Jim Pitts, Senior Product Manager of Cloud Automation at ServiceNow, happened to interviewed by theCube shortly after his company announced ServiceNow Cloud Provisioning, a new orchestration application that enables IT to automate the entire cloud management lifecycle.

From self-service cloud selection to automated, standardized cloud creation and resource optimization, ServiceNow Cloud Provisioning speeds the deployment of cloud environments from weeks or months to just minutes.

Sitting in the hot seat, Pitts was asked, from the customers’ point of view, what can be done effectively to increase sales, as the cloud automation alone and the fact that IT can be more effective is not enough to make customers rush for their wallets.

The explanation and course of action pertains to any online business, according to Pitts. Once the storefront for IT is set, just like with any other’s online presence, it needs to be studied and tuned. All data coming in needs to be analyzed and understood properly.

In the Cloud Provisioning application there is the concept of Service Operations Portal that allows one to look at the provisioning service for public or private cloud. This way it is easier to understand which departments are requesting virtual resources and the type of resources being pulled down. It also allows customers to be more service-centric. Without special training or manual intervention, cloud administration is transformed from day-to-day IT management overhead to an automated business self-service.

Next topic on Vellante’s agenda was the concept of Shadow IT. He pointed out that a lot of customers were afraid of Amazon early on, thinking of SLA and security issues, and minutes later (in terms of tech years) Amazon is going after the Enterprise. Pitts confirmed that a lot of ServiceNow customers are using Amazon, and they are supported in Cloud Provisioning.

Cloud Provisioning is discovering the machine images that the customers have access to, allowing them to promote those very easily to service catalogue items. The solution also identifies which resources are not being managed through the service catalogue, facilitating a conversation with the customers about the paths that can be pursued in order to offer them a better and a more comprehensive service, as part of a standardized offering.

As it often happens with tech guys, the discussion soon became tangent to the main topic, and it revolved for a while around Apple’s Genius Bar, the tech support station located inside some Apple retail stores which offers help and support for Apple products.

Everyone at the table agreed the customers are really bold for reinventing IT like that, and for feeling confident that they can deliver. That is a great example of driving automation to the next level.