Standard Services

The concept of "standard services" is gaining attention as a means for organizations to realize the benefits of "cloud" and "utility" computing. Any topic that starts with this many terms in quotation marks must be approached with caution.

But first, what is "cloud computing"? Microsoft defines it in this way, "I can own way less and do way more." Gartner's Tom Bittman talks about elasticity and scalability enabled by internet technologies, sharing technologies, services architectures, and automation resulting in increased speed and agility with lower costs to the organization.  InfoWorld suggests "Cloud computing comes into focus only when you think about what IT always needs: a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software. Cloud computing encompasses any subscription-based or pay-per-use service that, in real time over the Internet, extends IT's existing capabilities."

Is the basis for cloud computing, then, elasticity, scalability, and consumption-based pricing? Underlying that basis is the concept of "standard services." In other words, consumers of the IT services cannot impose constraints on the service provider or IT services as they may do in more traditional IT service delivery. Similar to Common Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software such as Microsoft Word, the consumer of the service must learn to adapt their business requirements to the capabilities of the service rather than vice-versa. The more the service has to adapt to the business, the more constraints that are placed on the service provider and the fewer benefits to be gained.

Certain functions (email, contact management, etc.) have garnered a great deal of attention in terms of cloud computing success. In addition, "xAAS" offerings (Software, Platform, Infrastructure, etc.) are similarly prevalent in the news. Realizing benefit from a distinct function or a distinct environment is much different than wholesale benefit from the delivery of "standard services" in a traditional IT environment.

What is that wholesale benefit? 20%? 30%? 40%? More? Who knows. Conceptually, we know the benefit exists. We just don't know how much. The fact is, realizing the benefit of "standard services" requires the consumer to remove the vast majority of delivery constraints, the ability to value the constraints applied, and the ability of the service provider to fully leverage the depth and breadth of their scale and skills. Surprisingly, or possibly not, it is the latter that presents the greatest challenge to the full realization of benefits of "standard services" for both the consumer and provider of IT services.

To better understand the preceding, it will be helpful to examine some of the more traditional areas of constraint typically placed on service providers through typical outsourcing agreements. We can then begin to help the service provider overcome the challenges of scale and skill that should be present in their offerings.