Frameworks: Back From the Dead or Evolutionary Success Story?

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Frameworks Back From the Dead or Evolutionary
Success Story?

• Presented by Rich Ptak
• Managing Partner
• Ptak, Noel Associates LLC
• rlptak_at_ptaknoelassociates.com
• www.ptaknoelassociates.com

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Abstract

• There exists a rising drumbeat of support for
  integrated management solutions, resulting from
  increase in data center complexity. Complexity,
  along with maturing and new technology, changed
  the landscape to make operations managers less
  leery of frameworks or solution platforms. Should
  IT managers and admins give them a second look?
  Or do they remain a good choice only for the few?
  Find out in this session.

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What I Assume You Know

• IT management frameworks are the topic
• Frameworks Platforms (Ill use the term
  interchangeably)
• This is not a technical feature/function review
  or comparison
• Technology marketing is different from the
  technology

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When Im Done, Youll Know

• Why frameworks are necessary, but difficult
• What we have learned from the past
• What capabilities are behind the current
  marketing
• Your trade-off decisions

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Why Are They News Now?

• The world changed
• New technology
• New pressures
• New IT role
• Technology/knowledge

New possibilities, new challenges
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Whats In It For Me?

• IT Exec marketing message
• Higher productivity
• Align with business
• Lower costs

But havent I heard this before?
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Whats In It For Me?

• Technical marketing message
• Set of modular management products work
  individually or use common framework to act and
  work together more efficiently
• To protect your investment they are built to open
  standards with published APIs that allow them to
  integrate and work with all your existing
  solutions
• They are or will be automated, policy-driven and
  service-oriented

They dont talk as much about this!
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Integration Is Difficult Because

• There are many different management functions
  requiring different types and subsets of data
• There are many different software suppliers
• Point-to-point integration has been hard to
  change
• Enterprises do similar things in different ways
• Technologists tend to ignore people
  and process

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Are Current Frameworks A Retread?

• Yes, because
• the basic idea is the same!
• No, because
• what has been learned from past
  implementations, and the new technologies that
  have emerged!

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A Little History

• Where did they come from?
• Development environment
• User confusion over WIIFM
• Vendors built application models
• A need and market niche revealed

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A Little History

• What happened?
• Too confusing
• Too expensive
• Too cumbersome
• State of the technology
• Lack of experience/knowledge

What was the result? Limited success that was
not worth the upfront investment
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What We Have Learned From Past

• Frameworks have multiple functions
• Mustnt ignore people, process and data
• Must deliver benefits during adoption period
• Enterprises will always have silos and multiple
  suppliers (we have only partially learned this
  one!)

How have these lessons been applied? Look at the
capabilities behind the current marketing
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Platform? Framework? Whats It Do?

• Discussing three distinct deliverable functions
• Development framework for building applications.
• A set of shared or common services and functions
  to make it more compact, efficient and adaptable
• Integration (capability) so that everything works
  in harmony!

When they talk, they may mean 1, 2 or all 3 of
these And they arent always clear on which it is!
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Platform? Framework? Whats It Do?

• Three levels of implementation
• The individual silo (applications, networks,
  systems, etc.)
• For families of products from a vendor
• Within the family
• With third parties
• The Unified Management Framework

Only the first two are REALLY real, today
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Real-World Examples

• Big 4 Have multiple frameworks based on
  technology silos used to tightly integrate their
  products w/i the silo but with integration hooks
  and access points e.g., for their network,
  application and server products (Where do these
  come from? Think about the products from acquired
  companies)
• WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW If your priority pain
  point involves network management -- you want to
  query your vendor about the framework that
  underlies their network solution suite.

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Real-World Examples

• Open source From emerging vendors solutions tend
  to be siloed since they arent built on legacy
  solutions, e.g., development platforms like
  Rails, MontaVista, etc. but vendors like BEA,
  NoKia, RedHat, etc. may have multiple frameworks.
  
• WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW What are you looking for
  and what are your problem solution priorities --
  how do these match the design concept or focus
  of the platform that is at the heart of the
  vendor you are speaking with, if they started
  life as an application manager -- and your
  problem focus is network management -- you will
  want more information.

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Real-World Examples

• BIG 4 All have some level of family framework
  that will allow them to pull their total offering
  together -- no one has a completely Unified
  Management Framework.
• What you need to know Know the context of your
  problem and the priorities -- if you are
  interested in a full management suite -- its
  worth understanding how they are pulling together
  the existing platforms, as well as their plans
  moving forward.

But it isnt necessarily all their fault!
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The Dirty, Little Secret.

• The vision is the SAME!
• The final goal is the same, i.e., A UNIFIED
  MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK!
• The approach, architecture and integration
  standards are fundamentally the same
• What is different are
• Product starting points
• Delivery timeframes

And, THATs important to YOU!
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All frameworks should

1. Leverage existing investment
2. Allow for dynamic discovery and adaptation to
   change
3. Foster coordination across teams
4. Facilitate collaboration and communication
5. Provide data that is accessible, shared,
   synchronize and consolidated

THE QUESTION IS does it have these things for
the specific products and features you need now?
Will they exist in time for the next set of
capabilities you need?
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Examples Of Different Timelines

• Retail
• After SLM want to provide access to configuration
  history data
• Then, get more, better control of change requests
• Telecom
• After network management, will add customer
  service views
• Then, add device change management

Theres one more..
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One More Example

• Online services
• After change control and configuration history
  views
• Then add service level monitoring

They all end up in the same place but take
different paths
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To Understand The Trade-Off Decisions, You Must
Know

• What do you want to do today?
• understand the business problems, priorities and
  pain points
• understand which existing solutions MUST be
  leveraged
• How soon do you need to see those results?
• understand how much pre-canned solution you need
  today, vs helping the vendor create the next
  solution

BUT, thats not all.
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To Understand The Trade-Off Decisions, You Must
Know

• What can you afford?
• Current budget vs. potential cuts
• People need training
• What do you want to do next?
• determine if the vendor will be ready in time

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To Understand The Trade-Off Decisions, You Must
Know

• How many different platforms can you live with?
• Depends on how large you are
• Depends on silo politics
• Depends on vendor capabilities

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Summary

• Know and follow the business
• Frameworks are necessary for everyone, but not
  everyones frameworks needs are the same
• There is no such thing as a fully integrated
  solution
• Understand what you need and when you need it,
  then partner with a vendor that has the same
  timeline for delivering capabilities
• Consider on-going support, growth, expansion

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Questions?

• Ask the Expert time on the show floor Thursday,
  October 23 430 530PM
• rlptak_at_ptaknoelassociates.com