Gartner research defines three main roles for CSBs, namely
aggregation, integration, and customisation. The role of
the Aggregation Broker aligns with the traditional distributor role, the Integration Broker corresponds to the system
integrator (SI) and the Customisation Broker aligns with the
independent software vendor (ISV). The aggregation role
includes the adoption of cloud services whilst the integration refers to the integration of services to work with each
other and the management thereof. Customisation and
enhancement of services is self-explanatory, perhaps the
most complex option, and builds on the first two.
A further emerging component of CSBs is arbitrage – where
a cloud broker moves workloads from one cloud service to
another, based on cost and other factors. Brokerages who
deal in this type of activity need to take into account factors
like cost, compliance & technical compatibility in determining the best cloud service for any given workload.
The degree of investment and complexity however varies
amongst CSBs – some own their own clouds and have
invested heavily in their own cloud resources and infrastructure, whilst others perform more of a literal broker function,
merely using their experience and expertise to facilitate
relationships and agreements needed on behalf of
the enterprise.
software administration migrate to cloud environments,
changing the traditional roles which IT plays. Internal IT
departments will increasingly aggregate, integrate, manage
and customise cloud services for the companies which
employ them. For now however, the generally accepted
consensus is that when referring to CSBs, one is referring
to the third party agency role as detailed above.
It’s clear that CSBs have an important role to play in a cloud
environment which is becoming increasingly complex. How
that role develops and potentially transforms in the future
will be interesting to see. For now however, they are rapidly
becoming entrenched in the IT landscape, which appears to
be good news for both providers and end-users.
The term cloud services broker can also be rather loosely applied as it doesn’t strictly need to refer to third party
agencies. Industry analysts are predicting that internal IT
departments will become CSBs of sorts, as hardware and
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