Hybrid IT: Delivering IT as a Provider and a Trusted Broker

Cloud computing is taking multisourcing to a new, more dynamic level, changing the mission and operational model for IT and I&O in particular. Being a competitive IT provider isn’t good enough — the new core competency is being the trusted broker for services delivered from many, changing providers.

• Hybrid IT requires new organizational roles and structure, where the infrastructure and operations (I&O) organization can take on and/or delegate responsibility to external IT service providers, multisourcing service integrators (MSIs) and cloud services brokerages (CSBs) to deliver the needed IT services for its organization.
• The hybrid IT function within an organization will become one of the most critical technology and partnering investments made by enterprises, and will influence how IT makes decisions on all technologies and IT services used by the enterprise.

• Organizations must decide how the hybrid IT mission will be fulfilled: by the I&O organization, by external brokers and integrators, or some combination.
• The I&O organization must evolve its organization model and skills to handle new roles for service interfaces, brokerage, governance, integration, etc., or build relationships with external providers that can do the same.
• Enterprises must actively drive alignment across key roles (including business leaders, procurement and sourcing departments) and IT, and educate internal teams to adapt their role and mission within the enterprise in support of hybrid IT models.
• Employ a strategic approach in the deployment of cloud management platforms (CMPs)1 and CSB2 enablers. Create an organization, operational processes, business relationships and technologies that deliberately make multisourcing (cloud and non-cloud, on-premises and off-premises, and private/public/hybrid cloud) transparent, dynamic, efficient and effective for IT's customers.

As cloud computing matures as a style of IT service delivery, the mission for IT — and especially I&O — is changing. The term "hybrid IT" describes the new function and operational model for IT in a cloud computing, dynamically multisourced, heterogeneous world. A hybrid IT organization is a trusted broker, interface and provider for all IT services, whether private or public, which will be a combination of services provided by the IT organization and external providers, using both cloud computing styles and traditional styles of computing that are integrated, aggregated, customized, managed and governed to meet enterprise IT requirements.

In the past, IT's mission was to be the provider of the IT services needed for an enterprise to meet its goals. Outsourcing offered the ability to source some or all IT services from an external provider. In 2005, as outsourcing matured, Gartner described multisourcing as the state of the art in leveraging multiple external providers of IT services, and since then, Gartner has provided a rich foundation of research for effective and efficient management of multisourcing and multisourcing integration.

The cloud computing style takes multisourcing to a new, broader, much more dynamic real-time and granular level. The fundamental difference is the low barrier to entry that is at the heart of cloud computing services — the ability to turn it on quickly, scale it rapidly up or down, and (ostensibly) turn it off, on demand. Service provider relationships in a cloud computing market can potentially be temporary, and usage can vary dramatically. This not only changes the nature of provider relationships (forming and possibly dissolving rapidly, more dynamically, more automatically and indirectly), but it also completely changes the nature of the usage of IT by the business. The cloud computing style is not simply another way to deliver the same IT services; it enables experimentation and innovation by the enterprise, by reducing the risk and entry expense of using IT services. This is true both for public cloud computing (where startup expenses are replaced with usage-based pricing) and for on-premises private cloud computing (where risks and expenses are shared across the organization).

The automated service interface of cloud computing services also creates a new dynamic — the ability for relationships and usage to be brokered and managed in a policy-based and automated manner. Additionally, the services themselves can be delivered in a dynamic and multisourced manner, from a combination of internal, external, cloud, noncloud, private cloud and public cloud services. Similar to the more static role of MSI, a new and more dynamic role of CSB has emerged in parallel. A hybrid IT organization will encompass both roles and abstract sourcing styles for any service.

By lowering the barrier to services, cloud computing also makes it easier for anyone to purchase and access the services that they need. However, easy access does not eliminate the requirement for solution and provider selection, contracting and/or payment, usage and cost governance, service-level assurance, risk and security management, compliance management, integration and customization, problem management, disaster recovery, solution migration, etc. In hybrid IT, the role of I&O is to be the value-added enabler for the most effective and efficient use of services, across the enterprise — when those value-added services are needed. IT eliminates the requirement for enterprise users to be concerned about how a service is being implemented and acquired — allowing them to focus strictly on using the service. The challenge for I&O is to provide these value-added services without creating tremendous latency in the process; speed and agility are critical to avoid the IT organization being bypassed by a do-it-yourself IT service user of cloud computing.

When functioning correctly, the role of hybrid IT changes the relationship between IT and the enterprise. Less mature relationships position I&O as a custodian of IT resources, where the enterprise is intimately involved in implementation details. More mature relationships are service-oriented, where I&O is considered by the enterprise as a service provider that delivers based on service levels. However, as cloud computing matures, the enterprise can potentially consider IT as just another provider among many. Hybrid IT requires the relationship to expand, where IT becomes the trusted broker for all (or at least most) IT-based services, regardless of provider sourcing, or style of service delivery. IT will continue to take responsibility for service delivery and service levels, even when those services are delivered by other providers, but they should shield the enterprise from provider selection, style of computing choices and integration issues, and should ensure compliance with corporate and industry governance requirements. Successful hybrid IT organizations are outcome-driven, and understand the dynamic relationship between business requirements and results.

The I&O organization must actively work with its internal customers to change its role and mission within the enterprise. This requires both the stick (the executive mandates about what business units can and cannot do with respect to using IT-based services), and the carrot (the benefits that users receive by using enterprise IT as the trusted broker). Successful IT organizations will identify the problems that need to be solved (i.e., cost control, security, inefficiency in governance, compliance, etc.), and will identify and prioritize where they can provide value-adds (i.e., ease of billing, reduced complexity, single sign-on, service-level management, etc.). The proof will always be in the results; identifying and solving a specific problem as an interface and broker, for specific enterprise customers, will create buy-in.

Hybrid IT requires new organizational roles and responsibilities, and, in most cases, the existing I&O organization is best-suited to implement these roles. Previously, organizations were likely to use an internal procurement group or an external MSI to manage their multisourcing needs. In the hybrid IT model, there is the potential for every group to act as a broker of services. This, in turn, has the potential to lead to chaos in the organization, because of the loss of governance over technology procurement and consumption. Two roles are critical to address this problem:

• The IT broker group
• The public cloud management group

The IT broker group acts as the intermediate supplier when the enterprise requests a new service or business outcome, and determines, among other things:

• Service architecture (traditional, private cloud, hybrid cloud, public cloud, etc.)
• Sourcing methods and policies (internal, external providers, or some combination)
• Service duration (immediate, short term, long term, etc.)
• Enterprise requirements (compliance, security, disaster recovery, etc.)
• Service integration (single sign-on, data portability, pricing, etc.)
• Runtime policies (runtime sourcing decisions based on workload, resource utilization, security, compliance, etc.)
• Service quality demand (performance and availability requirements)
• Service economics (flexibility and cost)

These decisions are not necessarily static. For example, a service might be designed that leverages several external cloud providers that change over time, or where usage is based on pricing or availability of internal resources. The IT broker group sets policies for how multisourcing or hybrid cloud services are dynamically provisioned. When brokering between multiple cloud providers (including private), the IT broker group is taking on the role of the CSB. However, the IT broker group will also take on the interface role for traditional services, which may be insourced, outsourced, hosted, etc.

The IT broker group should also be proactive in identifying changes in the market or requirements that may require changes in the service architecture, sourcing methods and policies. For example, the services delivered by cloud computing providers may mature to the point where it is more cost-effective and efficient to use external services, rather than sourcing those services from an on-premises private cloud.

A public cloud management group will take on primary responsibility for:

• Identifying potential cloud providers (including identifying cloud services that can and should be leveraged by the enterprise, and being proactive with the enterprise when opportunities arise)
• Forging relationships with cloud providers (including evaluating their capabilities and contracting for their services including integration into the CMP or CSB marketplace). This would include having an up-to-date list of providers that could be used on-demand for a short duration
• Managing and monitoring service delivery (including problem management)
• Displaying and communicating risks (i.e., integration) including the risk mitigation
• Understand the minimum requirements for services that can be quickly leveraged
• Determining whether or not to use external third-parties for brokerage roles
• Performing cost comparisons between providers over time and ensuring cost-effective solutions

Smaller enterprises will find they require multiple providers of services, possibly with varying levels of isolation/privacy, and integration across those providers. However, many midmarket enterprises will turn to third parties that take on the MSI, value-added reseller (VAR) and/or CSB roles. In those cases, the trusted broker of multiple services will likely be a third party, but the strategy and requirements will be the responsibility of the enterprise. These third-party entities will provide hybrid IT capabilities generally and CSB specifically, particularly as the consumption of public cloud services increases. Although the market for CSBs is still young and emerging, Gartner believes it will grow substantially during the next few years.

Hybrid IT will be enabled by a variety of technologies that deliver integration, governance, contract management, service catalogs, etc. Some services managed by hybrid IT will be traditional — modernized, virtualized and automated, but not cloud. However, with respect to cloud services (both public and private), there are two emerging technology centers of gravity that enable hybrid IT. The first is the CMP, which is essentially the service interfaces and service automation needed to create and deliver a cloud service. All cloud services are built around CMPs. Many enterprises are building private clouds today based on CMPs. Very simple CMPs are focused on the delivery of a single service. The second technology area is CSB enablement. These are technologies that specifically enable aggregation, integration and customization across multiple cloud services — essentially, working with multiple CMPs.

While these are two different technology areas, a natural evolution of the CMP being used for private clouds is hybrid cloud interoperability and orchestration — mainly the aggregation function of CSB. Some CMPs are very general-purpose, intended to manage and deliver many cloud services, and also to handle a broad CSB role between those cloud services and external cloud services.

I&O organizations need to be strategic in their plans for CMPs and CSB enablement. Tactically, the goal may be to enable a specific cloud service, enable a specific hybrid cloud service or manage a specific brokering capability. However, tactical solutions can lead to islands of technology, processes and organizations. Strategically, I&O should set its sights higher. Plan for hybrid IT by creating an organization, operational processes, business relationships and technologies that deliberately make multisourcing (cloud and noncloud, on-premises and off-premises, private/public/hybrid cloud) transparent, dynamic, efficient and effective for IT's customers.

Hybrid IT is the mission and the operational model for IT in a cloud computing world. As more cloud computing services emerge, the value of a trusted broker for the enterprise will increase, to ensure maximum efficiency and effectiveness in provider selection, governance, payment, integration, management, security, compliance, etc. A market of CSBs and MSIs is already evolving, as are technologies to help an enterprise achieve hybrid IT. Fundamentally, hybrid IT requires working with the enterprise, including business leaders, to change the working relationship between the enterprise and IT to one where IT is the trusted broker and value-added supplier for all IT-based services, whether they are internal or external.

¹ CMPs are integrated products that manage public, private and hybrid cloud services and resources.

² CSB is an IT role and business model in which a company or other entity adds value to one or more (public or private) cloud services on behalf of one or more consumers of that service via three primary roles: aggregation, integration and customization brokerage.

Source: Gartner Research G00245906, Thomas J. Bittman, Drue Reeves, Ed Anderson, 28 June 2013