'A Walk on CLOUD with Suhas Kelkar, CTO, APAC of BMC Software'
By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 13 October 2011, 02:46 IST
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'A Walk on CLOUD with Suhas Kelkar, CTO, APAC of BMC Software'
Trends in the cloud space: In my opinion, there are two distinct trends that we see, that are going to shape the future of enterprise IT infrastructures in the coming years. Cloud itself is a trend but if you start peeling off the layers, then you realize that there is much more to it than what meets the eye. What enterprises are really doing is that they want to evolve to the next level of IT maturity, and cloud is driving that behavior. Enterprises are moving towards service based IT delivery whether it is for internal or external customers. This is a much larger trend wherein companies are beginning to think when they actually become more service oriented and utilize some of the facets of cloud computing in a variety of ways within the IT space. This will define how IT infrastructure is built in the next few years. The second big trend is the concept of Consumerization of IT, which also has various facets. We are tracking and monitoring it very closely as it will have a wide impact on how enterprises run and operate. A very simple example is 'bring your own device' to work. Instead of enterprises making the choice of laptop or mobile device, they are letting users have that choice while retaining some control over how these devices get used. Other technologies such as social networking, chat and crowd sourcing are slowly finding their way into enterprises. Even within BMC Software, we have started using 'Chatter' which is a collaboration and social networking tool our employees use to connect with each other across geographies, teams, and hierarchies within BMC. An overview of BMC Software products: Our portfolio of products and solutions is intended to help enterprises move on to the cloud seamlessly and effortlessly. The focus of the solutions we have brought out in the market has always been to help increase the level of maturity for IT, in addition to broadening the cloud scope. Setting up a cloud-like environment is just the first step. Monitoring and operating it correctly is equally important. Our solutions allow enterprises to not only build cloud-like infrastructures but also monitor and operate the cloud on a day-to-day basis in a much more secure fashion. The latest cloud solution from BMC Software is our comprehensive cloud management suite and we call it CLM i.e., cloud lifecycle management. Some of the other solutions we have are Proactive Operations and Data Center Automation. We continue to strengthen our portfolio and recently acquired a company that enables send user performance management where one can monitor his/her SaaS applications for a user performance review. This product is being used by some of the biggest SaaS vendors globally and fits really well into our end to end monitoring solution. BMC Software is best known for its ITSM Suite, which expertly manages all ITSM applications like asset management, change management, incident management and so on. Our other automation suites allow you to automate some of your compliance and governance of your IT resources. How are your cloud solutions different from your competitors? Our cloud solution is different in many ways from our competitors. Our solution does not assume homogeneous environments. It works across different physical hardware, different hypervisors and even different public cloud providers. We also have many patent pending technologies that clearly differentiate our solution from the rest. Advice for budding professionals: There is generally a trend among young folks today where they feel that the only way to move up in their careers is to move away from technical work and move to managerial roles and we are trying to fight that perception. My advice would be to actually start understanding customer issues better and developing customer-oriented solutions. Instead of thinking of managerial role as the only career advancing opportunity, technical folks should consider moving into Pre-Sales or Product Management type of roles. I believe this has more potential in coming years because that is where Indian IT is moving. To quote an example, within BMC we have started a very interesting initiative. We have created a club called Ninja Club. The goal of the club is to foster the technical career ladder and the reason we call it 'Ninja' is because it is based on the martial arts methodology. People who join the club get a white belt. As they demonstrate more and more technical capabilities, they grow and get a yellow, then orange and the red belt. So with that, we have created a mentor program, drive various coding challenges, and organize quizzes. It is also designed to foster mentor-mentee relationships. This club will also help build technical role models for others to follow in path of.

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