Application of the Cloud

My previous post was on managing projects in the Cloud and though from a business perspective it makes sense to adopt this infrastructure (or rather non-infrastructure or disembodied infrastructure) to contain costs and receive software as a service, one of the main impediments to adopting this wholeheartedly is in my opinion the security concern. Many companies have sensitive data and if an organization is held against measures such as HIPPA, then it is even more imprative to keep you data centers secure.

An article in CIO magazine highlights how Bechtel seems to have found a practical way to adopt clould computing to manage the security concern and in addition, cherry pick the most effective aspects of it from the four current leaders in the cloud, namely Google, Amazon, YouTube and SalesForce.com:

If you could build your IT systems and operation from scratch today, would you recreate what you have? That's the question Geir Ramleth, CIO of construction giant Bechtel, asked himself three years ago.

The question — and the industry benchmarking exercise that followed — prompted Bechtel to transform its IT department and model it after Internet frontrunners Amazon.com, Google, Salesforce.com and YouTube. After all, these companies have exploited the latest in network design and server and storage virtualization to reach new levels of efficiency in their IT operations. Ramleth wanted to mimic these approaches as Bechtel turned itself into a software-as-a-service provider for internal users, subcontractors and business partners.

After researching the Internet's strongest brands, Bechtel scrapped its existing data centers and built three facilities with the latest in server and storage virtualization. Bechtel also designed a Gigabit Ethernet network with hubs at Internet exchange points that it is managing itself instead of using carriers. Now, Bechtel is slashing its portfolio of software applications to simplify operations, as well as the user experience.

Dubbed the Project Services Network, Bechtel's new strategy applies the SaaS computing model internally to provide IT services to 30,000 users, including 20,000 employees and eventually 10,000 subcontractors and other business partners.

We operate "as a service provider to a set of customers that are our own [construction] projects," Ramleth says. "Until we can find business applications and SaaS models for our industry, we will have to do it ourselves, but we would like to operate with the same thinking and operating models as [SaaS providers] do."

This is probably the most practical solution for the current situation and is probably the only viable one for the next 5 to 10 years, until the future state of ubiquitous clould computing can overcome its security, reliability and data ownership issues.

In additon, it was smart for Bechtel to look at the major players out there and adopt the best of what they have a mimic it in their implementation. Google for their server infrastructure, YouTube for the WAN, Amazon for their virtualization, and SalesForce.com for the SaaS application model. But the best take away from this article was the statement by the CIO, that "what we learned is that you have to standardize like crazy and simplify the environment." Simplification and standardization is the key in making this work.