INDUSTRY WATCH
How robust is your Business Continuity plan and what areas do you prioritize within this ?
How would you describe your Digital Transformation strategy and how has it evolved since your work with BMC ?
In this specific area , our key decision was removing that single point of failure for Business Continuity . Now with our new solution , which includes leveraging the Control-M platform from BMC , we were able to architect this in the cloud environment to where we have more of a robust high availability solution , but we also have the capability of shifting it over to different regions within the cloud as well . So it gives us that better MTTR than what we had when it was something which was running on-prem with the other solution .
How has BMC met the criteria you required and how scalable has its solution been for you ?
It ’ s been very scalable . One of the things we look forward to is that as we continue to ramp up more of our job scheduling in the platform , BMC has communicated to us that it has another SaaS platform . Right now , with the solution we ’ re using , it does have that capability , but we ’ ve seen some of the future releases of the newer model that ’ s coming out which definitely falls in line with where we want to go from a consumption model that we own within our own subscription , as opposed to fully being supportive in a SaaS model .
One of BMC ’ s key messages is being able to help its customers conquer the opportunities that lie ahead – how are you now able to do this ?
One of the areas that we didn ’ t have in the past is self-service and the orchestration and especially the automation piece . This puts us in a better position for our developers to bring that control more to the developer level – for example to manage jobs , reschedule the logging , being predictive and proactive – as opposed to having someone in the middle support who may not understand the application and the programming behind what it takes to make sure those jobs have the proper interdependency .
Now that puts that control into the developer ’ s hands , as opposed to an ops person who says : ‘ Job started . Job ended . Successful ’. When something goes wrong in between , you want someone who can quickly jump in and remediate the issue compared to just opening up a ticket .
It ’ s helping us to focus more on change – doing more automation , rather than always being hands-on . I liked an example I heard recently , where you have software talking with software and resolving – you never will remove the human even though it ’ s human-less . But yet you have a solution , you ’ re moving towards that goal of being able to automate self-orchestration . And that ’ s what we look forward to .
What advice would you give to others starting out on a journey like yours ?
When it comes to data centers , understand what your TCO is and look at ways to streamline your costs . In my space , I would say you will never get rid of your data center , so therefore you want to make sure that the applications you choose for a cloud solution are compatible . Not everything is meant for the cloud , so make sure that it ’ s a hybrid solution so you can ramp up and ramp down , that it ’ s portable – and make sure that you understand that as you want to be able to quickly adapt and change . You want the best of both worlds : you have that on-prem solution for that which is close to the business , and you have those other solutions at the Edge to meet those customers and your partners .
What does the future look like for IT and what does the future hold for the data center space ?
There are two ways of looking at it . The way I picture data centers is that you have those which you own and you have those which are colocation – so you still own assets , but you ’ ve gotten rid of your property . And then the other one is a SaaS model and you just pay As-a- Service . Those are choices that each business has to make depending on which best fits their model .
Some people may love to continue to have that control over their data centers , but it ’ s more about what are my investments – am I in this for the data center business , or do I just need a service ? That model is unique per company . There always will be a data center – even Amazon , Google or Microsoft are data centers . It ’ s more about what are my costs , my TCL on a regular year-over-year expense , etc . If you can reduce that technology debt and put the ownership on someone else , you just need to be provided with the service for your applications . p
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