As all sorts of vendors start to position their offerings for cloud consumption models, only a few have gone above and beyond to creating a meaningful and comprehensive offer that can seriously "move the needle" for their customers.
Such is the case with CSC.
Rather than sprinkle a few cloud-like offerings here and there amongst their standard fare, they've gone much farther and invested created an extremely comprehensive and compelling suite of services.
To understand their portfolio is to also to gain a good understanding around exactly what it's going to take to help larger enterprises be successful with cloud services.
To Begin With
CSC has long been one of those powerhouse system integrators in the industry -- having the breadth and depth to take on extremely complex and challenging IT projects.
Back when all the VCE activity was beginning, I spent some significant time with their teams, sharing how we saw the opportunities emerging, and what we thought it would take for success.
Time passed, other teams took the lead, and -- well -- I sort of lost track of exactly how things were progressing.
A few days ago, I got a comprehensive update on just how far CSC had progressed.
It was impressive on several levels -- see what you think.
The Highlights
CSC's primary infrastructure-as-a-service cloud offerings (CSC BizCloud and CloudCompute) are built on standard VCE Vblocks.
To this strong foundation, CSC adds considerable value with their unique capabilities in security, service delivery, global delivery, system integration services, and -- most interestingly -- a wide range of flexible consumption options.
While the technology and the maturity of CSC's operational processes are compelling in their own right, it's the broad range of consumption options that got me really interested.
Customers can use the exact same technology foundation in any combination of three ways: via a shared service running in CSC's data centers, via a dedicated service in CSC's data centers, or by contracting with CSC to deliver those same services on-premise in the customers data center.
Let's look at these one at a time …
Getting To Enterprise Cloud With Far Less Hassle
On one hand, cloud models can be very compelling: low costs and flexible consumption models -- a significant and meaningful departure from IT-as-usual.
On the other hand, getting there can present substantial challenges for most IT organizations.
The skills to specify, build and support the cloud environment aren't in place. The operational processes are very different, and require unique skills as well. And there's the financial challenge of getting to an effective enough scale to enjoy the benefits.
In essence, CSC is providing their customers with a shortcut to an enterprise-class cloud: complementing any in-house investments the customer is willing to make with CSC's broad range of capabilities.
Given what I've learned from talking to enterprise customers, it's an offer that should be seriously considered by many.
Start With Vblocks
As many readers might know, Vblocks are pre-integrated enterprise cloud infrastructure from VCE.
They take the best-of-the-best from VMware, Cisco and EMC, and deliver a directly usable IaaS capability with superior functionality and economics.
It should be noted that CSC has more than enough prowess to potentially create their own Vblock-like offering, should they have needed it.
Instead, they decided to build their own value-added capabilities on the shoulders of what is arguably the best in the industry.
This also gives customers significant flexibility and consistency should they, say, want to combine traditionally owned and operated IaaS assets with CSC's offerings -- a not entirely unlikely scenario.
Mix And Match Consumption Options
Not all workloads can go to a shared public service. Some workloads can go off-site, but need to run on dedicated infrastructure.
And still more workloads really should be running in the customer's data center.
The CSC model supports any combination of all three consumption models, using the exact same technology and operational processes if you prefer.
This hybrid approach neatly sidesteps the intractable debate of "which cloud for you?".
It also provides significant flexibility to shift the mix as requirements inevitably change over time.
Add Management … And Security … And Global Reach
CSC provides an interesting range of management options that are worth understanding -- their flexibility creates some interesting and compelling scenarios for their customers.
For example, customers with significant in-house management capabilities can either use CSC's management portals and frameworks, or -- if they choose -- use their in-house management tools and processes against CSC-provided infrastructure.
Put differently, if you've invested in creating a compelling internal cloud management capability, you can continue to use it.
Or, if you'd rather not, CSC has both the tools and the people to do this on your behalf.
Or, finally, if you'd like to start using a cloud today, but defer the investment in upgrading your management processes and skills, that's an attractive option as well.
The same general discussion applies to security as well. CSC's historically capabilities around managed security are legendary. I would argue that a CSC-managed cloud is arguable far more secure and more compliant than the vast majority of traditional environments out there today.
That being said, if you've invested heavily in your own internal security capabilities and processes, or perhaps security isn't a primary concern, you're free to apply your own security capabilities to CSC's underlying infrastructure.
As before, use theirs, use your own, use a combination, or -- most interestingly -- use theirs while you build out your own.
Finally, CSC is actively investing in building out a substantial global capability around their IaaS cloud offerings.
Once again, this provides an opportunity to either use their resources entirely if your needs are global, or -- more interestingly -- use their assets to extend and leverage your own.
Standard Rate Cards, Standard Discounts, Mix And Match
One of the more compelling aspects of the CSC proposition is the clear and transparent communication of underlying per-workload costs.
It's pretty easy to figure out how their offering compares against others you might be considering, and -- more importantly -- how it compares against your own costs for internally delivered services.
Different service classes (the inevitable bronze, silver, gold and platinum) offer progressively higher degrees of service delivery that scale independently of resources consumed (processor, memory, storage, network).
This enables customers to cost-effectively support, say, very large applications that might have less-demanding service delivery requirements, or, conversely, smaller applications that require very high levels of service delivery.
Making It Easier To Get There
CSC's system integration and outsourcing heritage is evident in their ancillary services. CSC has a well-defined onboarding process that accelerates the transition to their IaaS offerings and mitigates risks.
Or, if you're not quite ready for that, they've also got the capability to do non-trivial PoCs (proof of concepts) that can show you exactly how the service performs.
This Isn't Your Father's Outsourcing
Given CSC's long tradition as an outsourcer, the temptation might be to view these new offerings as simply re-packaged outsourcing. That's definitely not the case as I see it.
Traditional outsourcing usually didn't address re-platforming on a standardized platform, as is being done here.
Traditional outsourcing typically didn't have the flexibility in security and operational management models, either.
Most importantly, traditional outsourcing never provided the wide range of flexible and variable consumption options we're seeing with these offerings, nor was there the up-front transparency of what your actual costs might be.
A Call To Action?
So many of the enterprise IT organizations I meet with want (and need!) to move to a cloud-like IaaS model. They know they have to get there, the sooner the better.
But obstacles to getting there are considerable: technology, skills, processes, financial -- and a healthy helping of cultural resistance.
When I look at what CSC has done, I see a powerful and comprehensive set of IaaS cloud services that can help many customers get where they're going -- faster and with far less hassle than before.
It's an offer that's worth considering.
For More Information
CSC has set up a nice web portal with all of their cloud offerings here. You can also download a version of their presentation here, as well as useful PDFs here, here, and here.
It would be helpful to be able to get this report in PDF or MS Word format so that it could be used in slide presentations or proposal documents.
Posted by: Dallas Baugh | March 17, 2011 at 08:48 AM