CA Changes Name, Debuts Cloud Management Suite

The company unveiled the CA Cloud-Connected Management Suite Monday at the company’s CA World conference in Las Vegas. CA Technologies is the new name for CA Inc., which in turn was previously known as Computer Associates.

Cloud computing utilizes IT resources, such as applications and data storage, outside of a company’s firewall. That makes managing cloud computing networks more complex and CA Technologies has its eye on becoming a one-stop shop for cloud computing tools.

“We certainly see the cloud as a real paradigm shift,” said Ajei Gopal, executive vice president of CA Technologies’ Product and Technology Group, in a pre-CA World interview. “The compelling needs we’re seeing today are around business agility.”

CA Technologies is using an extended supply chain as a metaphor for the challenge cloud computing poses for IT managers. Unless addressed, those challenges could prove to be a hurdle to mainstream adoption of cloud computing.

CA Technologies has been on a buying spree since June 2009, acquiring a number of small companies and startups with technologies businesses use to manage their cloud systems. Those include Cassatt and its software for operating data centers like cloud computing utilities, 3Tera and its platform for building and deploying cloud services, and Oblicore and its service-level management applications.

The new CA Cloud-Connected Management Suite rolls those products into a single package linked by an integration framework developed by CA Technologies, Gopal said. “The world of IT will always be heterogeneous” with mixed on-premise and cloud IT assets,” he said, explaining the need for the new product line.

The suite includes CA Cloud Insight, based on the Oblicore technology, a standardized service-level index that provides businesses with the means of assessing internal and external (cloud) services and deciding which ones are needed to meet immediate IT requirements. CA Cloud Compose, based on the 3Tera tools, helps organizations assemble and provision a cloud system with composite services.

CA Cloud Optimize, based on the Cassatt software, analyzes a cloud system’s performance and helps IT managers make decisions that align cloud resources with business needs. And CA Cloud Orchestra provides workflow control and policy-based automation of changes to cloud-based services based on information generated by the suite’s other tools.

At CA World Monday Chris O’Malley, executive vice president of CA Technologies’ cloud products and solutions business line, said the vendor also plans to use a cloud-based model to deliver more of its own IT management applications as a service. Those applications include Nimsoft, a line of IT performance and system availability tools CA acquired in March. Several weeks ago CA Technologies debuted an on-demand version of Nimsoft.

O’Malley also said CA technologies has designed a self-service portal, slated to go live this summer, where customers can buy, provision and administer IT management applications from the vendor.

Gopal, however, said CA Technologies sees channel partners, especially systems integrators and managed service providers “playing a very significant role” in bringing elements of the new cloud suite to market.