Cloud Storm Chasers : cloud

CA World Preview: Smart Session on Tech Mahindra and CA Technologies Partnership

Christine Needles — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 22:13:00 GMT

CP Gurnani, MD of Tech Mahindra and CEO of Mahindra Satyam, will present a special Smart Session on the Tech Mahindra / CA Technologies Partnership, driving value for you and your customers: Going Big... Together!, on Tuesday, April 23 from 1:30 PM - 2:15 PM in Mandalay Bay Ballroom KL.

CP is a tech industry veteran with more than 31 years of experience in the field. He played a pivotal role in the three year transformational journey of Mahindra Satyam and is spearheading the eventual merger with Tech Mahindra. An accomplished business leader with extensive experience in international business development, startups and turnarounds, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, CP in many ways led Tech Mahindra's transformation journey, where he contributed significantly to the company's strategy and philosophy. His inimitable style of leadership combined with his sharp focus on customer experience has helped Tech Mahindra to emerge as one of the leading providers of IT Services and Telecom Solutions to the global telecom ecosystem.

I had a chance to catch up with CP over email to get a preview of his Smart Session and what he hopes attendees will learn.

Tell us about your upcoming session at CA World 2013.

My session will discuss Tech Mahindra's innovative solutions that will help solve critical evolving business requirements, and the power of the CA Technologies Tech Mahindra partnership and the value that we bring to customers. I will be talking about how together we build frameworks and platforms which can be readily deployed, replicated and customized by architects and developers to create solutions for industry verticals including telecommunications, banking and financial services, insurance and manufacturing.

What are the top 3 things you want attendees to learn from your session?

Of course we want to help attendees understand how our innovative solutions will help them quickly and effectively address their business challenges due to rapidly changing and evolving technology landscape.

I also hope they walk away with greater insight into the partnership between Tech Mahindra and CA Technologies and how together we can benefit their business.

Finally, I will be sharing details about two new world-class platforms that we have collaborated on with CA Technologies. We will be announcing these offerings from CA World, one focused on an end-to-end enterprise managed services ecosystem, and the other a cloud-enabled Service Virtualization offering.

Aside from the technical hurdles, what is the biggest issue companies must overcome to transition to a real-time mindset?

Companies must change their mindset that they need to manage everything themselves. They need to be open to outsourcing more IT functionality to obtain strategic advantage and the goal of real-time IT.

What do you hope to take away from CA World this year?

I would like to speak to customers and hear what business problems they have so that we can address those challenges.

Thanks to CP for taking a few minutes to share his thoughts. Make sure to check out his session on Tuesday!

If you're attending CA World 2013, consider checking out our new mobile app to help you customize your show schedule. More details here.

Not able to attend? Follow the #CAWorld hashtag on Twitter.

The Top Five Can't-Miss Cloud Sessions at CA World 2013

Andi Mann — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 21:14:00 GMT

As most of you are well aware (unless you've been living under a rock), CA World is just days away. And the hype leading up to the event is palpable. With so many things to see, people to meet, and fun to be had, I thought it would be a good time to tell you about some of the most coveted sessions you won't want to miss. While there are many sessions planned around those disruptive new trends we are seeing evolve before our eyes, I wanted to focus this particular post on the cloud-related sessions - this is a Cloud Storm Chasing crew after all.

In full disclosure, I thought this would be a quick post to write. Turns out I was wrong. When you search for "cloud" within the session catalog, there are over 90 sessions to choose from! That makes it hard to narrow it down to just 5. Well, I'll do my best....here goes:

1. Maintaining Secure Access, Authentication and Authorization in a World of Cloud and IT Consumerization (Shell Oil)

To many, cloud and security mix together just about as well as oil and vinegar. In other words, not very well. However, we are slowly starting to see our customers come around to embrace the notion that their data and applications may very well be safe in the cloud after all. But if you still need convincing, you won't want to miss this session presented by Shell Oil. They will discuss how they have been able to adjust their Information Security Architecture to support the wide range of users and devices that are accessing their services in the cloud.

2. Panel: Moving IAM to the Cloud: The Right Model for your Organization

Need more than one session to have all your cloud security questions answered? Join this panel discussion hosted by Joni Brennan of the Kantara Initiative and experts from CA Technologies, Deloitte & Touch LLP, Univita Health and more. You'll get answers to questions such as: What security services should I migrate to the cloud? How should I migrate IAM to the cloud? What relevant industry standards do I need to consider for IAM in the cloud? And more.

3. Case Study: Assuring Mission Critical Cloud-Based Services (Park Place International)

Ever wonder how to ensure your applications - especially those pesky mission-critical ones - will continue to operate in tip-top shape in the cloud? Come to this session to hear from Park Place International, a provider of cloud-based monitoring solutions for the healthcare industry, and learn how to keep your IT service availability, performance, privacy and security in check.

4. Maintaining IT Relevance in a Cloudy World (Unum)

When it comes to cloud, one of the biggest fears of IT is the ability to prove to the business that they are still relevant. Coupled with the demand to reduce IT costs, the increasing complexity of the infrastructure and a less-than-ideal economy, the pressure on IT is greater than it's ever been. But don't throw in the towel yet! In this session, Unum will show how they were able to bring relevance back to their IT operations through automation and orchestration in the cloud.

5. Putting the Map in the Cloud! (Vnetrix, Atkins)

This is a great story of our industry leading CA AppLogic cloud platform told from the perspective of both the service provider (Vnetrix) and the enterprise they work with (Atkins). Together, they tag team to share their experiences working together to deliver cost-savings, improved service delivery, and scalability speed! For a sneak peek, you can check out our Luminaries interviews with both Vnetrix and Atkins to hear more about their story.

And a bonus session:

The Transformation to Hybrid IT: Crossing the Cloud Services Lifecycle

(Okay, okay, I know I said 5, but what good would I be if I didn't plug my own session?!) Come hear about the cloud service lifecycle and how to make the transition to a hybrid IT environment. After all, there is more to your IT ecosystem than just cloud, so it's imperative that you understand how cloud delivery models interoperate within the broader IT framework - and learn to embrace the hybrid world around you.

Look forward to seeing you all later this month in Las Vegas at CA World 2013!

Easing the Transition to Cloud Computing

Bill Talbot — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 15:02:00 GMT

If you've been involved with enterprise IT long enough you will likely agree that it has always been easier to build the infrastructure than to manage it. New technologies help to solve old problems, while at the same time introduce new challenges. Virtualization has completely changed how we test and deploy new environments and helped us get unprecedented utilization from our IT investments. Cloud computing is delivering on the promises of self-service, on-demand provisioning of a variety of infrastructure components and applications, and is giving us myriad choices of how, when and where we get our IT services.

A December 2012 Network World article, "2013: Year of the Hybrid Cloud", predicted that 2013 will be the year enterprise IT will go beyond the adoption phase of cloud computing and turn its attention toward effectively managing hybrid cloud computing environments - this is the hard part. Analysts seem to agree. In the article, Tracy Corbo, principal research analyst at Enterprise Management Associates, was quoted as saying, "I'm convinced 2013 is going to be the year of the hybrid cloud infrastructure." What everyone is talking about is that the majority of today's enterprise IT shops will most likely move to a combination of private, in-house, and public cloud services. Many enterprise IT organizations are recognizing that in addition to offering private cloud services to their customers, public cloud services can, and often will, provide a vital component to their overall IT business strategy. And, of course, having an enterprise-class cloud management and service delivery platform that takes into account both private and publics cloud services, i.e. hybrid cloud, will be critical to this strategy.

One way that we're helping our customers ease this transition is through CA Automation Suite for Clouds, our cloud service delivery and management offering. Companies such as Bull, Raymond James and Fibercorp have chosen CA Automation Suite for Clouds to help them manage their diverse cloud environments which help speed the delivery of quality services to their customers.

We learned from working directly with customers such as these that there are some key ingredients needed to make managing hybrid cloud environments more seamless in the enterprise. These include a self-service portal and catalog of automated services, such as chargeback, resource management and on-demand policy-based provisioning across virtual, physical and cloud environments. We've also added support for storage provisioning and management of EMC and NetApp storage as well as the ability to configure and customize network pools for virtual machine reservations, all important capabilities that our customers need to ease the transition to cloud computing.

With so many different third-party cloud service offerings available on the market, we've made it very easy to add new services to your cloud mix. Service Cartridges include a host of best practice, pre-integrated content and process flows that serve as integration points for a variety of cloud-ready services. For example, our customers can now provision virtual desktop instances with either VMware View or Citrix XenDesktop.

I'm proud to share that the industry is taking notice of our solution's business value. For example, TechTarget China recently named CA Automation Suite for Clouds "Best Hybrid Cloud Management Suite." In addition, Enterprise Management Associates named CA Technologies a "Value Leader" and awarded the company "Most Innovative Architecture" in its recent EMA Radar^TM for Private Cloud Platforms: Q1 2013 report which provides an extensive analysis of the private cloud marketplace from a customer perspective. I think it's worth noting that EMA evaluated support for public cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services and considered it a key component of a private cloud platform.

According to the EMA Radar^TM report, "Large CA customers confirmed CA's status as a Value Leader, as the solution offers the flexibility and extensibility required for even the largest and most complex cloud deployments. CA Technologies Automation Suite for Clouds convincingly ties together CA's core strengths - server, network, and storage automation, service management, and capacity planning - into a flexible and extensible private cloud platform."

To learn more about our cloud management solutions, please visit: www.ca.com/cloud or attend one of the numerous cloud-focused presentations, labs, training sessions and demos we have scheduled during CA World.

Let's Be Brief: A New Chief & Chuck Cartoon

Robyn Herbert — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 14:49:00 GMT

It's important to have a backup. In this Chief & Chuck cartoon, Chuck explains the importance of redundancy, something Chief already knows all about!

Cartoon is under Creative Commons license (Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works)

This Week in Cloud, March 7, 2013: Ponemon cloud security study, BYOD leads to cloud, The 4 MYs of cloud computing

Derek Stevens — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 19:41:00 GMT

RSA Conference Interviews

Watch interviews from the RSA Conference featuring thought leaders from the Cloud Security Alliance, NIST, the CISO Executive Network, and more on Smart Enterprise.

Cloud News

A new Ponemon study, commissioned by CA Technologies, reveals that organizations are more confident in the security of the cloud and have put better security practices in place over the last two years, according to this Dark Reading article. You can watch a video about the study on Smart Enterprise and view the "Who's minding your cloud?" infographic.
A new CDW study revealed that close to 75% of IT professionals said their organization's decision to take on cloud computing was influenced by employees' use of personal devices, according to this ZDNet article. The study found that 39% of organizations have already adopted cloud services.
Huawei launched an open-source cloud platform called FusionCloud, according to this NetworkWorld article. FusionCloud is compatible with OpenStack and is made up of three core components: FusionSphere for integrating IT infrastructures from other vendors, FusionCube which is a converged infrastructure, and FusionAccess for cloud connection.
UK IT decision makers are putting virtualization and data center management ahead of cloud computing, according to this ihotdesk article. The article refers to a recent TechTarget and Computer Weekly survey of 400 IT professionals which found that 49% of IT professionals were primarily focused on virtualization implementation and 39% were focused on data center consolidation.
Illinois Department of Corrections recently replaced a large 1980's mainframe and 41 legacy applications with a cloud-based criminal justice system, according to this Corrections article. The move is expected to significantly cut costs and improve efficiency.

Featured Content

CloudViews Unplugged Video: Migrating to the Cloud

In the latest episode of CloudViews Unplugged, Andi Mann and George Watt of CA Technologies discuss migration to the cloud, IBM's Watson helps oncologists develop cancer treatments, green cloud algorithms, and the zombie alert issued over the Emergency Alert System.

Featured Article

The 4 MYs of Cloud Computing and IT Transformation

By George Watt, CA Technologies

It is often stated that technology is easy and people are hard. Whether or not you agree with that, the sentiment must be heeded. Otherwise, even the best technical solutions can be doomed to failure or irrelevancy. For those who find themselves deeply focused on technical solutions, this can be easily forgotten. Interpersonal change management issues can arise without warning and from almost anywhere, including people who control programs and budgets. In my experience, this challenge often begins with people getting a bit self-focused, in some cases bordering on territorial, about four key things, which I like to call the 4 MYs. Read the full article.

Cloud Views

What should CIOs examine before moving to the cloud? In this InformationWeek blog, Vijay Sethi discusses five areas that CIO should focus on before moving to the cloud, including fully understanding the concept and implications of cloud, understanding potential ROI, evaluating SLAs, understanding implementation times and a changed in culture and mindset.
What are you trying to accomplish with the cloud? In this Forbes blog, Joe McKendrick discusses how not enough business are indentifying what they are actually trying to accomplish before determining what type of infrastructure model to pursue.
Does cloud computing reduce IT costs? In this Virtualization Review blog, Jeffrey Schwartz reviews two recent studies which found that cloud computing does reduce costs for many, but not all businesses.

Trend Watch

Are employees stealing corporate data? In this ZDNet blog, Rachel King discusses a recent Symantec study which revealed that about half of employees are stealing corporate data. Sixty-two percent of those surveyed considered it acceptable to transfer work documents to their personal devices.
Is DevOps all hype? In this Service Assurance Daily blog, Jason Meserve discusses some of the latest DevOps research and links to a replay of a recent DevOps webcast.
Intel's bring-your-own-device (BYOD) program saved the company five million hours in 2012, according to this FierceMobileIT article. Intel employees said that on average, they were saving 57 minutes a day by using their own devices.

Upcoming Cloud Events

3^rd Annual Cloud World Forum MENA: March 19-20, Dubia, United Arab Emirates
GigaOM Structure: Data 2013: March 20-21, New York, NY