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January 2011 - Posts

Is your cloud strategy 3D ready?

Published: January 31 2011, 09:00 AM | no comments
by CA Community

Although the hype might lead you to believe differently, cloud computing is not the first innovation to hit IT. In fact, IT has been on a transformational journey since its inception. This journey has at least three dimensions, and any good cloud strategy should support all three.

  1. 1. Extending IT's reach

Traditionally IT ran the computers and the applications that were used exclusively by employees. This exclusivity is long gone, as applications are now accessed directly by customers and by employees of partners and subcontractors. In some cases, applications reach out directly to suppliers or even suppliers of suppliers. Similarly, the type of applications is extending from basic administrative systems to advanced analytical (big data) and converged (VoIP, Video) social and collaborative apps.

  1. 2. Abstraction - Moving up in the food chain

In the beginning, companies did not buy computers -- they had to build their own. Later on, computers did not come with software or an operating system; the customer was expected to build it himself, first in assembler, the in 3GLs, 4GLs, etc. This was the typical routine until standard software packages became available. The point is that IT for years has been moving from extremely technical detailed work to higher level tasks. This requires appropriate conceptual models, and for cloud, these are still evolving or even yet to be discovered.

  1. 3. Sourcing - Divide and conquer

As IT organizations moved on, they started to subcontract, outsource, offshore, and procure as-a-service more and more tasks that they used to do in-house.

Often cloud is seen in context of just one of these dimensions (only as sourcing, or just as a way to extend who IT is reaching or to procure services differently). In my view, a good cloud strategy should be three-dimensional and enable you to Extend, Abstract and Source Your IT. Something us acronym crazy IT folks maybe should call EASY IT?

My longer column about this topic just published at ITSMportal and can be read at blog.gregorpetri.com. Have a look and I'm interested in your feedback and comments.

P.S. Feel free to follow me on Twitter @GregorPetri and read this blog at blog.gregorpetri.com

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By: CA Community
CA Community is the blog manager’s account used to post general updates and news items.
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Dear IaaS, Be Mine. Love, MSPs

Published: January 27 2011, 10:10 AM | 2 Comment(s)
by Matthew Richards

These past few weeks I have been rolling around Europe, meeting customers and talking deeply with sales teams.  After these travels, I have two major comments: First, I really like the Euro, it just makes travel easier.  No offense to the Swiss, English or Nordic countries, but I can't always get to a cash machine for a 24-hour visit. 

Second, and more importantly, why is every service provider I talk to focused on IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service)?

This fascination with IaaS surprises me, because the IaaS market is already here and hyper-competitive.  Margins are on their way to zero as the big guys figure out the model and build up economies of scale.  Vendors are squeezing margins, customers have lots of options...Michael Porter, how could you do this to us?

There is some market demand for IaaS, but one or 100 virtual machines still doesn't solve the bulk of the problems of time-to-market for Enterprise IT.  And it certainly isn't cheaper in the long run for the customer.  That's how IaaS vendors make money.  So the answer clearly isn't that customers only want IaaS.

So why, with alternatives, is there this focus on IaaS?

First, because that is what  is easiest to buy today.  There are IaaS products everywhere.  Automate your way to the cloud. Buy this bag of hardware and software and you too can have IaaS!  Ok, sure.

Second, because competition is fierce.  Telcos everywhere need growth.  MSPs need higher margin offerings.  Customers want IT-on-demand.  IaaS seems to be the choice to make it all happen.  So, to defend the customer base, you have to make the land grab and defend the market.  When in Rome...deploy IaaS.

Finally, getting a new cloud offering out the door is hard.  Many MSPs see IaaS as the most basic service and the easiest of the set.  Get this first one knocked off, offer IaaS, learn from it and grow into more cloud.

What do you do about it?

There are many higher margin offerings out there for MSPs, like SaaS.  Why not offer a CRM solution on demand?  Some customers are looking to PaaS.  So why not offer a common development environment on demand?  And the most effective offerings seem to be Virtual Private Data Centers (VPDC).  These are dedicated virtual machines on demand that augment a customers' existing data center.  Even specialized applications that fill the gap of other solutions are highly profitable.  So it IS possible to set your sights higher than just IaaS.

If you are an MSP or Telco reading this, you probably are working with an automation or virtualization vendor and putting together a cloud offering - likely IaaS.  What you really need to do is ask the question - where am I going?  It can't just be a race to IaaS. IaaS must only be a stop on the way to something that differentiates your services and produces higher margins, like SaaS or VPDC.

Show me the Money!

The next thing to do is to ask your vendor to show you how to deploy a SaaS offering with the investments you are making.  I don't mean application architectures, pictures and anecdotes.  I mean make them show you the solution working and deploying an application as if you were a customer.  Want a virtual data center offering, ask them for that too.  Think PaaS is right for your market, then have them show that too.  The problem is most talk a good game, but actually delivering it is just not demonstrable.  In the end that means you're buying futures - which is highly risky and won't help you defend your market against more agile, faster competitors.

Now you need to determine who your customer is.  SMB?  Large enterprise? Industry vertical?  Once you decide this, have the margin conversation with your vendors.  They should be able to show you a customized ROI model for your business based on your offerings - and outline to your satisfaction the margin that is left for you at the end.  Make some assumptions on adoption and see what they leave you to live on.  Trust me when I say the margin with a large kit of products is not so good, so choose wisely!

And remember, leave room for differentiation.  You don't want to have the coolest out-of-the-box solution in the land to find out that the MSP next to you also has the same thing...from the same vendor...offering the same services.  Look for the solution that can show it working for you in your environment quickly, give it to you to play with, demonstrate the services you want to offer today AND tomorrow, and do so in a way that leaves you margin and differentiation.  When that is all done, you will be well on your way to thinking beyond IaaS.

And maybe you can also help me get every taxi in the world to take credit cards?  Then I wouldn't have to carry cash at all!  Now that would be a fantastic service.

 

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By: Matthew Richards
Matthew Richards ( @MTRichards ) is the Senior Director of Product Marketing for the Cloud Computing business at CA Technologies. In this role, he is responsible for driving customer-focused initiatives related to the company’s cloud computing vision and products. Previously, Matthew spent a couple years...
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CA 3Tera AppLogic Chosen by ScaleMatrix as Primary Cloud Computing Platform

Published: January 26 2011, 10:02 AM | 1 Comment(s)
by Christine Needles

ScaleMatrix, a new managed service provider (MSP) run by data center industry veterans, has chosen CA® 3Tera® AppLogic® software in a three-year contract valued at $3.06 million.  Check out the release for complete details.

To launch and build the business, ScaleMatrix needed a single platform to provide multiple cloud offerings, including application hosting, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Virtual Private Data Centers (VPDCs).  ScaleMatrix will also use CA 3Tera AppLogic to provide scalability and high availability for business services running in the company's cloud environments.

"We selected CA 3Tera AppLogic software because it was the best solution on the market to help us quickly and cost-effectively ramp-up our cloud services business," said Mark Ortenzi, CEO of ScaleMatrix. "The solution works on a range of hardware, including x86 commodity servers, to significantly reduce our upfront infrastructure investment, and gives us the flexibility to expand geographically without incurring the sky-high costs associated with global infrastructure deployments."

ScaleMatrix was launched in 2010 and founded by Mark Ortenzi, Bill Kraus, Mike Vignato, and Paul Marble, long-time veterans of the technology industry. What sets ScaleMatrix apart from other cloud service providers is its ability to control the entire process on behalf of its customers. ScaleMatrix architects, deploys, and manages the entire solution in any one of its 12 data centers across the United States or in a customer's own private data center.  

"This deal is the largest CA 3Tera AppLogic platform customer license agreement to date. More importantly, ScaleMatrix is now a key partner in our efforts to help IT organizations use cloud computing to change how they bring technology services to market," said Adam Famularo, general manager, Cloud Computing business, CA Technologies.  "With its broad set of offerings and deep knowledge of the CA 3Tera AppLogic platform, ScaleMatrix is a credible MSP partner that will enable CA Technologies to deliver the true power of the hybrid cloud."

Read the full release here for more details.

 

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By: Christine Needles
Christine Needles ( @cmneedles ) is a director of communications at CA Technologies, working with the Cloud Computing business. She is immersed in the world of B2B public relations and marketing communications, with 11 years of experience spanning several PR firms, until joining the communications team...
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Why It's a Mistake to Educate the Public on Cloud Computing

Published: January 25 2011, 10:40 AM | 6 Comment(s)
by Jeffrey Abbott

I was at a social gathering recently and someone asked me about my new job. I said, "I'm doing marketing for the CA Technologies cloud computing business." Recognizing that this is the point at which most people lose interest, I stopped there. However, someone else said, "What IS cloud computing?" Before I could concoct a concise answer that would shed any light on this, someone (who has spent most of his career selling beer) said, "It's basically just the Internet." Was he right? No, he wasn't. But it was the right answer for the audience.

CCL image courtesy of ashley.adcox - http://www.flickr.com/photos/viggum/2418269540/sizes/s/in/photostream/Meanwhile, I spent the next 10 minutes explaining cloud computing to the person who was stuck next to me, while everyone else was having an interactive conversation. I owe that person an apology for wasting 10 minutes of their life.

Both Microsoft and IBM have ventured into America's living rooms with cloud television ads. One uses "To the Cloud" as the slogan and apparent new answer to life, the universe, and everything. I would love to know what they are trying to achieve. Could there have been extra money left in the marketing budget and it was "use it or lose it" time?

The fact is the American public, with the exception of its nerds (or geeks, depending on which you feel is more of a compliment) doesn't and won't care. Here's why...

Cloud computing is extremely complex. If you disagree, then you should consider if you are happy with how much you have in common with Comic Book Guy. The easy way out would be to give a few examples of public cloud services. You could say "It's the difference between installing Outlook on your computer, versus using an online service such as Hotmail." Oh wait, that sounds like the Internet again. So you say "But the Internet is a network and Hotmail is a Web service. The difference of cloud is that it's pay as you go." But Hotmail is free. Whoops. Okay bad example. How about Turbo Tax? You used to buy the CD, install it on your computer and do your taxes. Now they have a cloud model, where you pay certain amounts of money to use certain functions. Or Mozy, where instead of buying an extra hard drive, you pay for storage online and you pay based on the amount that you consume. But the public has no need to call this cloud computing. Sounds like an online service, and it is. And they know what that means already. Leave well enough alone. What happens in data centers should stay in data centers.

"Well," you say (as your dwindling audience tries to escape), "there is more to it. It may be transparent to you but from the perspective of the cloud service provider, it enables them to scale with demand by using technologies such as virtualization and automation that dynamically re-allocate capacity and compute resources to manage and optimize IT infrastructure and enable charge back." Cue the sound of a record needle being dragged across a record.

"Okay, forget that. Let's say you work in a big company in an IT department. Instead of installing all of your software locally, you can keep most of it on a pool of servers and storage arrays and enable role-based access to the software, infrastructure, and development platforms and customize the security, performance, and availability to the needs of each user, while tracking individual consumption and charging the business units accordingly. And you can combine your private cloud with public cloud to make a hybrid cloud. Isn't that cool?"

Congratulations. You now have zero friends. Thankfully, your avatar has many. But next time, remember, if you want to continue receiving invitations to social gatherings of any sort, you may be better off saying, "cloud computing is basically just the Internet."

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By: Jeffrey Abbott
Jeffrey Abbott ( @JeffreyAbbott ) is a Senior Product Marketing Manager for Cloud Commons at CA Technologies. In this role, Jeff focuses on industry trends and IT management challenges to position the company’s cloud solutions to viable market segments. When he’s not thinking about clouds, Jeff is often...
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A BIG thank you to our amazing community managers!

Published: January 21 2011, 02:06 PM | no comments
by Christine Needles

CCL image courtesy of woodleywonderworks - http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/4759535950/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Today marks the 2nd Annual Community Manager Appreciation Day, and we'd like to extend a BIG thank you to our CA Technologies colleagues working tirelessly to build, drive and manage our many interactive communities.  Industry analyst and Web strategist Jeremiah Owyang designated the 4th Monday in January as Community Manager Appreciation Day last year. The goal is to build awareness about the contributions of community managers in this increasingly pivotal role in the online world.

You can read Jeremiah's original post about Community Manager Appreciation Day here.

The CA Cloud Storm Chasers blog team would like to thank:

  • Derek Stevens, community manager, Cloud Commons
  • Mary Greening, principal, Customer Programs
  • Chris Hackett, principal, Customer Programs
  • Susan Krupski, communities coordinator, CA Communities Team
  • Abdel Laabi, principal, Customer Programs and EMEA liaison
  • J.J. Lovett, manager, CA Support and CA Communities Team
  • Suzanne Macaluso, principal business analyst, CA Communities Team
  • Rob Rachlin, principal, Customer Programs
  • Chris Short, principal, Customer Programs

Click here to learn more about CA Technologies Community Managers, or watch this video:

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By: Christine Needles
Christine Needles ( @cmneedles ) is a director of communications at CA Technologies, working with the Cloud Computing business. She is immersed in the world of B2B public relations and marketing communications, with 11 years of experience spanning several PR firms, until joining the communications team...
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