Thanks to everyone who attended and participated in the Enterprise Cloud Summit yesterday. It was great to see the high level of engagement during the interactive panel session. I put together a summary of the event below using Storify and the @VISIHOSTING Twitter feed.

The Star Tribune featured both of the keynote presenters in a story on cloud computing yesterday. If you missed the story in the paper, you can read it online.

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When your product is offering 100% availability, your testing had better be bulletproof.  Anyone involved in a significant IT project can attest to the amount of work involved in testing new systems.  The hours, the challenges, and the late nights that invariably accompany the one entry that appears on the project tracking document that says, in one way or another, ‘Testing: 100% Complete’.  For those outside the engineering and development circles it can be hard to understand all that has gone into getting ReliaCloud up and running.

As the Product Manager for the ReliaCloud product, I want to give a big thanks to the team of seasoned professionals at VISI, Vital Support Systems and TDS Hosted and Managed Services who worked long hours the last few months to design and test the ReliaCloud platform.  The team included systems architects, engineers, product managers, project management, and many others who designed, documented, and executed on the test plans.  It is this team that gets the credit for putting the ‘Reliable’ in ReliaCloud.

We tested several complex cloud computing use cases covering three cloud types: Public, Hybrid, and Private Cloud.  Each of the test cases within these was designed to validate different areas of functionality.  Each component and function was put through comprehensive test plans including provisioning, integration, patching, fail-over, recovery, and more.

And we aren’t done.  We understand that offering 100% uptime means we continue to develop, test and improve our cloud computing platform continuously to ensure that ReliaCloud will perform 100% of the time.

You can learn more about the ReliaCloud offering at www.reliacloud.com.

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Over 100 IT professionals in the Twin Cities have already registered for the Enterprise Cloud Summit on October 16. Are you coming?  RSVP today.

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It seems like everything is being offered today “as-a-Service”, and infrastructure monitoring is no exception. Our product team has worked hard over the past year to create a new monitoring service based around enterprise-class tools and talented customer support people. I’ve been on a mini-roadshow during the past two weeks educating our customers on our new monitoring capabilities. As part of this roadshow, I’ve developed a presentation which describes some of the highlights of our new service. Let me know what you think!

View presentation in full screen

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Businesses can purchase enterprise cloud infrastructure from dozens of service providers in the marketplace today. While many providers classify their cloud platforms as “enterprise ready”, no two enterprise cloud providers are exactly alike. Businesses need to take a reasoned approach to evaluating the capabilities of potential enterprise cloud vendors. In this seminar, Jason Baker, Chief Technology Officer of VISI, will cover a recommended three step approach when contracting services from an enterprise cloud provider:

1. Identify the business IT stakeholder requirements.

2. Map the business requirements to the enterprise cloud provider’s capabilities

3. Create a cloud service agreement

The breakfast seminar Navigate into the Enterprise Cloud will be held on May 30^th from 7:30-9:00am at our Eden Prairie Data Center. Stick around afterwards for a tour of our Tier III data center.

Register today at www.visi.com/events

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This month VISI will be attending the Minnesota Bankers Association’s 2012 Technology Conference at the Arrowwood Resort in Alexandria, MN.  The conference will highlight today’s hot topics within the banking industry, including those related to operations, business continuity and information security.  Several speakers will present on IT-specific topics, and later in the conference attendees will get the opportunity to hear from a Banker/Vendor Panel on the best practices in Mobility.  Check out more information on this exciting two-day event!

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This morning at 10am, the winner of the Nerdery’s annual Overnight Website Challenge was crowned. Two Unicorns, One Moon took home the win for their hard work improving the website of West African Medical Missions. Honorable mentions went to Twin Cities EE who was partnered with Franconia Sculpture Park, The Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen who worked with Little Voyageurs Montessori School, and Team Pegacorn who improved the website of Metro CISM Team.

Great job to all 18 teams competing this year! Now get some sleep!!

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I woke up bright and early on this rainy Saturday morning to take part in the opening ceremonies of the Overnight Website Challenge.  Over the previous five years of the #WebChallenge, over $2 million in professional services have been donated to 66 non-profits and this year will add 18 more to the list.  This great feat was commended by Senator Al Franken in a video commentary he created for 2012 Challenge participants during this morning’s festivities.

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I received a phone call from a local Fox News reporter today wanting to do a TV interview related to the recent Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) website problems. The Minnesota DNR has a website that campers use every year to reserve spots at dozens of state parks. The prime camping spots at these parks are always in high demand — especially during the major work holidays. The DNR updated their park reservation system this year, and launched it to the delight of eager campers hoping to win the reservation lottery. Unfortunately, the online reservation system quickly buckled from the user demand, and thousands of Minnesota citizens were unable to reserve camping spots.

The Fox News reporter and camera man arrived at our office and setup the interview shoot in our data center. The reporter asked me some basic questions: Why do website outages like this occur? How do businesses know how much power their website needs? Are 4,500 visitors an hour enough to take down a website? (This is approximately the website demand reported by the DNR).

As I was responding to the reporter’s questions, I thought about the process of website capacity planning. Unfortunately, websites failing due to unexpected demand has been a scenario I’ve seen several times over my 16-year career. The first time was in the late 90′s when a customer called to let me know her product would be featured on the Oprah Winfrey TV Show in a few hours. She wanted to make sure her website could handle the increased demand from TV viewers. It couldn’t, and it didn’t. The website hosting platform was never designed to handle the level of demand generated by the TV show. And even if the website platform could have been redesigned to support the increased demand, there was no way to provision the new website capacity in time for the show.

When companies build out their website capacity they invest in a finite amount of resources. They perform a basic risk-benefit analysis. The risk is that they will not invest in enough website resources to meet customer demand. In this case they damage their reputation and lose business. The benefit of investing in more resources is that the business can support greater demand, and create delighted customers. But greater investment also carries a risk. The business might invest in too much website capacity and spend needless dollars on non-existent demand.

In my experience, most organizations have no clue how much demand their websites can handle. Why? One of the sad truths of IT planning is that most website resource capacity recommendations are based on gut instinct. Sure, this instinct is informed by years of experience and some relevant historical data points. But at the end of the day, website capacity planning still comes down to a best guess. Enterprise architects and consultants usually build in a large enough fudge factor in the capacity plans to cover most scenarios. Companies launch their websites into production and face an uncertain future — hoping their website is successful, but not too successful.

Scientists test the thrust generated by rockets before strapping them to the Space Shuttle. Automotive engineers perform extensive performance tests on every new car model. Apple’s quality control team carefully monitors the manufacturing of its new iPad tablets with retina displays. Why do businesses launch new websites out into the wild without rigorous testing? I’m not talking about a handful of developers clicking on random website links. I’m talking about serious website performance testing — dialing up the website requests until the website infrastructure collapses.

If I’m a website owner, I want to know when my website is going to fail. Then, I can go back and do the risk-benefit analysis to see how much risk is acceptable to my business. It’s not possible to invest in an infinite amount of resources, but it’s possible to manage risk when you have a good understanding of the risk level.

I can’t say for certain if the Minnesota DNR technology team engaged in performance testing before launching the updated DNR website. I’m not in a position to evaluate or critique their process. All I can say is that if they didn’t load test the website before launch, they are in good company.

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On March 5th, the non-profits chosen for this year’s Overnight Website Challenge were announced. The competition has grown considerably over last year, with 18 teams competing this year! Here’s a quick run-down on the 2012 challenge:

Aspergers Network Support for Well-Being Education and Research ANSWER provides Aspergers information via resources and support groups for parents, caregivers and professionals.
Bakken Museum The Bakken Museum has a variety of public programming and outreach programs, but is most known for its quirky mansion on the shores of Lake Calhoun, with over 2,200 science and technology related artifacts.
Cancer Legal Line Cancer Legal Line provides and coordinates pro bono legal services to Minnesota cancer patients and survivors at a vulnerable time in their lives.
Career Solutions Inc Career Solutions provides career transition services including career counseling, vocational testing and assessment, and work/life skill building classes and seminars to middle and low-income clients through their Displaced Homemaker, Dislocated Worker and Military Family Re-adjustment services.
Center for Homicide Research The Center for Homicide Research is a Minneapolis-based, volunteer-driven organization addressing the issue of homicide in our communities.
Community Neighborhood Housing Services Community NHS is a NeighborWorks America HomeOwnership Center and HUD approved counseling agency serving Saint Paul and the entire 7-county metropolitan area.
Franconia Sculpture Franconia Sculpture Park supports the talent and ambition of emerging and established artists, where artists are given the opportunity to live, work, and exhibit all at one site.
HOURCAR HOURCAR makes car ownership optional; members receive a personal key “fob” that opens all the vehicles in their fleet. The average HOURCAR member spends just $35 per month on shared car use.
Little Voyageurs’ Montessori School From the beginning, LVMS’s mission has been to nurture the development of each child’s unique potential.
Metro CISM (Critical Incident Stress Management) Team Metro CISM offers a continuum of volunteer lead services to address the stress management needs of emergency services personnel.
Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless MCH advocates at the state legislature for policies that prevent and end homelessness; shares best practices and training between and with member agencies; and educates the public about homelessness.
Minnesota Environmental Partnership Recently named Minnesota’s #1 high impact environmental nonprofit by Philanthropedia, MEP coordinates and convenes the state’s top environmental advocacy nonprofits to share information, plan and implement policy campaigns, educate and engage citizens, and “speak with one voice” on critical environmental issues.
North Star Therapy Animals NSTA aims to provide therapy animal services and the benefits these services bring to individuals.
Valley Friendship Club VFC provides fun, educational and social opportunities for children, teens and young adults with developmental and/or intellectual disabilities, in addition to creating an inclusive partnership and sense of belonging within the community at large.
The Windmill Project The Windmill Project connects families of children with special needs and disabilities to each other
and to appropriate resources and services.
TVbyGIRLS TVbyGIRLS is a nonprofit organization that works with girls ages 10 to 18 to build leadership, compassionate and collaborative working skills, critical thinking and engagement in social justice and the issues of their communities.
West African Medical Missions WAMM is an organization of health care minded individuals focused on aiding in the strengthening of health capacities in West Africa by providing supplies, educational aids, and volunteers to West Africa annually.
Youth Performance Company YPC is an Ivey Award honored youth theater empowering young actors, singers and dancers to reach their artistic potential and become community leaders.

Check out the above websites before they are obsolete; these non-profits will soon have new, cool websites (some hosted by VISI!) by next week! And for a blast from the past, check out the 2011 Minneapolis OWC.

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VISI recently hosted a seminar entitled Data Center Decisions: Build Versus Buy. Jeff Gilmer of Excipio Consulting presented and made the point that the choice of whether to build your own data center or to lease space from a data center provider is one of the most critical business decisions you can make for your organization. He went on to explain that considerations such as overall ROI, operational flexibility, future growth and virtualization all have to be taken into account in order to find the solution that best meets your needs. Thanks to everyone who were able to attend. If you were not able to attend, you can view a copy of the presentation on SlideShare or view video from the seminar below.

If you have any questions or would like to learn more about VISI’s Midwest data centers, feel free to call our sales team at 612-395-9090.

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Over the past several years VISI has been a sponsor of TwinWest’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Summit at the Hopkins Center for the Arts.  We’re excited to participate again this year! The goal of this event is to encourage students to take STEM-related courses by showing them what job opportunities could be available for them in the future.

This year VISI will be offering 6^th to 9^th grade students from area schools the opportunity to test their knowledge on the fundamental infrastructure that powers business: that’s right, a computer server!  They will get to practice switching out components of an actual server while learning how servers are used to power everyday applications.  Of course, fun prizes will be available as well!

Past results of this event have been great.  According to TwinWest, when surveyed, 72 percent of the student participants indicated a higher likelihood to take STEM-related courses.

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I spoke with a customer this past week regarding the industrialization of IT services and he shared an opinion that industrialization would lead to the commoditization of IT services. In other words, all managed IT service providers would eventually deliver undifferentiated services at approximately the same price. I’ve heard this theory a number of times over the years, but I don’t see industrialized service providers heading down this road. Let me explain.

I’ve talked about IT industrialization in a number of previous blog articles. IT industrialization represents a new breed of IT services designed in a highly automated, repeatable, and scalable fashion.

Commoditization, according to Wikipedia, is:

“…the process by which goods…end up becoming simple commodities in the eyes of the market or consumers. It is the movement of a market from differentiated to undifferentiated price competition and from monopolistic to perfect competition.”

We can understand the potential relationship between industrialization and commoditization by looking at two different markets: farming and automotive manufacturing. Then, we can compare managed IT services to each of these markets to get a better understanding of the potential impact of IT industrialization.

Industrialization has greatly improved the efficiency of farming processes leading to fewer farms and greater economies of scale in the agricultural industry. Farmers are price takers — they have to accept the price set by the market (i.e., perfectly competitive). When you buy a potato from the grocery store you generally don’t care which farm it came from because potatoes are a commoditized product (we’re ignoring the organic and local food movement for the moment).

Automobile manufacturing is also a heavily industrialized industry. Early hand-crafted automobile manufacturers were supplanted by more efficient and scalable assembly line manufacturers. Today, the automobile industry has few participants and steep barriers to entry in the form of high labor and capital costs (basically an oligopoly). Automobiles from different manufacturers may share many common attributes, but they are still clearly differentiated products. An Audi is different than a Jeep, which is different than a Ford.

The point is that industrialization doesn’t necessarily lead to the commoditization of a product. It really depends on the product and the barriers of entry into the marketplace. Based on this thinking, the question is: will IT industrialization turn managed services into potatoes or Audi’s?

I think it’s clearly the latter, simply because IT industrialization will ultimately require large investments in skilled IT labor and infrastructure. These significant barriers to entry will ensure that industrialized service providers compete in a marketplace dominated by a smaller number of firms.  And these firms will need to compete with one another based on price and product differentiation.

Service providers will leverage customer service and operational excellence as key competitive advantages — benefiting all customers that work with managed service providers. Remember: a potato farmer doesn’t need to invest in better customer service to sell more potatoes.

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In previous blog articles, I discussed the adoption of industrialized managed services within IT organizations. These are services which are highly automated, repeatable, and scalable. Research firms like Gartner expect industrialized services to represent more than 30% of the IT service market by 2015. It’s obvious that industrialized managed services will play an important role in every organization’s IT strategy in the future, but how do organizations know which IT services to industrialize?

It’s not necessarily a straightforward question to answer because there are no prescribed rules. But let’s try to tackle this question by looking at IT services in two different ways.

Every IT organization delivers services to stakeholders using a variety of technologies. Some of these technologies are provided by common, industry-leading vendors while other technologies are developed in-house. Most widely adopted technologies, used by many different IT organizations, are strong candidates for industrialization.  These are technologies where service providers can create larger economies of scale through consolidation, automation, and abstraction.

Custom technologies and services built in-house are more difficult to industrialize simply because these services were never designed to scale. They were designed to support a single purpose for a single organization. While it is certainly possible to manage these types of services in an outsourcing arrangement, it will not be possible to gain the benefits of industrialization.

Another way to identify potential candidates for IT service industrialization is to place IT services into one of two categories: 1) customer value generating services, and 2) required business services.  Customer value generating services are those services which directly impact revenue generation. These are services which drive customer demand. Required business services are those IT services which are required to keep the lights on — e-mail, business collaboration, service monitoring, etc. Think about it this way: would customers buy more of your product or service if your email server could retrieve messages faster? Probably not. So e-mail service is categorized as a required business service.

Some of you are probably thinking that the customer value generating services are the best candidates to industrialize since these services offer the biggest bang for the buck. But actually, I think it’s the opposite. You hired smart IT leaders in your organization and you need them to work on services which directly impact the organization’s bottom line. The required business services do not create customer value, market differentiation, or competitive advantage. Outsourcing these services to an industrialized managed service provider like VISI allows your IT organization to focus on those activities which most benefit your customers. And at the end of the day, that’s what IT is all about.

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Everyone at VISI is honored to have received one of the first-ever “Progress Minnesota” awards from Minneapolis-based Finance and Commerce. The 2012 award recognizes VISI as one of the companies that is driving Minnesota business growth and economic development in unique and innovative ways.

VISI will be honored on April 11, when Finance & Commerce holds its Progress Minnesota Gala at the Hyatt Regency-Minneapolis.

Read the announcement from Finance and Commerce to see what other individuals and companies were honored with this first-time award.

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