Cloud Management Broker: The Next Wave In Cloud Computing

According to the National Institute of Standards, a Cloud-Management Broker (CMB) "provides a cloud-user a unified and enhanced management interface to multiple cloud-providers."  The institute also identifies the essential features of a CMB as a unified interface, federated cloud-subscriber credentials for multiple cloud-providers, and federated access to multiple cloud-provider programming interfaces. Why is this the next wave in cloud?

GSA's proposed cloud brokerage grabs industry attention

"GSA had more than 160 industry participants at the Cloud Brokerage Industry Day Aug. 2, and the wait list was large enough that officials could not accommodate everyone who wanted to take part, said Stan Kaczmarczyk, director of cloud computing service at the Federal Acquisition Services’ Information Technology Services Office."
(FCW (http://s.tt/1kwDX)

DoD Releases Cloud Computing Strategy; Designates DISA as the Enterprise Cloud Service Broker

"The Department of Defense announced today the release of a cloud computing strategy that will move the department’s current network applications from a duplicative, cumbersome, and costly set of application silos to an end state designed to create a more agile, secure, and cost effective service environment that can rapidly respond to changing mission needs. In addition, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has been named as the enterprise cloud service broker to help maintain mission assurance and information interoperability within this new strategy."

Warning To Agencies: The Cloud Is Not Faith-Based Computing

"The DHS has recently issued a request for information from industry for cloud brokerage models. The goal is to ultimately select a firm to provide cloud-based environments and models to support the department and its agencies, [Dave McClure, assistant administrator, Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies, General Services Administration] said."

Office of the Chief Information Security Officer, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, US Department of Health & Human Services

"There is a growing demand for cloud brokers as intermediaries between end users (such as CMS business owners) and CSPs. From Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with multiple vendors, to compliance and security, a broker handles many cloud related issues for a customer. This approach also enables business owners to switch cloud vendors without worrying about many of the operational details. Some vendor experience in delivering multiple services with stringent SLA requirements, strong enterprise presence, and long lasting relationship with existing government IT departments is a primary requirement when looking for a potential broker for CMS cloud services." Source: CMS.gov

In fact, Daryl Plummer, managing vice president and Gartner Fellow at Gartner and chief of research for cloud computing, sees cloud brokerage as a "must-have" for most organizations:

"A CSB can make cloud services more valuable because they work closely with cloud providers to get price breaks or access to more information about how a service works. In addition, they have more experience working with multiple providers and across many consumer scenarios. Instead of spending time and money to address these problems internally, consumers can leverage solutions offered by CSBs that allow organizations to focus on other pressing business needs instead. A viable CSB provider can make it less expensive, easier, safer and more productive for companies to navigate, integrate, consume and extend cloud services, particularly when they span multiple, diverse cloud services providers."

The State of Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) presents one of the few, if not the only, live operational model of cloud brokerage use within a government context. In the Pilot Texas Cloud Offering (PTCO), a small group of agencies were allowed to choose a virtual private cloud-based infrastructure as a service from a marketplace of service providers made available by a cloud broker. According to the recently released LESSONS LEARNED: Pilot Texas Cloud Offering:

"This approach was selected as it maximized the opportunity to produce the broadest spectrum of experiences for customers. The cloud broker helped to normalize the multiple services available, creating an “apples-to-apples” comparison in pricing and functionality as much as possible. In addition, the cloud broker provided a single, unified web interface for end users to design, procure, provision, monitor, and govern the services. The PTCO allowed DIR and the pilot agencies to a gain a greater understanding of cloud infrastructure offerings for state government and document options and issues with provider selection, pricing, access security, data security, credentialing, provisioning time frames, service levels, service remedy options, terms of use, billing models, interoperability, mobility, scalability, capacity management, provider compliance, and monitoring and licensing."

 

Among the lessons learned, this multi-year project showed that the use of a cloud broker can: