Storm of cloud announcements from CA

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 15 November 2011 12:04

CA Technologies used its CA World event to announce multiple new or extended cloud solutions. They included a new approach to deciding which applications and services are best suited to cloud deployment, and a marketplace for cloud applications and hosting services.

Andi Mann, vice president, enterprise and cloud solutions said CA Cloud 360 "allows CIOs to deliver innovation at the speed of business." A mix of CA software and services, Cloud 360 helps organisations determine decide which applications should move to the cloud, when they should move, and whether they should move to a public, private or hybrid cloud. It addresses several critical questions including the need for bursting; buy, build, or leverage existing investments; and the cost of making mistakes.

The process covers application portfolio analysis (what should move and what shouldn't); defining the end goal in terms of service levels and performance management; predict needs across physical virtual and hybrid infrastructure; and the development and testing of cloud applications in simulated production environments.

Mr Mann also announced changes to the Cloud Commons ecosystem. Originally introduced as a channel for cloud professionals to collaborate with their peers, it now includes a test cloud environment and a marketplace.

Cloud Commons Developer Studio is a free test cloud environment that allows developers to package, test and certify AppLogic appliances. And once those appliances are ready for release, they can be sold in the Cloud Common Marketplace, which includes support for subscription based billing. Participants can sell, compare, and buy appliances for on premises use or for deployment on a hosting provider's facilities. Hosting services are also available in the Marketplace, which covers IaaS, PaaS, SaaS and cloud managed services.

More than 25 services and appliances were available from CA and other vendors in the Marketplace at the time of launch.

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