GETTING TO THE THIRD PLATFORM

0

Updated : August 3, 2014 0:0  ,
By Editor

 

Through a federated approach, EMC is laying out the road to the new era of computing which is now being increasingly referred to as the third platform of IT, a term originally referred to by IDC. Habib Mahakian, Regional General Manager, Gulf and Pakistan, EMC discusses the new areas of focus


What is the third platform about?

In the early years of the industry, we went through the Mainframe era wherein we had a few applications and thousands of users. Then we moved into the client-server era wherein we had thousands of apps and hundred of thousands of users. With the introduction of social Media, mobile computing etc, there is a lot of pressure on the current infrastructure which may not be able to accommodate the big push of data. The four trends, namely mobile, cloud computing, Big Data and social networking comprise the “third platform” of IT as IDC defines its. The third platform will be enabled to handle millions of applications and millions of users. Earlier, typically there was the structured database type of information coming in but now unstructured data is coming and you need an elastic and agile platform to address the burst of applications and users. Today even kids are users of applications thanks to the tablets and smartphones and so we need the shift to a new architecture.

Discuss what the EMC federation is all about?

The EMC federation comprises EMC II, VMware, Pivotal and RSA that collaborate towards enabling the emerging ‘3rd platform’ of mobile, cloud, big data and social. This federation is leading the industry on the road to the third platform.

This enablement will take place on different fronts. For instance, while Virtualization started out with server virtualisation, it is now heading into network, storage etc and the datacenter. VMware which is 80% owned by the EMC federation, leads the federation’s hybrid cloud and software-defined data center initiatives.  On the other hand, Pivotal which is 100 % owned by EMC, is focused on next generation application development and will focus on bringing the Third Platform to the enterprise.  EMC II (EMC Information Infrastructure) focuses on storage infrastructure that is being redefined with software defined storage. Further, we need trust about secured infrastructure, which is where RSA comes in and enables identity access management and actionable insights into security threats.

Are rollouts of such emerging third platform technologies unfolding in the region?

We have implementations already in the region. Also when you look at trends like e-governance for instance, three countries in the region, namely the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are well ahead. Pivotal will play a huge role in these three countries and enabling the smart services that Smart cities will need to be able to come up with services for the public. If you need to manage roads for instance in a smarter way, in real time, you need a platform equipped to provide the analysis and similarly to do analysis of social media, you need to have the necessary platform. The second platform of IT is not equipped to provide such realtime solutions.

How do the different entities within the federation collaborate?

VMware is within the federation but works independently. There are several coupled solutions between EMC and VMware like the hybrid cloud announcement recently. Pivotal is 100% owned by EMC but some of its solutions have also been adopted by IBM and the cloud foundry – so it is becoming the de-facto platform of the next wave of applications.

EMC II has storage, data protection, infrastructure and security with the RSA unit that is within EMC. EMC II is the biggest revenue generator within the federation and we will continue strongly by bringing out the next wave of products that will support the whole federation. For example the ViPR, a software-defined storage solution that abstracts, pools and automates the storage infrastructure are the kind of solutions that will connect the dots when it comes to developing a solution framework for the third platform.

The EMC federation supports open platforms. We don’t limit the customer to buying from one stack of solutions. So our software define storage platform supports even third party storage arrays.

What are the strong verticals for EMC in the region?

The major three industries are telcos, Banking, public sector. We are staring in some countries like Saudi and in UAE for mid-market solutions where we were not there. We are seeing good traction. The surveillance and security solutions is seeing good growth across the industry.

What is EMC’s focus on mid-market customers?

We recently announced the launch of VNXE 3200 midrange unified storage solution whose attributes are efficiency, security and agility. This meets the purpose of small and medium customers. We are working with service providers also to provide solutions to small and medium sized Businesses.

Do you see traction for Bi Data analytics deployments?

A lot of customers are realizing that they need to have Realtime analytics to be able to meet business objectives.  Regular IT solutions aren’t enough to give Business the edge in meeting customer requirements. Whether it Banks, insurance companies etc, they need to be able to offer realtime solutions. The traction is there. That is we need more data scientists today to go out and meet these customers, map their requirements and help us design those solutions.

Flight tracker apps for instance tell you in realtime how planes are moving and you don’t need to check with your airlines when the flights will arrive. A lot of applications in Business are changing to accommodate for that big shift. Customers are aware that who lead today will prevail. If you lag behind, you will be out of Business.

Discuss your partner program focus?

The Business Partner Program (BPP) which replaces the Velocity channel program empowers and supports business partners in their current market space while also providing the tools they need to succeed in the dynamic “3rd Platform” that’s characterized by mobile, cloud, big data and social. The way we had partners classified previously was on basis of products and that suited the second platform. Now with the third platform, it is based on solutions.

While each company in the EMC Federation will have their own program, a lot of solutions will be cross track solutions. Training points from pivotal for instance can be used with EMC because we want to encourage solution selling for the third platform. We intend to be more flexible to make it easier for partners. It will be effective 1st of January 2015. We announced so that partners can be ready to meet new program requirements.


Leave A Reply