A Step-by-Step

Guide to Defining
Your Cloud
Services Catalog
Table of Contents
Introduction 1

Chapter 1 4
Defining the Services Catalog

Chapter 2 9
Building a Services Catalog

Chapter 3
Choosing the Right Solution for Your Business 14

Chapter 4
Declaring Success 16

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catalogs soon learn that the path to users. The listed services typically include

success is complex. Its complex both application functionality or data for use

because of the diversity of available services, either by end users or in applications. As

as well as how enterprises interact with a result, enterprises are able to reuse these

those services. Yet, the good news is that cloud services across applications, and

the technology you deploy in support of they may exist on any number of platforms

this initiative will strip complexity from the including private and public clouds.

development process. The catalog itself

shields users and administrators from Think of a services catalog as akin to iTunesTM,

dealing with the underlying management or other online music and video stores,

including automation of cloud services. rather than as a typical catalog. Just as we

download the music we need, on-demand,

Cloud services catalogs are a centralized service catalogs allow you to discover and

resource to both discover and leverage access cloud services, such as storage,

private or public cloud services. An outgrowth compute, and business services, which

of service registries and repositories from can be self- or auto-provisioned. Just like

the days of SOA (Service-Oriented iTunes tracks your music downloads, cloud

Architecture), this new and improved services catalogs track your service usage.

technology provides a single gateway for Perhaps even applying rules to your use of

Introduction 1
services, such as who or what can leverage amount of understanding as to the
services, and for what purpose. approach, as well as knowledge of the
available technology.
Enterprises that lack cloud services catalogs
are missing out on the advantages of In this eBook, well remove the mystery out
centralized control, centralized discovery, of how to define a cloud services catalog,
and centralized access; and these services providing you with a step-by-step guide
become distributed and unmanageable to build the catalog itself. This effort often
pretty quickly. Not surprisingly, effective marks a departure for IT, and typically there
governance becomes the single most are no existing models to follow. However,
important reason that cloud service catalogs well move you through the processes to
exist for enterprises. understand the existing service assets, and
leverage best-of-breed operations and
Beyond service catalogs, enterprises that automation technology. Finally, well show
also leverage best-of-breed automation and you how all of this information ties together
operations tools to insure success after initial into a larger plan to leverage cloud
implementation of service catalogs are far computing; a plan that will provide more
more likely to meet their cloud business efficiencies and agility.
objectives. However, this takes a certain

Introduction 2
 Cloud services catalogs provide a single
point of discovery and access for IT, applications,
line-of-business users, and partners.

Public Cloud Private Cloud Public Cloud Private Cloud

Cloud Services Catalog

Corporate IT Line-of-Business Partners

Introduction 3
Chapter 1

Defining the
Cloud Services
Catalog: Challenges
and Opportunities
The use of cloud services provides enterprises In essence, you are talking to the
with key advantages such as these: applications through the services interface.
The location where the instance actually
First, enterprises have the ability to runs is transparent to you.
leverage services from anywhere, as
required by the architecture in support Finally, theres the ability to mix and
of the business. For example, theres match services for use within composite
the ability to leverage a credit check applications or processes. This approach
service hosted on a cloud-based platform, underscores the agility of cloud computing
from any systems within the architecture, architecture. Not only can you create
on-premise or cloud-based. An application application processes quickly to solve
at the services level may be location business problems, but you can also
and platform independent except when recreate them as needed, and thus provide
data security, SLAs or other requirements the core value of agility. The use of cloud
legislate where the service is hosted. computing provides even more value since
we do this using more cost-effective
Second, theres the ability to leverage computing platforms, public or private.
virtualization, or address core applications
as logical instances that may run on any The cloud services catalog is the key to
number of physical servers, providing automated provisioning and deployment
better resource utilization and scalability. because it provides a single point of

Chapter 1 5
reference for the cloud services. The provides IT with the maximum flexibility
services catalog defines, in detail, all to obtain resources from either private
servicespublic and privateavailable or public clouds.
to business users or developers.
This structure supports the notion of
The services catalog must be kept multi-cloud deployments that seem to
scrupulously up to date so that users be the current direction in the industry,
always have a clear picture of the and provides the ability to monitor the
available services and resources. Whats use and cost of the services, which
more, the services under management allows IT to better manage SLAs for
need to be related directly to the needs the entire enterprise.
of the business.
Services Catalogs and Cloud Operations
The services catalog of today differs Cloud operations refer to those operations
from services catalogs found in the that can proactively avoid performance
initial days of SOA (Service-Oriented issues and gain deep insights into the
Architecture) in that the underlying health, risk and efficiency of virtual and
technology details are usually not physical cloud infrastructure, as well as
provided to the users. The rationale operating systems and applications. This
is that keeping the implementation is done with infrastructure that can provide
details behind the catalog, as it were, performance data thats abstracted to key

Chapter 1 6
metrics. Analysis of the key metrics allow Services Catalogs and Cloud Automation
those who monitor cloud services offered Creating a scalable, yet cost effective,
in the services catalog to proactively cloud management program requires
make changes in the operational profile a closely-knit mix of strategy, technology
to support the use of the services. and tactics. Whats the leading priority?
Automation. Enterprises should consider
Cloud operations also refers to the ability the use of key service governance and
to manage capacity and cost metering of cloud automation technology that can
cloud services, and thus track usage, true provide orchestration workflows to turn
costs, and the value of leveraging each groups of services into a business solution.
service. Another key function is the ability Cloud automation also provides the ability
to logically group resources so they can to create policies and procedures to
be managed by services, or by groups of automate the access and use of services
services. Finally, cloud operations provide by both developers and end users, and
the ability to manage services through the thus make the use of the services catalog
use of policies, which can be set to limit more productive and accessible.
or manage access to cloud services in the
catalog, or set alerts for administrators Cloud automation is all about defining
to be notified if services use goes out of mechanisms that automate the use of
pre-set limits. cloud services, including the ability to

Chapter 1 7
automatically correct issues with cloud cloud services in the catalog) are
services, such the operational health of provisioned and for what purpose. This
the service, including performance and can be extended to enforce policies and
working through changes within the procedures, which removes the end users
infrastructure. This can be accomplished or developers from the role of enforcer.
using workflow triggers that allow Instead, automated tools manage the use
administrators to create alerts, and trigger of services and resources.
automated procedures that are tied to
those alerts. Creating a Plan-of-Attack
Enterprise IT should create a well-defined
Cloud automation is tightly coupled and resourced plan to both implement the
with security as well, including automating services catalog, and to place automated
best practices, which keeps the service operational, governance, security, and
secure, while automated workflows and management facilities around the use of
procedures can implement compliance the services. This plan will provide the
requirements. Resource management jumping off point for the movement to
using provisioning capabilities also falls a services catalog, which will be defined
under the cloud automation umbrella, stepwise in the next section.
controlling which resources (including

Chapter 1 8
Chapter 2

Building a
Services Catalog

9
We recommend that enterprises follow an eight-step process to build a services catalog.
The steps include:

Step 1: Understand Existing Services Assets

While many enterprises may opt to not result in a sub-optimal cloud services catalog.
use these steps and instead iterate
through the definition and construction Its also important to note is that this
of a services catalog, the best path is to process is lead by requirements, and
work through your understanding and thus those in IT building services catalogs
issues around cloud services in a stepwise need to collaborate with existing subject
manner. This will allow you to properly matter experts in the various departments.
build the services catalog, and make sure For example, making sure to include
you do not miss major steps that could those who are doing billing in defining

Chapter 2 10
and exposing cloud services that provide within private and public cloud resources,
accounts receivable types of functions. including APIs/services that manage
storage, compute, resource provisioning,
Step 1: Understand Existing and business services. Again, well finalize
Services Assets this list in steps 6 and 7.
In this step, enterprise IT must list and
categorize existing services within Step 3: Identify Required Types
enterprise systems. These are typically of Automation
easy to find since many enterprise systems Once we have an understanding and
already expose APIs, which are services. inventory of services found within
Also, include any data services, or even existing enterprise systems, newer private
legacy systems services, that are critical and public clouds, or other services that
to the enterprise business. Well finalize should be identified and listed in the
this in steps 6 and 7, as well as in the next catalog, its time to understand how the
step. Here, its just a basic understanding. use of these services can be automated.
The automation is a part of core
Step 2: Understand Cloud governance systems that can be put in
Services Assets place to enforce pre-defined policies,
As in step 1, here you perform the same or other procedures, in how the services
activities for cloud-based services. This should be provisioned, managed, and
means compiling an inventory of services utilized, by end users or developers.

Chapter 2 11
There are two paths to consider here; first with the individual services themselves.
is resource governance, and the second is An example would be the service to place
service governance. an object onto a cloud-based storage
server, or a service that provides the ability
Resource governance deals with collections to check a stock quote.
of services, or resources, that exist within
major entities, and is also known as macro Step 4: Define Use of Automation
governance. For instance, the ability to As covered above, operation of the services
allocate groups of storage services that exist catalog must take the use of automation
in a private cloud environment would be into consideration. This is the step where
an example of resource governance. Newer you plan to automate the use of cloud services,
cloud management platforms provide resource including binding them into workflows or
governance capabilities, including the ability applications. The use of automation also covers
to provision, manage, and de-provision any the application of polices that define access
number of IT assets out of public or private to services, as well as track dependencies.
clouds, or traditional systems.
Step 5: Establish Operations Planning
Service governance is the same as resource Operations planning should take the use
governance, but at a more fine-grained of services and the services catalog into
level, and is also known as micro governance. consideration. This means understanding
Instead of dealing with larger collections of and dealing with performance and access
services, such as resources, were dealing management issues, as well as having the

Chapter 2 12
ability to manage resources using provisioning the candidate services list and thus selected
capabilities to control which resources, as services for our problem domain. Moreover,
including cloud services in the catalog, are they are decomposed and ordered so all
provisioned and for what purpose. services that are dependent upon other
services are understood, from the highest
Step 6: Identity Candidate Services level to the lowest. Again, these services
The next step is the process to identify can be private or public cloud, or services
candidate services. The candidate services found in traditional systems.
are all services identified within the problem
domain (a specific area of focus in an Step 8: Test and Deploy
enterprise, such as HR systems, inventory, In this step we test the services catalog,
etc.) that have the potential of becoming as well as automation and operations,
services. We do this to make sure we identify including the invocation of services and
the right services by identifying and sorting their ability to provide the expected
through all potential services, cloud or not behavior and information. We also test
cloud. This deliverable is nothing more than the services catalogs ability to provide
a listing of services, and what each does. the right level of performance, utilization
of resources, and its ability to support
Step 7: Deploy Initial Services Catalog applied governance and operations
Creating the initial services catalog means polices using the automation capabilities
that we list of all the relevant services from of the catalog.

Chapter 2 13
Chapter 3

Choosing the
Right Solution for
Your Business

14
There are three core issues to consider when Cloud operations, like cloud automation,

selecting a cloud services catalog solution: should include the ability to create polices

Cloud automation, cloud operations, and and alerts that automate the operations of

cloud business. the cloud services. This allows you to spot

issues before they affect applications or

Cloud automation is core to leveraging complete systems.

a cloud services catalog. The number of

services is typically significant, and thus the Finally, cloud business refers to the ability

ability to automate the management, use, and to monitor the cost of cloud services, in

protection of the cloud services is critical. This terms of cost metering and cost accounting.

is typically policy-driven. The ability to spot Cloud business determines who consumes

and resolve problems should be automated, the cloud services, and arranges charge-back

such as cloud services leveraged by the wrong and show-back monitoring, such as

consumer or wrong services, or the ability to allocating costs among the organizations that

understand any cloud service dependencies. leverage the cloud services, based upon use.

Also included in this concept is the ability to

Cloud operations should provide enterprise provide analytics into past and future costs

IT with the ability to proactively avoid of operating the cloud services, including

performance and stability issues by gaining tracking the cost of these services from the

deep insights into the health, risk, and resources (such as storage and compute) to

efficiency of the enterprises cloud services. the ultimate consumer.

Chapter 3 15
Chapter 4

Declaring Success

16
As you move toward construction of a a fundamental way to approach the

cloud services catalog, you need to define creation and deployment of automated

the value that this concept and its supporting business solutions. The use of cloud

technology bring to the organization. You services allows us to take an assembly

do this by defining the metrics for success, approach to building applications, rather

including service reuse, enhanced business than always building these applications

agility, and quicker time-to-market. While from scratch. This provides both speed

these are all valuable concepts, the amount and agility to the business, and thus

of value that they bring depends upon the provides the value and ROI.

characteristics of your organization. The

results of the step process outlined above will Whats next? Follow the eight steps for

tell you how much value the cloud services the creation and management of a cloud

catalog actually brings to your business. services catalog. A cloud services catalog

will enable your enterprise customers to act

The use of cloud services is no longer faster than ever before.

optional for your business; it has become

Chapter 4 17
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Not All Service Catalogs are

Cloud Management &