CA Cloud 360 Helps Enterprises Ensure Cloud SLAs with Tools, Expertise 
CA Technologies has launched CA Cloud 360 solution to help enterprises move their apps to the cloud. The latest CA cloud offering combines products from its IT management portfolio with cloud consultant expertise to span the four crucial stages of the cloud services planning and deployment process.
CA Technologies has launched CA Cloud 360 solution to help enterprises move their apps to the cloud. The latest CA cloud offering combines products from its IT management portfolio with cloud consultant expertise to span the four crucial stages of the cloud services planning and deployment process.
CA Cloud 360 provides enterprises with full lifecycle view of a cloud project, to provide IT what it called a “prescriptive approach” to validating and then selecting which applications, services, data and business processes are best suited which types of cloud -- private, public and hybrid clouds.
The goal of CA Cloud 360 is to provide enterprise decision-makers the insight and tools needed to create effective cloud projects with predictable cost, risk and ROI, according to Adam Famularo, general manager, Enterprise and Cloud Solutions, CA Technologies.
“CA Cloud 360 gives customers the best mix of technology and in-depth experience they need to make informed decisions about the right service delivery models that directly align to their business initiatives. This solution allows customers to focus on using the cloud for competitive advantage with rapid time to market of agile business services,” Famularo said in a statement.
In specific, CA Cloud 360 provides a four-phased approach to guide IT through all the assessments and decision-making that surrounds creating a cloud service, or migrating legacy assets to the cloud.
CA Cloud 360’s four components are designed to tackle application and business services rationalization processes; the modeling and simulation testing of components; identifying capacity requirements; and perhaps most importantly understanding the cost structures of cloud-based systems.
CA Cloud 360’s four-phase approach includes: application portfolio analysis; service level performance and management; predictive capacity analysis and management; and service virtualization and application behavior simulation.
CA Cloud 360 is delivered in a well-orchestrated four-stage program. Stages include:
RATIONALIZE. This first stage begins with a “discovery” session and an in-depth portfolio analysis (performed by CA Cloud Consulting Services). This kickoff phase aims to help guide organizations through an application portfolio cloud rationalization process, and uses the CA Clarity Project & Portfolio Management On Demand tool. Results from this phase provide customers a detailed findings and recommendations report and high level cloud application migration roadmap.
DEFINE. This stage defines and manages service performance and SLAs (service level agreements) across traditional, cloud, and hybrid delivery models. It aims to enhance productivity surrounding an organization’s ability to author, modify and measure SLAs – and reduce SLA-related costs. At a broader level, this stage can also help companies discover cloud-based projects that can boost customer satisfaction, improve corporate governance, enhance visibility and reduce business risks.
PREDICT. This stage provides capacity planning analysis and predictive analytics to plan and optimize a cloud solution. Aspects include: burst capacity across physical, virtual and hybrid infrastructure, as well as requirements to migrate your resources from physical to virtual platforms without impacting performance or SLAs.
SIMULATE. This final stage tests composite application behavior in a simulated (virtualized) production environment -- including applications, and the entire infrastructure across network, storage and heterogeneous platforms. Further, the results are used to enable development and testing of application and cloud services in simulated production environments. Core to this capability is CA LISA suite.
CA Cloud 360 id designed to play “a key role in helping CIOs and IT executives adopt hybrid service models and execute on critical IT transformation strategies,” according to Famularo. As a result, CIOs can realize the full benefits of cloud computing, accelerating time to market with agile business services that deliver innovation, business value and competitive advantage, he added.
