CA bets big on cloud computing

CA is expecting a cloud computing revolution

LAS VEGAS: Software management firm CA kicked off its CA World show in Las Vegas on Sunday night with a new name and the announcement of big plans for cloud computing.

Chief executive Bill McCracken began his keynote by promoting the importance of cloud services within CA and for the rest of the industry, predicting it will be as significant a shift as previous moves to client/server computing and the web.

"I don't think [cloud is] going to happen, I know it's going to happen," he said, adding that within a year there will have been a significant change in the technology industry based on firms' use of cloud services.

McCracken cited the example of Netflix, a US company which offers a DVD rental service alongside online movie downloads, to demonstrate the value of cloud.

Netflix uses CA's Nimsoft monitoring software to manage its IT capacity requirements. At peak times such as Saturday nights, Netflix can call on a public cloud from Yahoo or Google to provide the extra capacity on-demand.

Customers were also reassured over CA's emphasis on cloud security.

"About four or five months ago, one of our largest competitors said that mission critical apps wouldn't make it into the cloud. I'd probably have said the same thing if I was him as he doesn't know how to deal with it," McCracken said.

In an effort to further the uptake of cloud computing, CA also unveiled Cloud Commons, a community web site with resources and guidance from industry experts, but more importantly a ratings system for cloud services based on scores from analysts and business users.