Special Features:
CA'S KUMAR OUTLINES MANAGING
ON-DEMAND COMPUTING STRATEGY
Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA) Chairman and CEO, Sanjay
Kumar,
unveiled the Company's innovative managing on-demand computing strategy and a
comprehensive portfolio of supporting software solutions.
Speaking at the NetWorld+Interop Conference here, Kumar said CA's managing
on-
demand computing strategy is built on the Company's track record of
consistently providing industry-leading management and integration solutions.
He said CA also is committed to making on-demand computing a reality for
customers without requiring massive system and hardware changes.
"Everyone has a vision of computing on-demand," Kumar said in his keynote
address. "Let me emphasize that we believe that the benefits of on-demand
computing can be achieved largely through IT management -- not extensive
overhauls of IT structures."
Kumar stressed that to achieve maximum flexibility, customers must have the
ability to access computing resources regardless of platform.
"It's not about switching out servers; it's not about the latest generation
of
hardware; it's about platform-neutral computing that allows you to use what
you have more effectively and efficiently," he said. "It doesn't matter if a
customer has Sun servers, a bunch of IBMs, an HP and Windows servers in the
mix; we'll work with what they have."
Kumar said CA's strategy for managing on-demand computing is built on four
key
principles:
- Empowering customers to deliver IT as a service driven directly by
business
requirements;
- Providing the self-management/self-healing capabilities necessary to
ensure that the IT infrastructure can function as a highly reliable
utility;
- Creating a service-oriented architecture that radically simplifies
operations for IT staff; and
- Offering customers a flexible licensing model.
"There is a growing trend toward enabling more effective business control
of
the full infrastructure, including network, systems, applications, with
visibility and automation, and a focus on services management and business
impact," Kumar said. "Many vendors are making an effort to answer this
challenge to manage the infrastructure and everyone's got a name for what they
propose to do -- from 'Adaptive Management' (HP) to 'Autonomic Management'
(IBM). But there's been little progress in actually offering innovations that
can realize the promise the names imply."
CA delivered the industry's first comprehensive solutions for managing
on-demand computing environments as it introduced six new products
(
www3.ca.com/Press/pressrelease.asp?CID=42270) in its
award-winning
Unicenter family.
These products, the first phase in CA's managing on-demand computing
strategy,
enable customers to manage their computing resources like a utility within
their own enterprise. They deliver automated mapping of IT resources to
business processes, automated software provisioning, and dynamic allocation
and partitioning of servers to enable self-managing systems. Three of the
products are available now; the others are already in beta testing.
Kumar said behind this announcement is a second phase, which will usher in
products that will focus on managing communities of utilities. In this phase,
customers will be able to access capability from outside their IT environment
-- using server farms or data centers to get the capacity they need when they
need it and only for as long as they need it.
"Think of an electric utility in New York, which can access power when it
needs it from wherever capacity exists," he said. "When you switch on a lamp,
the electric power might have been generated in New York, in Canada, at the
Hoover Dam, or it could have been produced by any number of companies using
any number of sources. None of that matters. The grid delivers the power."
Kumar said one of the interesting side effects of on-demand computing is
that
application services will become independent of hardware.
"Customers will be able to use any type of device to receive the services
they
want, where and when they want them," Kumar said. "By the same token,
customers won't care whether their systems use proprietary platforms or open
software; they'll only care about the service they receive."
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