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lori macvittie

Position Paper: Value as a Service – The Second Generation Of Cloud

Krishnan Subramanian · August 27, 2012 · Leave a Comment

At Rishidot Research, we are talking about the future of cloud is more federated with value defined using different metrics than the first generation cloud metrics like ROI, agility, etc. This is a position paper introducing this idea to enterprise managers helping them with the rethink. This report was spearheaded by Lori MacVittie, Principal Analyst, Rishidot Research.

Abstract: The first generation of cloud computing offerings has focused on rapid, elastic provisioning of core resources: compute, network and storage. The second generation of offerings must look beyond these core resources to add value by addressing customer concerns beyond security.

Target Audience: Service Providers, ISVs

Total Pages: 5

Please use the link below to purchase the report. The link will take you to the secure e-commerce platform Fastspring which handles the checkout process. Once the payment is processed, the download link will be sent to your email inbox. Make sure to check your spam folder for the email,

The reprint rights of the report can be purchased by vendors who are Rishidot Research clients by using the credits available or by contacting us. More information on various plans available for vendors can be found in this page. This report is also available in our research library for the subscribers (see more about enterprise buyers plans here).

Yes, Virginia, There is a Role for IT in Big Data

lmacvittie · July 18, 2012 · 1 Comment

Much like cloud and other technology that is used by IT and only later given a catchy, marketable name, IT has been involved in collecting, analyzing, and making decisions based on big data for, well, ever.

Whether it has focused on quality of service, bandwidth management, or performance, IT has collected big operational data and used it to make decisions that improve the quality and security of service delivery. So it was somewhat bemusing to read Joe McKendrick’s blog on big data and discover that most organizations consider data analysis a business function, not an IT function.

Today, 95% of businesses do not consider data analysts a part of their IT staff. Instead, companies are now distributing that expertise to line-of-business groups throughout the company. The majority of respondents (58%) report data management is now embedded throughout their business as a dedicated function.

— Yes, There is ROI in All That Big Data: Survey 

While we certainly don’t give the title “data analyst” to the folks in operations who can glance at a CPU utilization chart and immediately deduce that a memory leak is occurring and causing the system to overprovision resources as a compensatory measure, that’s exactly what these seasoned IT operators are doing – data analysis. It just so happens that they’re focused on operational data, not business data. They’re aggregating across the whole of the data center (and increasingly the cloud) and analyzing operational trends in order to address operational issues like performance, resource consumption, and security as quickly as possible.

Big Operational Data, as it were, has been the foundation of improving operations for as long as log aggregators and inline monitoring solutions have been deployed in the data center. Much in the way we marvel at the ability of old school assembly programmers to peruse a Matrix-like screen full of hex codes and point at two instructions as the root cause of a problem, so do operators today analyze logs and output and charts produced by a menagerie of infrastructure services and rapidly deduce through their analysis from whence a problem originates.

The Convergence of BIG Business and Operational Data

Big operational data has the potential to add significant value to the business. In a world where micro-seconds of delay translate to lost revenue and customers, it is imperative that operations be able to quickly track down the causes of delay and redress. That means analyzing operational data and making decisions to reroute traffic, tweak policies, or turn on services that will improve performance, resource utilization or security.

Additionally, some big data is equally valuable to both IT and the business. Browser, location, identity, device form factor. These pieces of data are pertinent to operations as it enables the codification of policies regarding access and security and to business to understand the habits and preferences of its (potential) customers. This data exists across a variety of systems in the data center (and without) and must be used by both operational and business data analysts alike if organizations are to fully take advantage of big data.

There are plenty of ways in which IT can take advantage of big operational data – from more tailored delivery policies to improving the bottom line through better provisioning of resources and optimizing performance. Doing so, however, requires analysis of the data, either formally or informally. Data analysis, whether of operational or business data, is still analysis.

There is a role for IT operations in big data, and big data has a role in IT operations. 

Welcome Lori and Jocelyn To The Rishidot Team

Krishnan Subramanian · July 10, 2012 · Leave a Comment

Rishidot Research is a three months old startup but we are already growing. Yup, I call it a startup because I am running this analyst firm in a startup mode, full of ideas, nimble, passion to disrupt the space and other startup emotional buzzwords one can think of. Even though #clouderati community and many others who are connected with me on Twitter know about this news, I think it is time I make this official in this blog.

Rishidot Research is having two new additions to the team, Lori MacVittie and Jocelyn DeGance Graham. Lori is well known in the industry for her great insights on cloud infrastructure landscape and beyond. Her blog posts are some of the most insightful posts ever written in the space and I have greatly benefitted from her knowledge. I am excited beyond words to have her part of Rishidot Research and I am sure our clients will immensely benefit from her expertise. For now, she is going to continue with her gig at F5 Networks as she slowly transitions into the analyst role completely. She will stay out of any research where there is a conflict of interest with them. She shares Rishidot’s belief on transparency and she will add disclosures wherever appropriate. I once again welcome Lori to our team and looking forward to our collaboration on research topics of mutual interests.

I know Jocelyn for almost two years now from the time she was at Grails Research and I strongly feel that her expertise in market research will aid the research team in a big way. She is going to wear multiple hats at Rishidot Research (don’t people wear multiple hats in a startup?) from helping the research team collect, analyze and make sense of market data to business development to sales. Her multi-faceted experience is going to immensely help this young research firm and I am both excited and confident about our company’s future. I once again welcome Jocelyn to the team and looking forward to working with her scaling the organization in the coming years.

It is a great start for a young company and we are already planning our agenda for the next two quarters. Watch this space for more information.

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