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CA Technologies Participates in TM Forum’s ‘Resilient Cloud for Defense’ Catalyst Project

Catalyst Team Leverages the CA AppLogic Cloud Platform to Move Applications Between Clouds

ISLANDIA, NY, and MORGES, Switzerland, May 17, 2012 – CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA) is showcasing the first phase of the ‘Resilient Cloud for Defense; Maintaining Service in the Face of Developing Threats’ Catalyst project during TM Forum’s Management World Conference, Dublin, May 21-24, 2012.

This Catalyst project addresses the issue of maintaining critical systems and applications that may reside in the cloud by ensuring that the underlying location of the physical data center is in a safe area during a major environmental threat such as a hurricane, earthquake or other potential scenario. By applying a real-time understanding of enterprise risk threats (emerging threat vectors), and making adjustments to maintain continuity for critical services, The Resilient Cloud for Defense Catalyst project aims to prove that cloud computing is a viable option for the defense industry. Service is maintained through movement of workloads where decisions are based on service level requirements.

At the show, CA Technologies is demonstrating a threat “dashboard”, secure management interfaces for cloud-based services, and auditing. To create an end-to-end view of the network and services, the solution uses TM Forum Interfaces and the Information Framework, enabling the rapid response this scenario requires.

In a typical threat scenario, for example the snow and ice storm that crossed the United States in 2011, critical applications in a data center need to be safeguarded but, applications are only moved to a ‘safe zone’ once the data center has been impacted. The network only reacts when service has already been disrupted.

This project instead uses geographical information system (GIS) technology to provide a further layer of intelligence to the network monitoring and management system. As a result, it allows the proactive detection and identification of a developing threat, and simulation of its potential impact on the network before any actual impact occurs.

“Such advanced warning will provide time to identify critical services that may be impacted and the ability to relocate those services to other network resources that are not under threat. This approach helps to ensure continued availability of services without waiting for a disruption to occur,” explained Edwin Wilkeshuis, CTO, Benelux, and the project lead for CA Technologies.

The Resilient Cloud for Defense Catalyst project group is building a framework based on the CA AppLogic turnkey cloud platform. It will use information from the GIS technology and from an organization’s IT department to trigger workload relocations from one CA AppLogic cloud to another, within the same organization.

The Catalyst project team selected the CA AppLogic platform because it allows users to quickly move business services from one CA AppLogic grid to another, with a simple click of a mouse. Phase II will drive standards in moving applications from one cloud vendor to another.

CA Technologies is demonstrating Phase I of the Resilient Cloud for Defense Catalyst project at stand #54, and in the Catalyst area ‘Forumville’. Interested parties can participate in TM Forum discussions on Twitter using the hashtag #MWD12.