David Dobson

Cloud was a hot topic at the conference again, as rapidly changing demands create a ‘new normal’ for IT.

‘IT at the speed of business’ was the focus of CA World 2011, and the theme of matching IT capabilities to business agility ran through everything from corporate strategy to new product offerings.

The three-day conference, held in Las Vegas, kicked off with a keynote address by CA Technologies CEO Bill McCracken, who noted the industry is undergoing a transformation.

He said an environment of intense competition, economic upheaval and consumer-driven technology had forced the IT department to switch from being IT-centric to business-centric.

With companies under more pressure to adapt and compete, making strategic decisions quickly is imperative, and IT often acts as a hindrance, said McCracken.

“In today’s world, if you don’t change, you’re writing your epitaph. It’s about change, but more importantly, it’s about the speed of change.”

In a keynote on the ‘new normal’ of IT, David Dobson, CA’s executive VP and group executive for the Customer Solutions Group, noted the CIO’s job is being redefined. This role will need to focus less on managing infrastructure, and more on optimising the delivery of business services for innovation and growth.

According to Dobson, the recession served as the final push in getting cloud off the ground. “We experienced accelerating demand at the exact same time as IT budgets shrank in response to the recession. Everyone is scrambling to do more with less, to become more agile and to find more cost-effective ways to support the business.” A convergence of factors had brought about a ‘moment of transformation’ in IT, said Dobson, noting this ‘new normal’ offered tremendous opportunity for competitive differentiation.

It also brings major strategic challenges. “For CIOs to survive in this climate, they’ll have to deal with new levels of complexity by automating processes and making more informed planning decisions across vendors and platforms,” said Dobson.

“This will allow them to successfully shift resources to innovation and growth, rather than remaining bogged down in maintenance and operations management.”

Andi Mann, VP of strategic solutions at CA, noted that IT needs to not only follow the business, but help lead it as well.”

Much of this comes down to creating innovation, he said, and leveraging third-party infrastructure in the form of cloud services.


New innovation path

In line with these industry shifts, CA announced its new strategy, a business services innovation value roadmap. This new approach is aimed at enabling organisations to leverage cloud-enabled solutions so their workforce can focus on the core business, rather than managing IT.

The framework is structured around four capabilities: model, assemble, automate and assure, with security wrapped around these various functions.

But the real power, said Dobson, comes from combining these technologies on a common platform, which enables IT to deliver business services innovation with improved speed, cost/risk efficiencies and performance.

“Business is now much more volatile than it used to be,” said Lokesh Jindal, VP for strategy and business development at CA Technologies company Nimsoft, “Everyone is under pressure to do more with less, and a growing number of end-users are consuming management services ‘as a service’, from a SaaS provider or MSP.”

He said organisations need to determine whether an operation is core or a chore. “Keep it internal if it’s central to the business, but shifting the management function to an MSP is a simple way to manage chores,” he explained.

Cloud offerings

CA also used the event as a platform to unveil several solutions, for the cloud and in the cloud.
The portfolio includes several technologies aimed at enabling companies to deliver business services across the public, private and hybrid cloud. For organisations starting on the journey, CA Cloud 360 allows them to evaluate which cloud applications are best suited for various cloud models.

Another announcement was an update of the Cloud Commons ecosystem, which CA introduced last year as an attempt to create a virtual marketplace for cloud solutions. New additions include a developer studio and store for comparing, selling and buying cloud services and content.

“Cloud Commons unites businesses that need cloud services with developers creating cloud services and vendors who sell these services, to get enterprises to cloud faster,” said Mann.
CA also added to its cloud security solutions, unveiling two SaaS products for identity and access management: IdentityMinder as a service and FedMinder as a service.

“As the IT environment shifts to include cloud applications and services alongside traditional on-premise applications, identity and access management also must shift,” said Mike Denning, GM of CA’s security business.

The company also released an updated version of the CA Mainframe Chorus unified management workspace, extending its capabilities to streamline mainframe administration.

Executive VP Peter Griffiths stressed the role of SaaS solutions, both for CA and in the broader business environment. “The SaaS delivery model is a foundational element for the future of the hybrid enterprise. The management and delivery of SaaS-based solutions is a key for CA Technologies, as we join with our customers and partners to enable our collective success – from the mainframe to the cloud.”