration of IT systems was the responsibility of IT and businesses rarely developed any systems other than a few complicated spreadsheets or Microsoft Access databases.

The Hybrid Delivery operating model supports citizen Integrators and reduces the need for business users to have to involve IT when they need to build or integrate systems together. To accomplish this IT must transform their delivery operational model in the following areas:

Hybrid Delivery processes and roles.
Hybrid Delivery architecture.
Hybrid Delivery service portfolio

1. Hybrid Delivery processes and roles

The following graphic outlines the work, roles, and OACA domains that Hybrid Delivery impacts. The overall responsibilities of the shared responsibility model are as follows.

Deliver Service broker services: This is the ability to deliver Traditional systems of record, SaaS. Private cloud, Public Cloud services from one portal.
Deliver Service Provider services: Ensure that all services provided adhere to Enterprise governance policies (ex, Record retention, Country of Origin,) and meet business service level expectations
Facilitate chargeback for all services: This ensures that departments that order the services are charged for the services
Facilitate the purchase approval process: This ensures that those who order the services have the budget for them and that standard purchasing approval processes and authorization are enforced.
Provision Systems integration services: This provides a catalog of APIs to existing services.
Provision patterns of use: These patterns explain how applications should be integrated together to ensure good operability and security
Deliver Business innovation enabler services: These services provide consulting advice on how to use the new citizen integration services what cloud service should be considered to meet a client’ s needs

The OACA domains impacted are:

Financial Management
Enterprise Strategy (Business)
Enterprise Structure (Business organization)
Culture transformation
Skill development
Compliance management
Governance and control
Business process design
Procurement management
Commercial documentation
Portfolio management
Project Management

Service broker: IT is responsible for facilitating the provisioning of services from any source to the customer, facilitate the chargebacks for those services, and provide one-stop shopping through a common portal for their customers. There are several process and systems that need to be changed or developed to make this possible. A summary of these changes are:

Development of a Hybrid Delivery Portal (Service Catalog) that is integrated to cloud providers.
Integration of Cloud provider’s billing systems to the Hybrid Delivery chargeback system.
Implementation of an approval process and system integration that ensures that when a customer orders a service from the Hybrid Delivery portal, they have the authority and budget to buy the service.

Service provider: IT is responsible that the services that they provide through their portal meet the required service-level agreements, and ensure that the services offered to meet the governance policies of the enterprise. The Hybrid Delivery Service catalog must document the service levels of each service offer and monitor the actual services as they are used. Some SaaS and cloud service providers may have service levels that do not meet the needs of an enterprise. The Hybrid Delivery portal must clearly state these limitations. IT must also manage the relationship with cloud providers and address any shortfalls in service levels.

Business innovation enabler: IT is responsible for providing a new role to help a customer identify what is the best method of delivering workloads. They need to be able to recommend SasS services, platform as a service, or other delivery models to their customers and provide Integration advice.

2. Hybrid Delivery Architecture

Hybrid delivery requires the implementation of a universal service delivery portal. This portal enables a customer to understand the approved cloud services available, the service level expectations, the prices and facilitate the ordering and fulfillment of the service. The Portal facilitates all approval cycles and provisioning activities with providers. The Portal also needs to integrate all internal Delivery systems and cloud providers.

Below is an example of a Hybrid Delivery technical architecture.

In most firms, this will require a significant overhaul of the provisioning process, supporting tools, and service catalog to accomplish this result.

3. Hybrid Delivery Service Portfolio

A conventional Service Portfolio/ Service Catalog portal consists of services in the following categories.

Accounts and Access: includes WebLogin and Two-Step Authentication, ID Card, Authority Manager, and more.
Backup and Storage: includes Encryption, Data Storage, and Backup services.
Business Intelligence and Reporting: Business Intelligence
Communications: includes Telephones, Cell Phones, Cable TV, and more.
Consulting and Development: includes Business Solutions Consulting and Development.
Document and Digital Asset Management: Includes file sharing and document management, electronic document storage and imaging, and multiple use tools such as Google Apps.
Email and Calendar: includes Email & Calendar, Mailing Lists, and more.
Networks and Connectivity: includes Network, Wi-Fi, VPN, and more.
Productivity and Collaboration: includes video conferencing, Drupal, Instant Messaging,
Security: includes desktop and mobile device management, antivirus, disk encryption, and more.
Servers, Storage and Data: includes centralized server hosting, system administration, virtual servers, Storage, and databases.
Software and Business Applications: includes software distribution and licensing, service ordering, and application implementation and/or hosting.
Support and Training: includes an online help system, Knowledge Management, Technology Training programs, and more.
Web Development and Hosting: includes Web Services, WWW hosting, content management systems, survey and form tools, and more.

A Hybrid Delivery Service portal must facilitate the provisioning of these services, plus the following new categories and enhancements to existing catalog items.

Enhancements:

Consulting and Development: Business innovation enablement services need to be added to the Professional service portfolio
Software & Business Applications: SaaS must be added
Servers, Storage and Data: Infrastructure as a service, private and public cloud services must be added.

New Services

Platform as a service or Application Platform as a Service (aPaaS): is a category of cloud computing services that provides a platform allowing customers to develop, run, and manage applications without the complexity of building and maintaining the infrastructure typically associated with developing and launching an app.

Functions as a service: is a category of cloud computing services that provides a platform allowing customers to develop, run, and manage application functionalities without the complexity of building and maintaining the infrastructure typically associated with developing and launching an app. It includes that ability to build an application using “serverless” architecture and is typically used when building microservices applications.
Data as a service: includes the ability to access data sets using Web service APIs that adhere to the REST architectural constraints

IT needs to provide Application Architecture patterns of use that describe how systems should be assembled to ensure interoperability and adherence to security policies. An architectural pattern is a general, reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem in software architecture within a given context.[i] Architectural patterns are similar to software design patterns but have a broader scope. The architectural patterns address various issues in software engineering, such as computer hardware performance limitations, high availability, and minimization of business risk. Some architectural patterns have been implemented within software frameworks. Below is an example of an Application Architectural pattern of use.

Close

The transformation to a shared responsibility Hybrid Delivery model is one of the most challenging activities a Technology organization has to achieve due to the magnitude of the changes in process, people, and technology. However, to meet the demands of our business, we need now we need to accomplish these changes.

For additional information on the OACA cloud Maturity model go to: https://www.oaca-project.org/cmm40/

About the Author:

Bill is the Digital Strategist for Liam Associates Inc. Formerly the Cloud Chief Technologist for Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Canada, Bill has provided Hybrid IT and IoT Strategic Planning advisory and planning services to over fifty Private and Public sector clients to help them migrate to a Hybrid IT Cloud Operating model. These transformation plans have helped both government and industry reduce the cost of IT, re-engineer their IT governance models, and reduce the overall complexity of IT. Bill is also a member of the Open Alliance for Cloud Adoption Team and has co-authored several documents on Cloud Maturity and Hybrid IT implementation.

[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architectural_pattern#cite_note-TMD-1