Managing Cloud-Connected Applications

Session Date and Time: Day 1, March 23, 1PM EST (10AM PST) (30 minutes)
Keywords: service delivery, business case, costs.
Authors: Donald Ferguson, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, CA, Inc.
Abstract: Almost all business applications are composite applications that utilize application logic and data running on multiple systems. An online commerce application, for example, may run on a combination of web servers, web application servers, database servers, and file servers. Additional IT resources—such as security subsystems and network switches—also support these applications.

Today, most of these resources are in the corporate data center. But with the advent of cloud computing, composite applications will be radically transformed — as their constituent resources are increasingly dispersed across cloud infrastructure, use cloud-callable APIs, and leverage cloud communities.

This proposed keynote session will explain how cloud-spanning management and security are essential for organizations to realize the benefits of cloud computing and virtualization.
Topics will include:

• Cloud management and security challenges.
• Existing and emerging technologies that address these challenges.
• Standards and industry initiatives for managing the cloud.

Dr. Donald F. Ferguson is executive vice president and chief technology officer at CA, responsible for delivering common technology services to CA’s business units, ensuring architectural compliance and integration of the company's solutions and products. Tasked with promoting technical excellence at CA and further developing the company’s technical community, Don chairs the CA Architecture Board and a newly formed Distinguished Engineer Board. He also serves on CA’s Executive Leadership Team, which supervises the business and technology strategies for the company as a whole.

Before assuming the position of CTO, Don was corporate senior vice president and chief architect. In this role, he defined the direction and technical evolution for CA products. Don placed special emphasis on product integration and support of new technologies like business process modeling, Web service standards and Web 2.0.

Prior to joining CA in 2008, Don was a Microsoft Technical Fellow working in the Office of the CTO. He worked on various projects exploring the future of enterprise software, with a special emphasis on Web services and Internet application platforms.

Don began his career at IBM, where he worked for twenty years. In 2001 Don became an IBM Fellow, IBM's highest technical honor. IBM has approximately 50 IBM Fellows in the 150,000 person engineering team.

Earlier, he served as chief architect for the IBM Software Group, where he focused on design issues and initiatives spanning the DB2, WebSphere, Tivoli, Lotus and Rational product families. During this time, Ferguson also worked on a number of SOA and Web service initiatives, specifications and standards. Don also held the title of chief architect for the WebSphere product family from its inception until becoming IBM Software Group chief architect.

Don earned a Ph.D in Computer Science from Columbia University. He has contributed to approximately 30 technical journal and conference publications, and has more than a dozen patents.