Trevor A Bunker, Chief Technology Architect and Worldwide Head of Presales, CA Technologies, talked to Prashant L Rao about the consumerization of IT, Cloud computing, desktop virtualization, converged infrastructure and more
Our customers are struggling to deal with mobility. With users wanting to work from home and demanding iPad apps as well as easy installation and upgrades, CIOs have to figure out how they can secure data and manage identities on these devices. We are helping secure and protect data on mobile devices using Arcot (multi factor authentication without tokens). Our largest BFSI customers that offer e-wallets are looking at software-based solutions.
Is converged infrastructure shaping up to be a big play for you?
VCE continues to be a big alliance for us. Another dozen solutions have been certified since we spoke last time. The strategy remains the same, which is to offer the most flexible choice. We also added support for Flexpod from NetApp and Cisco. We see more and more customers looking at converged infrastructure as a way to accelerate their path to the Cloud.
There’s a real benefit to converged stacks, particularly in the case of the private Cloud—VMware, IBM and Oracle among others have taken some of the complexity out of it. The challenge for organizations is that they no longer have separate administrators for networking, storage etc.
How is the private Cloud evolving?
A lot of companies are looking at the private Cloud. There isn’t a one-size fits all when it comes to Cloud computing. Not all environments should be on the same Cloud. Customers are categorizing apps by criticality—basic apps like e-mail and file & print etc. are being converged. On the other hand, companies are deploying dedicated Clouds for critical apps like SAP/Oracle.
Tell us about your private Cloud solution.
We have a turnkey private Cloud solution focused on the entire stack including the data. Customers need help in deploying apps in a virtual environment. Applogic wraps the entire application, databases etc. into one single unit that can be deployed and scaled out. A growing number of service providers are offering application services. Applogic is the ideal platform for them when they target SMBs.
One area where companies considering the public Cloud have a problem is with regard to switching providers. It’s very hard to get data out. Do you have a solution for that?
One of the problems that our customers told us about was that they wanted to shop for a Cloud service but that there was no way to compare one provider’s offerings with another’s. We worked with IBM, HP etc. to launch the Service Measurement Index (SMI). It is a methodology to compare and contrast Cloud services from various providers.
We provide tools to help in the migration and automation of data. The challenge isn’t technical, it’s financial or contractual. People complain about the penalties that they had to pay to get their data back. In some cases, the Cloud provider will restrict how much data people can pull out to prevent them from switching services.
Is desktop virtualization taking off beyond its traditional markets of ITES or BFSI?
We are seeing a lot more of interest in desktop virtualization. There is a good RoI on reducing the physical footprint of servers. However, security and data protection are what are driving this. People want to keep data in the data center. We work with VMware, Citrix and Microsoft—we help customers secure and guarantee the performance of their virtual desktops. Healthcare and large consulting companies are the adopters of this technology.
Server virtualization seems to have caught on faster than storage virtualization. What’s your take on that?
Server virtualization is the most common as it’s the first easy step. If you want to offer dynamic Cloud services, you need to have automation across storage, network and server. Network automation is an area where we have been working closely with Cisco and other players to help customers automate end-to-end across tiers in a Cloud environment.
Public Cloud adoption has been slow so far. Why is that?
In terms of Public Cloud or SaaS adoption, we are not seeing much growth in new SaaS apps. When it comes to the private Cloud, on the other hand, just about everybody is doing something there. The real growth is going to come from PaaS. It’s evolving around specific industries. People in insurance and healthcare are building community platforms. In the long term, the Cloud will be around PaaS.