CA Announces Virtualization Study Results: Automation, Comprehensive Domain Coverage, and Top-Down Application-Centric Management are Critical

ISLANDIA, N.Y., March 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CA (Nasdaq: CA) today released the findings of a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of CA that examines the impact, challenges, and requirements of operating virtualized IT environments.* The study found that the continued expansion of virtualization introduces new levels of complexity that threaten the quality, reliability and security of services. The study also found that as day-to-day production responsibility shifts from subject matter experts to operational generalists, new management and automation tools are needed to minimize the risks.

"The study results reflect CA's belief that management is the key to unlocking the business value of virtualization," said Roger Pilc, corporate senior vice president and general manager, Virtualization and Service Automation, CA. "Comprehensive, enterprise-class management and automation can increase IT agility, reduce costs, improve service quality, and reduce risks in physical, virtual and cloud computing environments."

Key findings from the survey of 257 virtualization decision-makers in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and Japan include:

• Moving to internal clouds requires changes to processes and automation management: Many organizations see cloud computing as the logical outgrowth of virtualization. Twenty-eight percent of respondents plan to evolve from virtualization to private cloud computing services for some production workload in the next six months. To attain this goal, the common model of IT service development and operations must be replaced. Process discipline, automation and self-service management tools, and organizational changes are inevitable.

• Comprehensive domain coverage is critical: High among enterprise users' requirements is the ability for management tools to seamlessly and comprehensively manage components of the overall virtualized service that are adjacent to the virtual server, including physical systems, network, and storage. Virtualization blurs the lines between domain silos, making seamless management critical.

• A top-down, application-centric approach is needed: Business requirements revolve around the applications, not the infrastructure. Application analysis is near the top of desired features for virtualization management.

A free copy of the full study is available at http://www.ca.com/us/analysts/reports/collateral.aspx?CID=227749.

For information about CA's virtualization management capabilities, visit http://www.ca.com/us/virtualization.aspx.  For information about CA's automation solutions, visit http://www.ca.com/us/business-driven-automation.aspx.

* "Virtualization Management and Trends," a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of CA, January 2010.

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