Page 158 - How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Cant Afford to Be Left Behind

MANA GEMENT STRATEGIES F O R THE CL OUD R EV OL UTION

billing expense. Users won’t actually assemble and configure
servers; they’ll choose from a menu of possible virtual ma-
chines the one that appears best suited to their task.
It will be a key IT skill in the future to know how to map a
small set of virtual machine models, make them available to
end users as balanced configurations, and stick to the models

for maintenance and update purposes instead of letting vari-
ations proliferate.
Such a procedure disrupts many of the IT organization’s
strongest beliefs about proper operation of the data center. End
users historically have wanted more than the IT staff can pro-
vide, so there is a latent adversary relationship that is ready to
pop up if the end users intrude too deeply into data center op-

erations. End users getting their hands on the capability to gen-
erate virtual servers is little better than welcoming them into
the data center to randomly plug in and unplug cables, net-
work interface cards, and host bus adapters. To experienced
IT professionals, the notion of end user self-provisioning is
akin to the inmates taking over the asylum. That may have
been the case in earlier eras of computing; in a future gov-
erned by cloud operations, however, self-provisioning is going
to be a requirement. There will not be enough time or IT staff

for people to drop the things they’re doing because another
user needs a server configured and installed.
Self-provisioning for end users can be set up through vir-
tual machine management tools. Whether it succeeds or fails
may depend on the skill with which the IT organization can
design servers for different tasks. In drafting templates for vir-
tual servers, the computer professionals will be lobbied and

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