Millennium Pharmacy Takes SaaS Model to New Heights Via Policy-Driven Operations Management and Automation

Transcript of a BriefingsDirect podcast on how a major healthcare provider has used advanced IT management and operational efficiency processes and systems to keep applications up to date, compliant, performant, and protected.

Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Download the transcript. Sponsor: VMware.

Dana Gardner: Hi, this is Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, and you're listening to BriefingsDirect.

Gardner

Today, we present a sponsored podcast discussion on how an online pharmaceutical services provider Millennium Pharmacy Systems, Inc. has implemented a variety of software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and then managed them through a more automated and efficient operational approach.

We'll learn how Millennium Pharmacy has used advanced IT management and operational efficiency processes and systems to keep applications up to date, compliant, performant, and protected.

To hear more detail on how automation and operational efficiencies help them improve their business results and customer retention, please join me in welcoming Leon Ravenna, Vice President of IT and Operations and Information Security Officer at Millennium Pharmacy Systems, Inc., based in Cranberry Township Pennsylvania. Welcome, Leon. [Disclosure: VMware is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

Leon Ravenna: Good afternoon.

Gardner: We're glad you could join us. Tell us a little bit about your IT state. What was the situation in your organization that made it clear that the way you had been doing it in the past was not holding up and that some new level of optimization, organization automation, improvement was needed?

Ravenna: I'll be happy to. I've been here about 14 months. One of the things that we looked at doing right, when I came in, is taking both the data centers that we have -- one is owned and one is a co-located facility -- and eliminating a lot of the older hardware that we had.

We are now about 85 percent virtualized. Our  primary datacenter is for our customer-facing application, a SaaS application, built on SQL/.Net and Silverlight, for about 250 nursing care facilities on the East Coast. This basically controls all of the medications that a patient would need. It does our medical reordering and passes that information in an entirely integrated fashion back to our in-house systems for billing and filling of prescriptions.

What we looked to doing first was consolidating, getting rid of the older hardware, and moving us to a much better state. One of the nice things about VMware is that it’s just rock solid. We're kind of weary of knocking on wood, but it’s rock solid for us. It gives us the ability to move applications on an as-needed basis. We can upgrade things on the fly. In one data center, we are currently on 5.1, and we're moving the other data center to 5.1.

On our SaaS application, I have 250 separate SQL databases on seven SQL servers, running in a VMware environment and that helps me dramatically cut my licensing cost for SQL server and helps to manage them in a high availability way.

Gardner: Leon, before we get more into what you do and why you have certain requirements, I'd like to get a bit more information about what was different before you went to high virtualization. Everybody talks about the efficiency in cost utilization, but what about the management? Is there something about the way you've done this that has allowed you to be 24x7 up and keeping the performance where it need to be?

More efficient

Ravenna: We had a couple of older Dell blade chassis, and inevitably you would lose the power supply or a server, and I just don’t have that. From an operational standpoint, it just helps to be more efficient. It has the ability to turn new servers up faster. It’s not something that we do all the time, but it helps me be much more efficient. I have a fairly small staff, and my goal is to let them sleep at night.

By having more VMware in place, about 85 percent virtualized, it allows me to do that. If the server fails, they applications move to a different server. I have the ability to upgrade the servers on the fly. It allows me, from an operational standpoint, to be more secure in what we're doing.

And it helps me lower my cost, because I am not as worried about my HVAC. I have less equipment to worry about. I have less break-fix to worry about. All in all, it helps me be remarkably more efficient.

Gardner: Let’s learn a bit more about Millennium Pharmacy. You're in the healthcare field which of course has already got pretty stringent requirements in terms of compliance, regulations, cost, audit trails, and making sure that data is available. Tell us about what you do and then perhaps a bit about why your requirements are pretty dramatic.

Ravenna: As I said, we host a system for about 250 nursing-care facilities. As a patient, you don’t have much time with your nurse. The nurse is typically gathering your drugs. We have our own pharmacies that service those homes. We deliver, in a cellophane sealed package, your medications.

We're working to implement the new HIPAA regulations so we can be even tighter in that space.

These packages say, "Mr. Smith, take this at dinner time." There's a barcode for every drug, and when the nurse gives them the drug, they use a wireless scanner to scan that barcode and it automatically reorders the next set of drugs. We give patients about a three- or four-day supply, as opposed to 45- or 90-day supply, which cuts the cost for the nursing care facility itself. Then, we manage all of that data back to our other systems, that manage the filling of new prescriptions and billing and then we deliver every day.

The healthcare space is fairly stringent, and and getting more so with the new HIPAA regulations. New ones just came out on March 26 of this year, and the enforcement and penalties are much greater. There’s some significant items that have  changed, but really it’s the enforcement and penalties, things around encryption, and protecting customers' data.

We also have to protect confidential information and so we need to be very secure. We're working to implement the new HIPAA regulations so we can be even tighter in that space.

Gardner: This is all done through SaaS and cloud. There are no on-premises installations of your application. Is that right?

Ravenna: Only one facility of our 250 that has their own system. They are large, and one of their requirements was to have their own, but we support the rest of them, approximately 250, all cloud based. They can get to it from their Internet connection.

All SaaS

Depending on what the customer needs, we may set up the entire environment for them, networks, wireless, scanners, and printers, or they get to us through their own equipment and internet connections. But yes, it's all SaaS. 

Gardner: We're talking about being highly mission critical, people getting their medicine. We're also talking about being highly efficient. What were some of the requirements in terms of the infrastructure, particularly as we look now towards managing so many different instances and the ability to be agile and fire up new versions of VMware and to get those apps up and running? What were some of your requirements just from a management perspective?

Ravenna: It had to be easy. I have three system engineers. I only have a couple of network engineers. We support, on the network side, approximately 250 VPN tunnels out to customers, and as you said, it's mission critical. If people don’t get their drugs, it’s a bad day. We take that mission very seriously, making sure those systems are up and running.

From an operational or management standpoint, we really need to be monitoring to know what’s happening and when. Having VMware in that mix gives us the ability to make things consistent, but it also helps to  reduce our cost from a licensing standpoint and helps us manage them better, because we can see what’s happening at any given moment.

Gardner: So as a mid-market organization, you're resource constrained, you just don’t have a huge stuff, and you need automation. You need to have the ability to manage things, perhaps remotely.

It lets us be a lot more efficient with what we are doing. It lets us manage more efficiently.

So it's this notion of total approach to management, rather than silos, rather than integration of different management approaches and products together. That just wouldn’t fly. What have you done? What have you experimented with, as you move towards this more complete notion of management, one-stop shop, one pane of glass type thing?

Ravenna: There are a couple of things that we've done. We're evaluating vCenter Operations Management Suite. One of the things that it has  let us do is dramatically reduce the size of our virtual machines (VMs).

Typically, if you're moving from a physical environment, VMware is a lot more efficient and it’s really kind of surprising seeing some of the reports that come back from vCenter Operations Management that tell you, realistically, you are running this server with six gigabytes of memory, but you are only really using one.

It’s a little bit spooky to look at it and ask if we really want to go that far. In some cases we would say, "Yes, let’s go ahead and do that," and it’s been, for the most part, dead-on. We've looked at a couple of things where our gut didn't say it was the right thing, even though it probably was. There's still a little bit of that old-school mentality that says you need to get more resources, when in fact the server may not even need them.

It lets us be a lot more efficient with what we are doing. It lets us manage more efficiently, because I can put more databases or more servers on each VM host.

Move quickly

Gardner: So when you look at the total picture, you need to be agile and able to move your resources quickly. You have a small staff. You need to be compliant in the tough confines of the healthcare regulatory environment.

Where do you look to go next? Is there a higher vision that you develop? We hear about the software-defined datacenter, for example. We hear about cloud computing where you can actually mirror your entire data center from one location to another, maybe it’s for disaster recovery (DR), maybe it’s just for operational efficiency. Is that on your radar? Is that what you like to see?

Ravenna: Absolutely. I have an overriding philosophy, after doing this for last 20 plus years. The simpler I can make it, the more I get to sleep. Sleep is a recurring theme and realistically, that means fewer calls during the night.

We're looking to move to vCloud Suite, in particular Site Recovery Manager (SRM), and using the vCenter Operations Management Suite to allow us to be more efficient. It just helps us work better and faster. Some of the key components will help me to be as efficient as possible. I may eventually need  to build out virtual data centers, so the VMware vCloud Director helps me.

Those are some of the key things I'm looking for in the future. For me, having multiple data centers, the ability to have VMware SRM, is just a great thing. It’s getting ready to thunderstorm here, and having the ability to move my services to a different data center that’s about 35 miles away is key.

I'm very leery about putting my data just in a cloud with everybody else. It would have to be very specific to the healthcare space.

Gardner: It’s pretty interesting that the notion a one-size-fits-all, plain vanilla, public cloud wouldn’t be attractive to you. What would you like to see and what have you heard from VMware that might lead to believe that they would be in a position to offer such as cloud service?

Ravenna: I don’t know that VMware has that today, but it’s a trusted brand, and I'm very leery about putting my data just in a cloud with everybody else. It would have to be very specific to the healthcare space, because you end up signing a business associate agreement with me.

It would have to be what I would term carrier-class facilities that can prove they are in the healthcare space, dedicated to being there, and abide by all the HIPAA Rules. We have all of the things like PCI and SSAE 16. Those type things really need to be there and geared towards the healthcare space specifically for me to be able to look at them.

Gardner: And completely invisible to the end user. They're still getting their meds, making their orders, and everything is up and running. That’s a great vision. Do you see the vCenter Operations Management Suite as a key stepping stone to getting there? It seems to me that you can’t get to that vision until you really rationalize, organize, and lock down your operational integrity of what you have to play.

Ravenna: Yes. It will be key component. In concert, the VMware Operations Management Suite and the vCloud Suite will help me get there. My whole goal is to be able to make things as simple as possible and as easy as possible to manage, and these tools let me do that and be more efficient.

No choice

I'm not a guy who wants to understand electricity or heating and ventilation, but unfortunately in the world that we live today, in the mid-market space, you have your own data centers. You have no choice. You have to play in that game. Anything that I can do that helps me to address those issues to run cooler or run with less equipment is just all goodness.

Gardner: As you have attained 85 percent virtualization and you're looking for efficiencies in your storage and your resource utilization, is there a payback that you can take to your higher ups? When it comes time to invest and go further down this journey, with that fully realization of cloud and ease of moving payloads, workloads across distances that, do you have metrics? Can you say, "Listen, I'm saving x percent?" How do you convince the bean counter that this is the right thing to do?

Ravenna: It’s not necessarily a metric, but when you're spending less year over year on equipment, that’s evidence. Every server you buy is going to be in the roughly $5-$10,000 range. If I'm not doing that, I'm agile and nimble in being able to say that I can accommodate that.

That's opposed to the old process which was, get the capital done, go to finance, and wait six weeks to get a server, and then put it in. Inevitably there is something that’s constrained. So that six-week lead time becomes eight or ten weeks. It just helps me to move faster and spend a lot less capital money.

One of the things that I mentioned a little bit ago was licensing from a SQL standpoint, but things like backup that are running on a per-processor standpoint within VM drop my overall cost.

Anything that I can do that helps me to address those issues to run cooler or run with less equipment is just all goodness.

One of the things that it’s helpful as well is the dashboarding ability to be able to show what’s going on, what’s happening, and what the environment looks like. vCenter Operations Management Suite gives me that and it's all goodness.

Gardner: Leon, for those folks who might not be quite at 85 percent and who are trying to get there for some of the reasons you just mentioned, what advice would you give them? What are some of things that you’ve learned along the way to smooth that path to more managed, automated and agile?

Ravenna: One of the things that you will inevitably hear is -- and this may be kind of an old school thing -- the application won’t do that. You know what, it probably will. You can’t take no for an answer.

Most of the applications that we have, our applications are all custom .NET and SQL. But a lot of the other applications we have just moved there, because it made sense to us.

It make operations easier for me, but realistically, part of it is not taking no for an answer. If you're comparing the cost of, say, a two processor server, and you are going to go buy four, five, or six servers, take one of those servers and put that investment into VMware and vCenter Operations Management. You're going to be happier in the long term.

Managing the manager

Gardner: It sounds like you've made a lot of progress and I wish you well. My last area of questions is around managing the manager, the vCenter Operations Management Suite. Have you had to do a lot of training yourself? Did you go through it? How do you manage the personnel side in an organization like yours, where you do have still jacks-of-all-trades working in IT? What was the ramp-up in terms of the skills and the running of the management system?

Ravenna: For vCenter Operations Management Suite, it wasn’t too bad at all. We were talking to VMware, and they said it would be potentially beneficial. We started up, ran it, and there really wasn’t that much training that was necessary.

The harder thing was when they came back and said we were over provisioned. That was  making that rationalization that VMware is a lot more efficient than physical hardware. It meant taking some of our servers from 4 GB RAM down to one half that, because that’s where they needed to be. In some cases, you want to be a little bit safe. You ultimately find out that the tool was right, and you were being gun shy.

We started up, ran it, and there really wasn’t that much training that was necessary.

Gardner: So you have more information at your finger tips, but sometimes it can be challenging to know what to do with it. I certainly understand that.

Ravenna: Yeah, a lot of it's interpretation.

Gardner: Great. We've been talking about how online pharmaceutical services provider Millennium Pharmacy Systems has implemented a variety of SaaS and other applications, virtualized them, and then managed that virtualization more to an automated operations approach. And we learned how this advanced IT management operation efficiency can keep these mission-critical applications up-to-date, performant, compliant and protective.

I want to thank our guest for joining us. Leon Ravenna. He is Vice President of IT Operations as well as the Information Security Officer there at Millennium Pharmacy Systems. Thanks so much, Leon.

Ravenna: Sure. Happy to help.

Gardner: This is Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions. I want to thank our audience as well for listening, and don’t forget to come back next time. 

Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Download the transcript. Sponsor: VMware

Transcript of a BriefingsDirect podcast on how a major healthcare provider has used advanced IT management and operational efficiency processes and systems to keep applications up to date, compliant, performant, and protected. Copyright Interarbor Solutions, LLC, 2005-2013. All rights reserved.

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Blue Marble Media Shows How Mid-Market Selling Gains New Life Via Ariba Discovery

Transcript of a BriefingsDirect podcast on how spot-buying capabilities can increase leads and sales for a small company.

Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Download the transcript. Sponsor: Ariba, an SAP Company.

Dana Gardner: Hello, and welcome to a special BriefingsDirect podcast series from the 2013 Ariba LIVE Conference in Washington, D.C.

Gardner

Last month, we explored the latest in collaborative commerce to learn how innovative companies are tapping into the networked economy. We'll now see how they are improving their business productivity and sales, along with building far-reaching relationships with new partners and customers.

I'm Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, and I'll be your host throughout the series. [Disclosure: Ariba, an SAP company, is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

Our next innovator case study focuses on Blue Marble Media in Atlanta, and how they've been using spot-buying capabilities on the Ariba Network and Ariba Discovery to find new sales channels and new clients.

Please join me in welcoming our guest to learn more about how agile procurement is working for them on the sell side. We're joined by Cal Miller, Vice President of Business Development at Blue Marble Media. Welcome, Cal.

Cal Miller: Thanks very much for having me.

Gardner: Tell us a little bit about your company -- your size, what services and products you provide -- and we'll start to learn more about how you're selling in a new and innovative way.

One of the real benefits we found out early on Ariba Discovery is we can help educate people on the process of looking for companies like us.

Miller: Even though we're very, very small, less than $2 million in revenue, we have clients like Georgia-Pacific, Verizon, Ariba, and the CDC. We work with a lot of medium-sized companies and even startups, very small ones. So the whole planet is our opportunity, if you will. We develop video, motion graphics, and animation for sales support, marketing, corporate communications, and just about any type of visual presentation that you might need.

Gardner: And is this a large and growing market? Is this not something you are easily able to tap into? Why would you need to go through non-traditional channels to get new business?

Miller: Actually, it’s a very overcrowded supplier sector. We're a little different in that we're a turnkey provider. We're not just a “video house.” There are many of those out there, and they're good firms, but we're much more strategic. We do well when we begin a project and can interface at a C level with a company and help them come up with the strategy and the solution that eventually drives the message.

Our strength quite often is something that people don’t know is even out there. One of the real benefits we found out early on Ariba Discovery is we can help educate people on the process of looking for companies like us and then hopefully they are going to say, "Okay, we'll call you back."

Halfway to goal

Gardner: As someone who is already on the Ariba Network, they need to know and need to acquire, so they're halfway to finding the goal. You're going to need to go halfway toward them with your specific differentiating value and make that understood.

This notion of spot buying however expands that, it allows more than just a structured procurement professional who is looking for services and extends this down to people who are doing ad hoc, occasional, once-in-a-blue-moon types of buying. How has that worked out? Tell me a little bit more about how you even got involved with Ariba Discovery and spot buying at all?

Miller: In our world spot buying is probably half of our total business. Even large companies may only have a need for a high-profile video series once a year, two times a year, or every other year. So the people that are charged with developing that solution quite often aren't the people who are going to be writing the check or making the procurement, and vice versa.

Miller

So the real challenge there is to get these people to understand that there is a vetting process. Ariba has provided this service, so a company like us can sit up and say, "Hey, we're a little different than the other guys. Let’s engage and start some dialogue."

Gardner: What has been the result? Let’s learn first about how long you've been doing this? What’s the timeline on how you have been using Discovery and extending that to that spot buying type of clientele?

We've learned that you still need to respond, because you get that opportunity to almost simulate a face-to-face meeting.

Miller: It will be a year in a couple of weeks. We took a few months to learn the system, ramp up, and get going, but we've already had a very nice project and contract from a national bank that came through the network. And we have kind of a follow-up project with them. So that will be additional revenue.

We have several opportunities that have been presented to us and we are in different stages of developing those projects as they move forward.

Even on a few of the introductions that we've passed up, we've made a response, but we knew it wasn’t a good fit. We've learned that you still need to respond, because you get that opportunity to almost simulate a face-to-face meeting, because they get to learn about you, and you're building a relationship.

One of the biggest challenges that people on this network don't realize is to not look at your computer screen like it’s just another interface computer screen. You're looking through the eyes of Ariba at a real, live person on the other end- who can write you a check, and that changes the dynamic of how you communicate through the Network.

Gardner: And if it’s not a right fit for them, they might have a word-of-mouth, community, or social connection with someone that they could refer you to. So there are concentric circles of engagement.

Circles of engagement

Miller: That happens very often, especially with the larger companies. It’s, "These guys can do this. Here, give them a call in three months or pass this on to Joe, because they are going to need this." That’s worth its weight in gold. You can’t get that by knocking on the door or shooting out a bevy of emails. It just doesn’t happen.

Gardner: Now, as a mid-market company, a smaller company, you are of course price conscious yourself. What was the spend experience when you got involved with Ariba? How did you step into the water?

Miller: We had been a supplier to Ariba for about a year and a half, and then it was suggested that we needed to be on the network.  We looked at it and started at the basic level. Within about four months, we realized that this is really a good deal. So I spent a lot of time learning more about it, and we immediately upgraded to the Premium Advantage level. It's the best investment we ever made.

Gardner: So this was sort of a crawl-walk-run approach, where you didn’t have to spend until you had the commensurate revenue to back it and make it logical?

Miller: Yes. And for us as a small company, and many of you listening may be able to identify with this, we have all these different marketing and sales-support options out there, and they are all good tools in their own right. But if you have limited time and budget, to me it was a no-brainer. This is the best way to make use of our time, get the quality of leads that we need, and make the contacts that we're looking for at a C level.

We immediately upgraded to the Premium Advantage level. It's the best investment we ever made.

Gardner: And that seems to be especially the case when an organization like yours has a significant, maybe even a majority, portion of your sales in that ad-hoc spot-buying type of engagement.

Miller: Very well summarized, Dana. That's very true. For a company like us, we would love to get ongoing contracts, but in our world and with the product and service we offer, it doesn’t come that way. So spot buying is going to be the focus of how we utilize our partnership with Ariba.

Gardner: When you live quarter to quarter and you have to roll that rock back up the hill, it’s nice to have a partner to help you.

Miller: Absolutely. I wish this had been around 20 years ago.

Gardner: Very good. We'll have to leave it there, I'm afraid. We've been talking about how the mounting need for spot buying is benefiting companies who are selling into that type of engagement.

I'd like to thank our guest for joining us. We're here with Cal Miller, Vice President of Business Development at Blue Marble Media in Atlanta. Thank you, Cal.

Miller: Thank you very much. Enjoyed it.

Gardner: And thanks to our audience for joining this special podcast coming to you from the 2013 Ariba LIVE Conference in Washington, D.C.

I'm Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, your host throughout the series of Ariba sponsored BriefingsDirect discussions. Thanks again for listening, and come back next time.

Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Download the transcript. Sponsor: Ariba, an SAP Company.

Transcript of a BriefingsDirect podcast on how spot-buying capabilities can increase leads and sales for a small company. Copyright Interarbor Solutions, LLC, 2005-2013. All rights reserved.

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Converged Cloud News From HP Discover: What It Means

Transcript of a BriefingsDirect podcast on HP's cloud initiatives and strategy announced at HP Discover 2013 in Las Vegas.

Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Download the transcript. Sponsor: HP.

Dana Gardner: Hello, and welcome to the next edition of the HP Discover Performance Podcast Series. I'm Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, your moderator for this ongoing discussion of IT innovation and how it’s making an impact on people’s lives.

Gardner

Once again, we're focusing on how IT leaders are improving their services' performance to deliver better experiences and payoffs for businesses and end users alike, and this time we're coming to you directly from the HP Discover 2013 Conference in Las Vegas. [Disclosure: HP is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

We are here the week of June 10 and we are now joined by our co-host, Chief Evangelist at HP Software, Paul Muller. Welcome, Paul.

Paul Muller: Dana, it's good to be speaking to you again.

Gardner: Well, there's no hotter topic and nothing more top of mind these days than cloud computing. Not surprisingly, HP has made that a major focus here at Discover. There's an awful lot of news going on, and we are going to try to put some context around that.

In doing so, we're joined now by two additional HP executives to explore the implications and business value from the Converged Cloud news and the strategy around cloud here at Discover.

Please join me now in welcoming Christian Verstraete, Chief Technologist for Cloud Solutions at HP. Welcome, Christian.

Christian Verstraete: Thank you, Dana.

Gardner: We're also here with Tom Norton, Vice President for Big Data Technology Services at HP. Welcome, Tom.

Tom Norton: Hello, Dana.

Gardner: Christian, let's start with you. I guess we're a little bit surprised by how fast cloud has changed the landscape in IT. It's a very disruptive force. Companies and governments clearly see benefits, but we seem to be rushing, in some ways, into something that isn’t fully understood. It seems that HP is trying to bring some clarity to this. It's focusing on openness and hybrid as two very important pillars.

Tell us a little bit about the state of the market before we get into HP’s response to it.

Two extremes

Verstraete: What's happening in the market today, is that on one end, you have startups that are rushing to the cloud very quickly, that use cloud and don't use anything else, because they don't want to spend a penny on building up an IT department.

Verstraete

On the other extreme, you have very large corporations that look at all the things that are unknown around cloud and are sticking their toe in the water.

And you have everything possible and every possible scenario in the middle. That's where things are getting interesting. You have forward-looking CIOs who are embracing clouds, and understand how cloud can help them add value to the business and, as such, are an important part of the business.

You have other CIOs who are very reluctant and that prefer to stay managing the traditional boat, if I can put it that way, in keeping and providing that support to our customers. It's a interesting market right now.

Gardner: Paul Muller, it seems a difficult task, when you're trying to bring to a very disparate market, with lots of variables, as Christian just described, services that fit. We can't have one size fits all here. What's the state of the response to such a market?

Muller: You've hit the nail on the head, Dana. The challenge that both vendors and consumers have is it isn’t one size fits all. When you find yourself in that situation, you only have two responses available to you.

Muller

If you're a one-trick pony, if you have only got one technology, one approach, then it's one size fits all. Henry Ford, one of your fellow countrymen, once said that you can have the car in any color you want, so long as it’s black.

It's a great idea in terms of simplifying what your choices are, but it doesn't help you if you're an enterprise that's struggling to deal with complexity and heterogeneity.

We believe that there are three absolutely critical priorities that anyone looking into cloud should have. The first is confidence. Confidence, because you are moving typically mission-critical services in it. Even if it's develop and test, you're counting on this to work.

The second is consistency. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by having a cheap cloud service, on one hand, and then having to retrain people in order to use that, because it's completely different from your internal systems. It's just moving costs around. So consistency is absolutely critical.

Giving users choice

The third piece we talk about all the time, choice. You should have your choice of operating system, database, and application development environment, whether it's Java or .NET, you shouldn’t have to compromise when you're looking at cloud technology. So it's those three things -- confidence, consistency, and choice.

Gardner: Tom Norton, seeing that this field is very diverse in terms of the needs and requirements, it seems like a perfect fit for lots of consulting, professional, and support services, but we don't often hear about them in conjunction with cloud. Tell us a little bit about why the market is ripe for much more emphasis on the services portion here?

Norton: As Paul just mentioned, when you think about any service that you want to deliver to the business or you want to deliver to your customers, that concept of consistency is important. As you start to take advantage of the varying services that are available through the cloud, or that you want to present to the cloud, the varying presentation formats, the varying architectures are an issue for whether you're a startup or in the enterprise.

Norton

From a consulting perspective, you need to have a strategy and understand the challenges and complexities of that hybrid type of delivery or that hybrid consumption, and establish some type of design for how that's going to be used and presented. So consulting becomes very important the more you start to consume or present cloud-based type services.

When you start thinking of that design and that whole approach from balancing across the network, to balancing the infrastructure component pieces, you need to have some kind of consistent support structure. One of the most expensive parts of this is going to be how you support those different environments, so that if you have an issue, you're not doing component-based support anymore. You need a holistic-based cloud support.

Ranging from the strategy piece and design, all the way through the support structures, it's important to get ahead of that and make it part of your planning process and part of your overall IT business plan, if you're going to take the best benefit you can get from the cloud, both from a consumption and a presentation perspective.

Having advice from seasoned experts can help you avoid some of the pitfalls of cloud adoption.

Muller: Dana, to emphasize what Tom just talked about, I was in South Africa a couple of weeks ago and we had a CIO roundtable, where we were discussing the future of IT service delivery.

This is a country that represents every spectrum, from the very poorest in the world to some of the very richest. What was fascinating was that there was a mature telecom provider there who had no interest in looking at the cloud whatsoever. We had a mid-tier bank that was actively using both types of services. And we had the leading manufacturer of packaging goods in South Africa who has moved everything to the cloud.

What all of the CIOs had in common was that they said that it's not just a technology decision that you need guidance on. It's structuring contracts and understanding how to deal with termination of service -- what happens to the intellectual property (IP) you have in the cloud. That's where having advice from seasoned experts can help you avoid some of the pitfalls of cloud adoption.

Service delivery

Verstraete: Paul, if you'll allow me to jump in here for one minute, there is one additional thing that is absolutely critical. How do I, as a CIO, organize and transform my organization, so that it becomes a service-delivery organization?

Most IT departments are still in that mood and mentality of delivering infrastructure. That's no longer what they're expected to do. They're expected to deliver services, which is very different. They need to organize themselves differently for doing that. Most CIOs don't know where to take that. Being able to work with them, make them understand what this means. How they could go after that is also critical and complements everything that you just said.

Gardner: Christian, here at Discover, we're hearing an awful lot of detail about a variety of announcements. I encourage our listeners and readers to find out more about those details by searching on HP Converged Cloud or HP Discover 2013. But let's look at a couple of these major aspects of the announcements and then delve into how they come together, perhaps forming a whole greater than the sum of the parts.

The first part, Christian, is this real emphasis on OpenStack and the Cloud OS. So give us a quick overview of where HP is going with OpenStack and Cloud OS and how that relates to some of the requirements that we've just discussed?

Verstraete: Paul spoke a minute ago about these three Cs -- confidence, consistency, and choice. In consistency, what we want to do across the different clouds that we offer -- private cloud, the managed cloud, and the public cloud -- is a capability to be able to port workloads very quickly to build some consistency around them.

It will also provide our customers with the capability to test and play with Cloud OS through a sandbox. So there's a lot of emphasis on that.

Cloud OS is all about that. It’s about building a consistent infrastructure environment or infrastructure management environment to do that. And that's where we are using OpenStack.

So what is cloud OS? Cloud OS is nothing more than HP’s internal OpenStack distribution, with a set of additional functionalities on top of it, to provide a second-to-none infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) delivery that can then be used for our private cloud, our managed cloud, and is already used for our public cloud.

That’s the first thing that we announced. We are building on top of that. It’s an evolution of what we started about a year-and-a-half ago with Converged Cloud. So we just keep moving and working around with that.

We also announced that we not only support Cloud OS in our traditional blade environment and our x86 servers, but also on the newly announced HP Moonshot servers. That combination may become interesting when we start talking about the "internet of things" and a number of other things in that particular area. It will also provide our customers with the capability to test and play with Cloud OS through a sandbox. So there's a lot of emphasis on that.

Gardner: It also seems that you are expanding your support of different virtual machines (VMs), so heterogeneity is supported. As Paul Muller pointed out, it's supporting all the various frameworks. Is there something fundamentally different about the way HP is going about this cloud support with that emphasis on openness vis-à-vis some of the other approaches?

One-trick pony

Verstraete: Many of the other players, many of our competitors, have what Paul mentioned earlier, a one-trick pony. They're either in the public space or the private space, but with one hypervisor. Where we're starting from, and that’s the essence of Converged Cloud, is to say that a company going to cloud is not one size fits all. They're going to need a combination of different types of clouds to provide, on one hand, the agility that they need and, on the other hand, the price point that they're looking for.

They'll put some stuff in their private cloud and they'll put some other stuff in the public cloud. They'll probably consume software-as-a-service (SaaS) services from others. They'll probably put some things into a managed cloud. It’s going to be a combination of those, and they're going to have to handle and live with that combination.

The question is how to make that easy and how to allow them to access all of that through one pane of glass, because you don’t want to give that complexity to the end users. That’s exactly where Cloud OS is starting to play. Cloud OS is the foundation for us to do that.

Gardner: Paul Muller, so much of the discussion nowadays about cloud seems to be about what kind of cloud you might build with perhaps not as much emphasis on what you do with it and how you would manage it after you have set it up.

So we have some announcements here, the Cloud Services for Enterprise application and the HP Mobile Enterprise’s Cloud solution. Maybe you can add some more understanding of why thinking about what you will do with your cloud is just as important as what you're going to do in terms of platform support and infrastructure types.

When I think about the cloud, I like to say, "It’s the app, stupid."

Muller: You have me on my favorite topic here. I think it was Bill Clinton who said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Is that right, Dana?

Gardner: I believe that’s what he said, yes.

Muller: In my case, when I think about the cloud, I like to say, "It’s the app, stupid." We've spent too much time thinking about cloud as an infrastructural component. It’s been an infrastructure-for-infrastructure’s-sake discussion that we've been having for the last three to five years. We were able to do that is because it was the developers who were utilizing that underlying infrastructure, instead of API.

Now, five years down the track, the emphasis has to shift away from raw IaaS to what you do with that infrastructure, and there it’s about making sure that you can deliver an application.

We have focused on ensuring that the cloud infrastructure, the workloads, the automation, the compliance tools, everything around that, are focused on optimizing the application experience. And we started a while back with our Cloud Maps originally. These were automated best practices for deployment and monitoring.

We've added capabilities now in our public and private clouds for things like SAP, Oracle, and other application workloads to make sure that -- especially if you're an enterprise -- you're not spending a bunch of time learning or relearning the mistakes and best practices of others. You can come to HP and get a cloud that is optimized for the application you're looking for.

Application transformation

Gardner: Tom Norton, while we're on the topic of applications, application transformation is the bedrock of what we're talking about. In order to take advantage of these cloud models -- in order to do it in a safe, secure, and non-disruptive way -- we need to be thinking about the big picture around application transformation.

So there is Converged Cloud Professional Services Suite and an emphasis on Application Transformation Services. Tell us a bit more about how that fits into this bigger picture of an open and inclusive cloud approach.

Norton: As Paul just mentioned, when you think of a value that businesses are trying to drive, or the service that they are trying to get, it could be based on current applications that are not functional in that type of presentation format.

For organizations truly to transform themselves as an IT organization and be able to present their service, which in many cases is an application, that app may be something presented internally to business units because the business units are getting some value, or even externally to a customer or to a customer’s application.

Those apps are designed, in many cases, in either a more mainframe-based environment or also in the distributed environment. When you start thinking of presenting it as a service, there are other considerations that need to take effect.

When you think of modernizing applications to a cloud-based presentation, there are multiple layers that have to be considered to even address the applications.

You start looking at how that application performs in terms of more virtualized and automated environments. You also think about how you can manage that application from a service perspective. How do you monitor the application? How is it metered in terms of the presentation? How is that application presented within a service portfolio or a service catalog? How do you then manage and monitor the application for service operations? The user demands an end user experience for meeting a certain service level.

When you think of modernizing applications to a cloud-based presentation, there are multiple layers that have to be considered to even address the applications. When you think about the application piece and the work that needs to be done, you also have to think about the management component pieces of it.

That’s why you'll hear of services around, say, cloud design services that will enable us to take a look at that service portfolio, look at the service catalog, and understand the application presentations and how you can ensure quality delivery and ensure that you're meeting those service levels, so that business can continue to take advantage of what that application provides to them.

So from an application perspective, you have both the cloud design piece that’s referred to that, but, at the same time, you have to address the complexities of the application.

Verstraete: Tom, allow me to add one point. You talked about the application, but the next point associated with that is, on what device am I going to consume that application? Increasingly, we're seeing bring your own device (BYOD), and it’s not just PCs, but also tablets, phones, and all of the other things.

Managing devices

We have to have the capability to manage those devices and make sure that we have the appropriate security levels and that they're compliant, so that I can run my enterprise applications on those devices without any trouble. That complements all of this.

Dana, to go back to a question that you had earlier, this is where all of these things are starting to come together. We talked about Cloud OS and the infrastructure and the environment, so that I could build on my applications. We talked about the Application Transformation Services, which allow us to put those applications on top of that. And we're talking about the other extreme, which is consuming those applications and the devices on which we are starting to consume those applications.

Regardless of whether this is in a private cloud, a managed cloud, or a public cloud, that’s where you start seeing the different parts and the different pieces coming together.

Gardner: As I listen to the announcements on the main stage, and read through some of the materials, it strikes me that HP is emphasizing the hybrid model as
the core. I've listened to Tom on how you could manage your application modernization, build in security, and go about the people, process, and technology aspects of this in someone else’s public cloud. It strikes me that a lot of this should take place in a private-cloud setting, with the opportunity to move parts, if not all, to a public cloud environment.

Christian, we'll start with you. Why is the hybrid model so important with HP strategy. nd I think they're betting that this is the way it’s going to go, that you can’t just move, after a certain point, very much to a public cloud. All these other implications need to be dealt with. It’s the private cloud continuum to a public cloud that seems to be the real issue.

The CIO had better understand the potential issues related to the security and compliance of what is happening, and start acting on it.

Verstraete: It's interesting you bring this up, Dana, because whether companies like it or not, most large enterprises today already have a hybrid model. Why? Because they have a lot of shadow IT, which is consumed outside the control of IT. It's consumed from external services, being in most of the cases public clouds. So that’s already a fact of life.

Why is that used? Because there's a feeling from the business user that the CIO can’t respond fast enough. So the CIO had better understand the potential issues related to the security and compliance of what is happening, and start acting on it.

He can't speed up his delivery of what the business is looking for by developing everything himself and taking the old fashioned approach. I choose an application. I test the application for six months. I install the application. I configure the application, and two years down the road, I deliver the application to the business users.

What becomes clear quickly to a lot of CIOs is that if they take a hard and cold look at their workloads, not all workloads are the same. Some of them are very specific to the core of what the enterprise is doing. Those should stay within their private cloud.

There are a bunch of other things that they need to deliver. Frankly, they are no different from what their competitors are doing. Do those need to be in a private cloud or could they be in another type of environment, a managed cloud or public cloud? That automatically brings you to that hybrid environment that we're talking about.

New core competency

Gardner: Paul Muller, how is hybrid perhaps the new core competency for IT, managing hybrid processes and hybrid systems and managing the continuum?

Muller: Again, Dana, you get to the core of the issue here, which is that it’s about a shift. This is a generational shift in how we think about building, buying, and integrating IT services in the service of the business or the enterprise, depending on where you work.

It’s about a couple of key shifts. It’s about the balance of power shifting from IT to the business. We have probably said this countless times over the last three decades, but the simplicity, the focus on user experience, the ease with which competitive services can be procured from outside by laypeople from an IT standpoint has created a symmetry in the relationship between business and IT that no one can afford to ignore.

The second generational shift is the speed with which people expect response to their ideas. Techniques like agile and dev-ops are changing the way we think about building and delivering services.

Finally, to your point, it used to be that you either build or you buy, you either outsourced everything or you did it all yourself. Now we live in a world where you can consistently do both. I don’t believe that the majority of IT professionals are ready for that new reality in terms of processes and people, not to mention the software stack, the infrastructure stack, on which they're building services.

This is a generational shift in how we think about building, buying, and integrating IT services in the service of the business or the enterprise.

There's a lot of work to be done. It sounds daunting. The good news is that if you take a smart approach, some of the work that Tom and our Professional Services and Technologies Services team have been working on, it helps ease that transition and avoid people repeating the mistakes of some of the early adopters that we have seen.

Verstraete: Just to illustrate and complement what you said, Paul, in Forbes Magazine in January, Joe McKendrick said that 7 out of 10 cloud applications aren't sanctioned by the IT department. Then he asked whether it's a good or a bad thing. I'm going to leave that to a different debate, but it was interesting to realize. This was the result of a study. Seven out of 10 cloud applications are not sanctioned by IT. Interesting to realize, isn’t it?

Gardner: Tom Norton, as we factor what Paul said about transitioning the organization from supporting technology to supporting the continuum of a hybrid approach, how big a change is that for an organization?

Norton: It's a significant change, when you think of how traditional support structures have been. When you look at more complex systems, and you can think of a hybrid cloud environment as being a complex cloud system itself, traditionally support structures have been component-based and they've been infrastructure-based, or application-based. So you look at a storage support solution, or you may look at a network support solution or a compute solution itself.

When you start thinking of a complex system, like a cloud model, and especially a hybrid cloud model, where you have varying delivery mechanisms and varying supporting structures, supporting that can be a very complicated issue. It's one that many organizations are unprepared to do, especially if they're going to try to approach it strategically, as opposed to being a opportunistic-type cloud environment.

Access to expertise

What IT is trying to do today and the question they keep asking is how they can view this as being that kind of ecosystem that has a singular support structure to it, where they can get access to expertise.

That's what HP is stepping up to do. With our own experience, across the spectrum, building on-premise and private, working in the managed infrastructure places, we have public cloud experience and we also have the experience of the integration across all of those.

We can supply support expertise and single points of contact for our customers, where we can help them navigate and help them with the integration support component pieces to quickly target where the breakdown may be, or where they are experiencing failures. We work with them to assist them on that type of rationalization or reconciliation for how we're going to solve that problem.

That’s where the support structures are going to. Think about converged. Traditionally, we've talked about Converged Infrastructure, but now with the Converged Cloud approach, we're implementing Converged Cloud support systems, but we can look at professional services across the spectrum. Once we get into it, we can drill into enhanced data center care around flexibility. We can target and look for what we can do with our cloud system products themselves, since those are integrated cloud solutions coming from HP.

The benefit from a services perspective for our customers is that we can help break down those isolated barriers in singular cloud services that a customer is consuming and give them a support structure that bridges all of those and truly approaches a converged support structure for managing that hybrid environment. That's what we're working towards and that's where our announcements have been all about.

We can help break down those isolated barriers in singular cloud services that a customer is consuming and give them a support structure that bridges all of those.

Gardner: As I read the marketplace as an observer and a commentator, one thing comes through. We've seen a lot of mergers. We're seeing some very high multiples paid for companies to raise the cloud. We've seen Amazon Web Services become very attractive to lots of companies, very fast-paced growth for the market, and for the movement within the market. So the issue here is speed. How do people get to go faster to the cloud?

Christian, I want to just throw one question to you quickly, OpenStack has been, in some people’s minds, a bit slow to mature. How quickly has OpenStack and Cloud OS closed the gap for being ready for more and more enterprise activities? Second, how do the announcements at Discover help companies get to the cloud advantages that they want faster?

Verstraete: I know what you say about OpenStack, but OpenStack started less than three years ago, and we have a pretty robust IaaS stack that is available today. If you start looking at the contributed and the associated programs, there are another 10 or 12 additional modules that are in the pipeline to be delivered over the next 12-18 months. OpenStack is going very fast.

Paul was mentioning software development. If you ever have an opportunity to look at how the OpenStack software is developed and how it is continuously maintained, it’s mind-boggling and is worth looking at.

Putting that aside, what we're trying to do is take OpenStack and make sure it's complete, enterprise-ready, and hardened. That is one of the contributions that we deliver to the OpenStack community -- hardening and enterprise-readying the OpenStack environment.

Set of nuggets

But we also realize that the OpenStack doesn’t deliver everything that our customers want, and that's why we complement OpenStack with a set of nuggets that we have in our organization, waiting for the next modules to come in from OpenStack.

It will happen in the future, but in the meantime, we can give our customers a complete environment through which they can operate. It's an environment that allows them to deliver their private cloud and hook their private cloud with the managed cloud, and the public cloud services that they want to start consuming.

We're trying to make their life easy to start integrating the hybrid environment with what they are doing. That's at the core of our effort, to help our customers moving to the cloud as fast as possible.

Gardner: How do the CloudSystem Starter Suite, aspects of CSA version 3.2, and the Cloud OS Sandbox also come to bear on this need for speed?

Verstraete: The Cloud OS Sandbox is helping people understand. People don't want to understand what OpenStack is all about and how they could use it within their own environment. Cloud OS is a very simple way for them to start feeling how it looks like. That's the objective of that.

The other that you were talking about is the Starter Kit. There is a number of our customers that started by using CloudSystem Matrix within the IT department to be able to provision servers faster. They've done that, they have learned about that, and they know what they can gain with that, but they also know that they would like to go further. They would like to be able to deliver cloud services directly to their end users.

I'm going to be controversial and say that nobody sane is moving to cloud rapidly for the sake of moving to cloud.

They would also like to be able to start automatically provisioning applications, configuring, and doing all of the life cycle management of those applications. You can do that with CloudSystem Matrix with some hooks and loops. But our Cloud Service Automation Tool has all the bells and whistles to do that.

We've said, "Mr. Customer, if you already have this and you want to move to the next step in your cloud journey, why don't you take one of those Starter Kits and put it on top of what you already have, so your existing investment remains absolutely valid, go to the next step, and start delivering those services to the end users?"

Gardner: We can move to Paul Muller on this issue of speed. As you talk to clients around the world and as you talk to enterprises and government agencies, are they sharing the same need for moving to cloud rapidly, or are we focusing more on the vendor supports, and that's where this haste is more apparent?

Muller: I'm going to be controversial and say that nobody sane is moving to cloud rapidly for the sake of moving to cloud. There are a tremendous number of business and public sector executives who see opportunity or a need to be filled, whether it's helping people find hospital beds, ensuring that fraud is detected early and acted upon, protecting nation states, or simply helping to generate efficient global commerce.

Impatient with speed

Every executive I meet is impatient with the speed at which they can move. They see the ability to move or to act on third-party services like cloud as a mechanism to help eliminate some of those roadblocks, both internal and external. The challenge they have is doing it without compromising their core mission or providing reliable, predictable services at a predictable cost, and cloud is a part of that solution set.

But, Dana, this is also the reason why it is a continuum. It’s not the only solution, and in certain contexts, compliance or data sovereignty is non-negotiable. In Singapore financial services, as an example, it's not even going to be a starter. So it's a question of responding to that need rapidly, and cloud is one part of that solution.

I mentioned techniques like agile and dev-ops, which also help you move more rapidly in terms of the development lifecycle, the ideation process. Christian talked about the importance of security as well. There's no point in moving fast, if all you do is wind up exposing yourself faster.

Gardner: Tom Norton, how do you weigh in on this need for speed? Is this something that we're artificially appreciating, because the IT vendor community and the traditional approach to IT is trying to change itself and therefore move. Is the market keeping pace? What's your position, particularly vis-à-vis the services component?

I think it's moving fast because it needs to move fast.

Norton: I think it's moving fast because it needs to move fast. An example was brought up earlier. Think about startups. You can go to a country like Myanmar, which is just progressing into a more capitalistic environment, and they have no infrastructure. They're working very hard to set up a telecom industry, for example, but the infrastructure isn't ready. The cost implications of implementing a carrier structure like this are enormous and they would prohibit it from moving quickly into the market.

A cloud-based environment like this provides for them the ability to get into the market in an accelerated way. In order to do that, especially in something as sensitive as a carrier environment, you have to have everything that was just talked about.

You have to have the implications of security. You have to understand that a single-vendor approach isn't going to be able to satisfy the needs they have in an emerging market like that. They have to have choice, but in order to meet governmental and user expectations, they also have to have seamless integration.

From a services perspective, what we bring to the market, and what we think people are looking for from a consulting and support organization, is to help them rapidly get there. But as Paul mentioned, you don’t want to get there fast and expose yourself to additional risk.

So it's having experience or working with an experienced vendor that has not only gone through startup organizations, new implementations, or done in place transformation, but have also helped organizations design the strategy and plan towards capturing the value from a hybrid approach to this.

People are going to provide different services that require for a rapid introduction into the market. That’s just from barebones to production, but you can think of anything. You could be in healthcare, for example, and there is so much data related to health.

Best information

Organizations now are competing on who can produce the best information based on health trends and patterns in the industry, or how can a healthcare organization provide the best service. You're going to provide better services, based on refined information from past trends and current activities.

So the faster organizations can get access to refined pieces of, and refined access to, systems and applications, the faster they're going to be able to compete in that market and position themselves better. So speed is incredibly important in this industry today, and what's happening is IT is struggling to keep up.

Services can enable IT to be relevant that way, because IT can then respond aggressively to the organizational demands of the business units, but at the same time respect their responsibilities to protect the organization from risk, to protect the organization from excessive cost.

So it's a position for future competitive advantages, but at the same time, due diligence around protecting the business. That's what services does in an aggressive deployment model that we're in today around cloud.

Services can enable IT to be relevant that way, because IT can then respond aggressively to the organizational demands of the business unit.

Gardner: I'm afraid we're about out of time. I want to remind our listeners that there is a lot of news and information about the HP Converged Cloud and other news and activities here at HP Discover that you can find online by searching for HP Converged Cloud or HP Discover 2013, even looking at the cloud news in particular and finding some context for it, particularly around the ideas of openness and choice of hybrid supports, and then of speed to some markets.

I also want to remind our listeners and readers that this is part of a series of podcasts coming to you from the HP Discover Conference. We'll also be hearing from customers and users of this technology and learn more about how they have been deploying and adopting technology for business benefits.

So with that, a quick round of last words. To you first, Christian, what in your mind is the most important change that HP has brought to the cloud landscape with this series of announcements?

Verstraete: Two things -- first, and you hit the nail earlier, the whole concept of hybrid cloud, looking at multiple ways and multiple clouds to address the needs of the business. And second, within that frame of hybrid cloud, making sure that there is consistency across the different clouds, and that's where we're using OpenStack.

Gardner: Paul Muller, what's different in your mind about what HP has been doing this week?

Muller: It is all about accelerating the introduction of applications and improving the user experience. It is not about technology for technology’s sake. The single biggest difference.

Differentiated

Gardner: And lastly, Tom, what jumps out at you as a differentiator in terms of the market in general and what HP is doing?

Norton: I think the market is looking for someone that can help with the integration component pieces of it. As the hybrid and heterogeneous deployments continue to grow and more and more services are offered that way, organizations need help consolidating that into a more integrated approach, so they have that kind of overall cloud concepts that give them the value they are looking for. So it's becoming more and more about integration.

Gardner: Well, we're going to leave it there. We've been exploring the vision and implications of the Converged Cloud news here at HP Discover and learning more about HP strategy for businesses to build, operate, and consume IT services across public, managed, and private cloud.

I think the market is looking for someone that can help with the integration component pieces of it.

So thanks to our co-host, Chief Evangelist at HP Software, Paul Muller. Thanks again, Paul.

Muller: It’s always fun catching up. Thanks, Dana.

Gardner: And thank you too to Christian Verstraete. He is the Chief Technologist for Cloud Solutions at HP. Thank you, Christian.

Verstraete: Thank you, Dana.

Gardner: And lastly, Tom Norton. He is the Vice President for Big Data Technology Services at HP. Thank you, Tom.

Norton: Thank you, Dana, it was a pleasure.

Gardner: And I would also extend a big thank you to our audience for joining this special HP Discover Performance Podcast coming to you from the HP Discover 2013 Conference in Las Vegas.

I'm Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, your host for this ongoing series of HP sponsored discussion. Thanks again for joining, and come back next time.

Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Download the transcript. Sponsor: HP

Transcript of a BriefingsDirect podcast on HP's cloud initiatives and strategy announced at HP Discover 2013 in Las Vegas. Copyright Interarbor Solutions, LLC, 2005-2013. All rights reserved.

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