Convergence in the Cloud, RIM, SAAS, ITSM and ITIL

The evolution of the internet from a medium of connectivity to a medium of business has brought about a paradigm shift in IT behavior and usage. Cloud computing is representative of that shift. It presents a dynamic change whereby resources such as application software, information, and data center usage are available to organizations in an “on-demand” with “pay as you go” basis; akin to utilities like electricity and water.

While to many it may seem like a revolution, in its roots lie certain basic principles of evolution. The first stage in the evolution evolved from better and faster connectivity, which allowed outsourcing as a separate industry to grow. Outsourcing achieved two things, it helped organizations to have cost advantages, and it gave them the ability to focus on their core competencies. A third very important point not often realized is that it broke the taboo of using specialized outsourced services and the fear associated with having critical data stored and utilized by third parties.

With time; evolution of both hardware and services has seen a slow convergence on the web. As services became specialized new models of businesses for software; allowing customers cost advantages in their Capital Expenditure like ASP or “Application Service Provider” models have grown. Further from the ASP model has grown the SAAS or “Software As A Service”.

Similarly from a situation of owning and maintaining huge IT infrastructure has grown the practice of using outsourced models via data centers and RIM “Remote Infrastructure Management”. The growth of RIM has been so rapid that Gartner predicts that by 2012, 20% of businesses will own no major IT Assets.

“As organizations make plans to navigate the economic recovery and prepare for the return to growth, our predictions for 2010 focus on the impact of critical changes in the balance of control and power in IT," Brian Gammage, VP and Research fellow at Gartner.

Cementing the relationship between Software on the web and Infrastructure on the web has been the practice of Service Management, or IT Service Management, a discipline used to provide continual IT Infrastructure and Services seamlessly. IT service management is representative of an emerging scenario where the focus of any organization is the service it provides to its clients and not the technology.

These emerging scenarios’s are in line with the changes in the best practises area where there has been a shift from “process” to “business”. ITIL, the most established best practise in ITSM has also seen a focus on the life-cycle approach. As we see the current phase out of ITIL Version 2 to the ITIL version 3, we also need to look at the need for re-tooling and re-training professionals.

After all, what worked well in yesterday’s environment has been clouded over.