The idea that public cloud-based services will radically transform in-house IT operations is ever more evident at Netflix, writes Computerworld‘s Patrick Thibodeau:
Netflix no longer wants to run a data center in support of its in-house corporate IT services. It is shifting internal applications to Amazon’s cloud, as well as using software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers for business services.
Mike Kail, vice president of IT operations at Netflix, said he wants to move as much as 95% of Netflix’s corporate IT services, now run in an in-house data center, to the cloud, but the goal is 100%, he said.
See AlsoWhat is SaaS? - Software as a ServiceTypes of cloud computingWhat is IaaS? Infrastructure as a Service Definition | TechTargetPaaS vs SaaS — What’s the Difference?These corporate IT operations are separate from the Netflix streaming service, which operates from Amazon’s cloud.
The intent is to focus IT operations on providing services to the business, and not managing hardware, said Kail. “Part of my charter is to reduce my data center footprint as much as possible,” he said.
The cloud migration is about concentrating on what’s important to the business, Kail said. With cloud services and SaaS providers he will no longer have to worry about hardware refreshes, operating system patches and paying for power and space. “[These are] time consuming tasks that don’t really add value,” he told Computerworld. “I worry about processing and analyzing the data and providing great services versus all the other extra-curricular activities.”
While that does not bode well for in-house IT staff, it has created a market for third=paty software-as-a-service players such as Sumo Logic, a management and analytics start-up that is using Amazon’s cloud. The two year old company announced Tuesday that Netflix is a customer, the report said.
Cloud-based infrastructure services such as Amazon’s have given a lift to a variety of start-ups. Sumo Logic, which has 60 employees and is based in Mountain View, Calif., launched its services early this year, and says it benefits from Amazon’s ability to rapidly scale up with demand.
Kail said the moved away from an in-house data center isn’t changing the types of skills he says he needs to run his data center. “Unless you are a person that likes racking gear, you are still managing the same technology and services,” he told Thibodeau. They also need to understand the TCP/IP stack and operating systems. “All the same skills still apply,” he said.
Read the full report and have your say: While Netflix seems almost a natural to go 100% cloud, the trend in the enterprise is hybrid, or so the big vendors say. How do you think it all plays out for IT in the end — more or fewer jobs? Do the same skills apply — cloud or not?
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