lustratus REPAMA

Archive for the ‘taxonomy’ Category

I’ve completed the first draft of the cloud computing segmentation model upon which we will build our REPAMA studies.

As I’ve mentioned before along my journey to arrive at this model, I’ve found the cloud computing market to have quickly become crowded and confused. This is largely due to the ease at which “traditional” vendors have re-repositioned themselves to catch the cloud computing wave.

The other issue of course is that over time cloud computing will cease to be a new paradigm and will quickly become the way consumers and businesses avail themselves of computing services. So what I’m seeing here is a market in transition where just about every category in traditional software sales will have an offer in the cloud computing space until on-demand models becomes “the norm”.

So I guess it’s really not that surprising to see so many vendors present in the space. But at the same time it is very confusing for legitimate prospects to cut their way through the mass of terminology to then examine vendors and service providers who appear to have broadly identical capabilities and value propositions.  How do they decide the best way to take their first steps into cloud computing? It’ll be interesting to see what our REPAMA studies say about how each of the vendors/service providers’ takes their products to market.

Anyway, I’ve uploaded a set of slides to slideshare.net which I think is probably the best way to make the material available but if anyone wants a copy of the slides please let me know. The slides are embedded below.

As I’ve said before, this segmentation model will undoubtedly develop and change over time as I look in more detail at the marketing efforts of the various vendors involved. The definitions for each of the functional areas are a little woolly right now. But at least I now have a structure that allows me to decide which segments and vendors/service providers I will include in our studies moving forward.

I’d like to once again acknowledge the significant role that Brad Buck, Peter Laird and Christofer Hoff played in helping to form the ideas on market segmentation and the role NIST has played in crystallising definitions on cloud computing and software/platform/infrastructure as a service.

Danny Goodall

Products and vendors included in the segmentation model are shown below. If you represent a vendor below and I haven’t represented your organisation correctly, or if you represent a vendor that isn’t included but should be, please contact me and let me know a little bit about your company and your proposition and where you feel you fit in the segmentation model.

10Gen MongoDB, 3Tera App Logic, Aconex, Advologix, Altor Networks, Amazon EBS, Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Amazon SimpleDB, Amazon SQS, Amitive, Apache CouchDB, Apache HBase, Appian Anywhere, Appistry, AppJet, AppNexus, AppZero, Aptana, Aria Systems, Aster DB, Beam4d, Beowulf, Blink Logic, Boomi, Box.net, Bungee Labs Connect, Caspio, Cassandra, Cast Iron, Clickability, Cloud42, Cloud9 Analytics, CloudFoundry, CloudStatus, ClusterSeven, CohesiveFT, CohesiveFT VPN Cubed, ColdLight Neuron, Collabnet, Concur, CrownPoint, CTERA, CTERA Portal, DataSynapse, Desktoptwo, DirectLaw, DocLanding, DropBox, Dynamsoft, Dynect, Elastichosts, Elastra, EMC Atmos, Engine Yard, Enomaly Enomalism, enStratus, Etelos, Eucalyptus, eVapt, FathomDB, Fios, Flexiscale, Force.com, Gemstore Gemfire, Gigaspaces, Globus Toolkit, gnip, Google App Engine, Google Apps, Google BigTable, GridLayer, Hadoop, Hosting.com CloudNine, HubSpan, Hyperic, Hypertable, IBM Lotus Live, iCIMS, InfoBright, Informatica iTRICITY, Joyent Accelerators, JungleDisk, K2 Analytics, Kaavo, Knowledge TreeLive, LayeredTech, LiveOps, LoadStorm, LogiXML, LongJump, LucidEra, memcached, Mercury, mezeo software, Microsoft BizTalk Services, Microsoft SDS, Mosso Cloud Files, Mosso Cloud Servers, Mosso Cloud Sites, Mozy, MS Azure Services Platform, MSDynamics, MuleSource Mule OnDemand, NetDocuments, NetSuite, NewRelic, Ning, Nirvanix, Oco, Open.ControlTier, OpenCloud, opencrowd, OpenNebula, OpenQRM, OpenRSM, OpSource, OpSource Connect, Oracle Coherence, Oracle On Demand, Panaroma, Parallels, ParaScale, Parature, PingIdentity, PivotLink, Platform, Qrimp, Quantivo, Questys, rackspacecloud, Redi2, Reductive Labs Puppet, Responsys, Rightnow, RightScale, Rollbase, rPath, Salesforce.com, Scalr, Sertifi, Serve Path GoGrid, SkyTap, SnapLogic, SnapLogic SaaS Solution Packs, SOASTA, SpringCM, Sterna, StreetSmarts, Success Metrics, Sun Grid Engine, Symplified, Syncplicity, Taleo, TerraCotta, Terremark, TIBCO Silver, Tokyo Cabinet, Trigence, Vertica, VMWare vSphere, Vordel, Workday, Workxpress, Xactly, Xero, Xeround, Xythos, Ylastic, Zembly, Zmanda, Zmanda Cloud Backup, Zoho, Zuora, Mezeo Software, Workxpress, Trigence, AppZero, Platform, OneNetwork, SpringSource, Vaultscape

Continuing my quest to segment the cloud computing market, I’m now looking at the role a channel might play in cloud computing…

…and I’m struggling a little to map the traditional channel role onto cloud. But here are my current thoughts.

There are some obvious areas in the cloud taxonomy/segmentation that look like a good old fashioned software sales model. So first let’s start with my draft / work in progress taxonomy/segmentation to help anchor the discussions in something solid. BTW draft/work in progress means that it will change.

Cloud Software

So the Cloud Software segment looks like a traditional software business. Using Brad Buck’s definition for this segment:

Cloud Software is off-the-shelf software that can be used to create an internal cloud or in some cases can be used to customise infrastructure services to mould a customer cloud solution.

Although Brad implies this, I’d extend that even further to say that cloud software will be the basis upon which infrastructure service providers build, host, manage, secure, monitor, etc. their own infrastructure services. So as this is real software being sold to real organisations the channel model I’ve come up with looks familar.

Software is sold to an organisation either directly or through some form of reseller/distribution channel. The end user IT organisation making the purchase either creates a cloud on their own premises for internal use (internal cloud) or a cloud service provider uses the cloud software to create a cloud service which is then made available to others.

Software Services

Looking at the software services segment, the definition here is

Software services are applications or components that can be used as an end application or used as part of a custom solution

So we have packaged applications or application components of varying degrees of complexity made available to application users directly by the software services provider. Application builders will incorporate some of these software services into their own applications which are tailored and then made available to application users – thus forming one channel to market.

The draft channel model I see there is as shown below:

Here we see that the application user is the ultimate consumer of the software service and that they are likely to consume that directly via the software service provider or via a third party application builder that modifies and extends the software service.

Platform Services

Broadly similar to the platform as a service definition, this segment is defined here specifically as:

Platform services offer a ready built infrastructure and application framework than can be used for building and running applications.

Platform services provide the frameworks in which applications can be built, tested and run. The application user is ultimately the end consumer of the service but some form of application builder will have used the platform service to make the application available to the user as shown below:

There is an argument here that the strict consumer of the platform service is the application builder who then makes the application available to the application user as a software service model. I need to think about this a little more before I cast this section in stone.

Infrastructure Services

Finally the infrastructure services segment is defined as:

Infrastructure services provide building blocks that can be moulded to run different application servers, packaged applications, grids, etc., which can be used to host applications.

These are basic data centre-like hardware, software and network elements that are provided as building blocks upon which software services and platform services can be deployed. In addition end user IT organisations also procure infrastructure services directly and then deploy their own software on to it, treating it as a virtual part of their own infrastructure.

This means that the channel model for infrastructure services looks like this:

Implied Channel Hierarchy

There is an implied channel hierarchy as shown in the diagram below but this is not always strictly followed. The diagram suggests that each level of service provider engages the services of the higher level service provider.

Whilst this certainly will be the deployment model for many cloud users it will not always be the the case. For example whilst it might make academic sense to assume that software services are built and made available using platform services which are then deployed in infrastructure services, in reality services at each level can be provisioned and delivered autonomously without the need for a relationship with providers at any of the other levels.

Conclusion

Well I can’t say that I’ve reached any sort of conclusion yet but I think getting these drafts down on paper has helped me think about the way that the IT industry’s traditional channel models will change over the coming years. I think it’s clear that we will either have less “middle-men” in our sales models or that the roles of these middle-men will change significantly as cloud computing becomes more prevalent.

OK, so back to the segmentation exercise. Next I need to decide on the candidate sub-segments within the major segments explored above. And then I need to decide on which vendors will appear in each of those sub-segments. Finally I need to decide which segments, sub-segments and vendors/providers will be the focus of our cloud computing REPAMA research. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

The  DRAFT Channel Models for Cloud Computing presentation from which the diagrams above have been extracted is shown below.

I’d like to once again acknowledge the significant role that Brad Buck, Peter Laird and Christofer Hoff played in helping to form the ideas on market segmentation.

Danny Goodall

As mentioned earlier in these pages I’m documenting my quest to arrive at a market segmentation model of the cloud computing market. This will allow me to perform a series of REPAMA competitive marketing studies into various vendors in the cloud computing space. I’m uncovering more and more interesting research as I go and one such piece is described below.

The smart people at NIST (The US Governmental agency responsible for something or other – standards I think) have released some interesting work on cloud computing. Aimed at reaching a common set of definitions around cloud computing and its use cases, but recognising that these will change over time, their work can be found here.

I’ve reproduced some sections below because I think they add something to my quest to segment the cloud computing market. That said, I think they’ve omitted, perhaps consciously, an important characteristic and that is the commercial arrangements around cloud computing – namely its pay per use nature.

Anyway here goes:

A Definition of Cloud Computing:

Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. This cloud model promotes availability and is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models.

Essential Characteristics of Cloud Computing

On-demand self-service. A consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, as needed automatically without requiring human interaction with each service’s provider.

Broad network access. Capabilities are available over the network and accessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms (e.g., mobile phones, laptops, and PDAs).

Resource pooling. The provider’s computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand. There is a sense of location independence in that the customer generally has no control or knowledge over the exact location of the provided resources but may be able to specify location at a higher level of abstraction (e.g., country, state, or datacenter). Examples of resources include storage, processing, memory, network bandwidth, and virtual machines.

Rapid elasticity. Capabilities can be rapidly and elastically provisioned, in some cases automatically, to quickly scale out and rapidly released to quickly scale in. To the consumer, the capabilities available for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can be purchased in any quantity at any time.

Measured Service. Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service (e.g., storage, processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts). Resource usage can be monitored, controlled, and reported providing transparency for both the provider and consumer of the utilized service.

Service Models:

Cloud Software as a Service (SaaS). The capability provided to the consumer is to use the provider’s applications running on a cloud infrastructure. The applications are accessible from various client devices through a thin client interface such as a web browser (e.g., web-based email). The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, storage, or even individual application capabilities, with the possible exception of limited user-specific application configuration settings.

Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS). The capability provided to the consumer is to deploy onto the cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquired applications created using programming languages and tools supported by the provider. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, or storage, but has control over the deployed applications and possibly application hosting environment configurations.

Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). The capability provided to the consumer is to provision processing, storage, networks, and other fundamental computing resources where the consumer is able to deploy and run arbitrary software, which can include operating systems and applications. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage, deployed applications, and possibly limited control of select networking components (e.g., host firewalls).

Deployment Models:

Private cloud. The cloud infrastructure is operated solely for an organization. It may be managed by the organization or a third party and may exist on premise or off premise.

Community cloud. The cloud infrastructure is shared by several organizations and supports a specific community that has shared concerns (e.g., mission, security requirements, policy, and compliance considerations). It may be managed by the organizations or a third party and may exist on premise or off premise.

Public cloud. The cloud infrastructure is made available to the general public or a large industry group and is owned by an organization selling cloud services.

Hybrid cloud. The cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more clouds (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability (e.g., cloud bursting for load-balancing between clouds).

I think this is a really nice and compact definition of cloud computing it characteristics and use cases. I particularly like the notes on deployment models which I certainly want to incorporate into my cloud computing market segmentation.

Kudos to Peter Mell and Tim Grance of NIST!

Danny Goodall

I’m continuing the REPAMA Segment Analysis Study into the Cloud Computing market attempting to arrive at a solid market segmentation and two things have become very clear.

Firstly, every vendor with a remotely related proposition appears to have added the word “cloud” to their product name, presumably in an attempt to bask in the reflected glory that cloud computing provides, perhaps in an effort to appease their investors. This means that there are a large number of vendors claiming to be part of specific segments that may or may not have legitimate claims. This makes the process I’m going through confusing and messy. And if I, as a marketing analyst am having problems, I wonder what sort of success a legitimate prospect would have in finding the product/service they need.

Secondly, the market is still in flux and as such nailing a clear segmentation down is, for some time, going to be like herding cats. This is a classic early market symptom where the market is currently led by vendors’ own ideas about what is needed and what is possible. Once the market starts to form properly and vendors align behind what their prospects and customers are actually buying, then the segmentation will become clearer.

But I have to start somewhere and the good news is that I’ve been corresponding with both Peter Laird of Tendril Inc. and Brad Buck of OpenCrowd and they both have given their blessing to this project and have offered to help if they can. Most importantly they are both happy for me to use their work on a cloud computing taxonomy/model, here and here, as a starting point for my cloud market segmentation.

One thing that I quickly realised was needed for my purposes was some form of professional services (human skills) offer. Plenty of large consultancies, smaller integrators and boutique IT shops offer consultancy services around cloud computing. Both Peter and Brad have rightly focussed on the categorisation of product capability and customer need in fleshing our “their” taxonomy. But to fully understand what propositions are being put together to service the cloud computing “need”, I must include cloud computing professional services.

So far I’ve identified the following list of services under the category of professional services. I suspect that it will grow some and be rationalised some before I finish.

• Strategy, planning and design
• Migration and implementation services
• Testing
• Security
• Cloud application design/porting
• Support services and training

I suspect that cloud application design/porting will be a relatively niche category for a while and that testing, security and support services may all become amalgamated as I carry on my research.

Another major category of cloud computing offer that has also presented itself is that of “Channel”. A number of organisations are white labelling, OEM’ing, reselling or otherwise fronting cloud vendors/service providers’ offerings. One concern that I have is that this sort of partnering is very common in hot early markets where one vendor with no cloud proposition hastily signs a partner agreement to simply tick a box. It does’t mean that either company will do any real business.  I’ll do some digging and and if it looks like a real enough category I’ll add it and blog on it soon.

Danny Goodall.

In putting together our REPAMA analysis into the go-to-market strategies of the vendors in the cloud computing space, we first must arrive at an agreed segmentation of the market. This blog documents that process.

OK so as I mentioned here, I am going to carry out a series of REPAMA Segment Analysis Studies into the cloud computing market. The desired end product is a series of reverse-engineered go-to-market strategies for a set of vendors in each of the categories within the cloud computing market. But first I need to decide on the segmentation of the various technical offers in the cloud computing space.  After that I need to decide which vendors fit into each of the different proposition segments. This series of blogs will capture my journey through this analysis.

Where to start? Well I thought that my colleagues Steve Craggs and Ronan Bradley at Lustratus Research (the market analyst part of Lustratus) would be able to give me a definitive answer on the segmentation of the cloud computing market but as Steve told me, right now there isn’t a universally agreed way of describing the various categories of propositions under the cloud computing banner. Whilst he feels their are some obvious high-level classifications, under there things are a bit grey.

The problem is two-fold. Firstly, it appears that as the cloud computing market is currently at an early stage (albeit using what now are some pretty mature technologies); the propositions have grown, merged, change direction and are only now starting to find live customers amongst enterprises; so categorisation has proved difficult.  Secondly, the analysts involved in this space each has a vested interest in classifying the market on their terms and importantly in a different way to their analyst competitors – a game they will play until the market matures.

So I decided that I would capture the opinion of the great and the good of analysts and vendors alike and come up with our own classification. And in doing this a number of existing works stood out.

1. Peter Lairds – On-Demand Blog Classification

Peter Laird’s “Laird On-Demand blog“, and in particular this post, documents his efforts to arrive at a market taxonomy for Cloud Computing together with a nascent list of the vendors that fit into each category. As you can see from the diagram on the right, Peter is a fellow fan of mind mapping (it’s how Lustratus collects, collates and generally makes sense of the raw data behind the REPAMA studies), his classification has a simplistic appeal that I like.

At the highest level Peter divides the cloud market into

• Infrastructure
• Platform
• Services
• Applications

I feel that this a good way of looking at the cloud market and one that works well for my purposes. I also like the way Peter has classified private and public cloud seperately.  From the perspective of the REPAMA analysis I will be conducting, this is an important distinction between the various vendors’ propositions. (This despite the fact that the same software and vendors may appear in both categories).

2. OpenCrowd Taxonomy

Another interesting approach is provided by OpenCrowd.  I don’t know OpenCrowd but they appear to be a RIA vendor but also deep thinkers who really understand the major trends in the markets in which they compete. They’ve looked at cloud computing and have come up with a very thorough classification as shown in the diagram on the right.

They see the market also categorised into 4 high-level categories:

• Infrastructure Services
• Cloud Software
• Platform Services
• Software Services

OpenCrowd has also gone to considerable effort to sub-categorise these high-level categories and also to identify specific vendors associated with those sub-categories. Again I like this approach for its thoroughness although having looked at some of the vendors in each of the categories, its clear that they have been placed there/asked to be placed there simply because they want to bask in the reflected glory of the cloud computing market, as opposed to having a dedicated or specific cloud focus.

3. Christofer Hoff’s Cloud Model

Finally, a more technical classification comes from Christofer Hoff in his highly entertaining and incredibly well thought out security-focused blog – Rational Survivability. In this entry Hoff publishes his architectural model which appears to be largely aimed at understanding the interaction, dependencies and relationships between the architectural components in a cloud architecture from a security perspective.

It’s useful to have an architectural model to work with as this helps to validate that the vendor-led offers into the cloud market as described above, have some basis in fact. Whilst it won’t figure in my market-led classifications I have added it here for completeness.

So I’m still in the process of collecting my ideas and I’d like to take bit of 1. and 2. above and merge them into something that better reflects the vendors’ perspectives of how they take their products to market. I also need to first ensure that both Peter and OpenCrowd are comfortable with me doing that. The model I arrive at will necessarily be far simplified too as for the purposes of my vendor to vendor comparisons, I need to ensure that I group vendors together that compete even if they don’t intellectually appear to fit into the same market categorisation.  Watch this space.

Danny Goodall.

• Infrastructure
  Public
  Private
  Infrastructure
  Platform
  Biz Users Platforms
  Dev Platforms
  Services
  Storage
  Integrate
  Enablers
  Applications