The Business of Infrastructure

Scott Kane
SVP, database management modeling for CA's Enterprise Systems Management Business

A circuitous route has led Scott Kane back to his '80s roots as an original founder of database and software provider Platinum Technology, which was sold to Computer Associates in 1999 for $3.5 billion. Today, Kane serves CA as senior vice president of database management modeling for CA's enterprise systems management business, a role he assumed just last year. "I had gone in a different direction, but with CA's new investment in the database/mainframe business, they asked if I would come back and run that, and I agreed." In a career spanning the technical to the operational and now to the business side, Kane has perspective on CA's overall strategy, which he discussed with DM Review editorial director Jim Ericson.

DMR: Let's start by asking you to define CA's mission today.

Scott Kane: CA is absolutely dedicated to database management, and we continue to increase our investment toward managing all of the major database platforms. We see complexity increasing and that the commitment from the database vendors is increasing. The challenges and the opportunities they face against one another are an opportunity for us, with great breadth and ability, to help manage disparate databases in an agnostic way. We spend a lot of time blocking and tackling, which for us is keeping up with the releases of various database management systems and having support to make sure that we're providing our customers with a lot of value in our products.

DMR: I would guess that the agnostic approach has positives and negatives in that you're not directly affiliated with the big product rollouts.

SK: I would agree that there are advantages and disadvantages, but by partnering with these companies, the fact that we can go across EMC or IBM storage devices is an advantage other companies won't have. What we provide the customer with is a single point of control to manage the core databases in their environment - such as Oracle, SQL Server, DB2 - on any platform. We provide those capabilities in an integrated manner that is open to other third parties, so customers will be complete, integrated and open but retain centralized control.

DMR: Yet CA competes in certain areas with some of the vendors it supports.

SK: We certainly compete in some areas, with IBM, for example, but it's really about putting the customer first. We also complement partners from a database engine standpoint by adding functionality and solution performance, which helps make DB2 that much more strategic and mission critical. On the database tool side of IBM, I would say we're not as complementary; we are as open as we can be in terms of a product set. In our Database Analyzer DB2 automation product, for example, we can support anybody's re-org utility. We take an open philosophy to the way that we support things like that. But we have taken pains to put our tool and competition issues aside to make sure that no matter what happens, we're doing the right thing for the customer. When it comes to solving problems, I can't think of a situation where we haven't worked arm in arm with IBM or others. Plus, we complement partners with their early releases because I think it's critical for an IBM to have vendors like CA run products through extensive testing, and that improves our products as well.

DMR: What specific issues or themes are customers pinging you on these days? Is it consolidation, federation, cost control?

SK: I would say all of the above along with the need to manage the additional applications they have bought that need to be integrated. CA is about managing associated complexity whether you're dealing with an in-house application, a purchased application, data warehousing or moving data across the enterprise. When you're duplicating data, you need to manage that from a performance standpoint, from a modeling standpoint, from an availability, backup and recovery standpoint. All these things are happening as the complexity of the data is growing dramatically.

DMR: There's a contradiction here in that corporations are trying to understand their assets - what they are, where they are - and at the same time they seem to be buying new applications all the time.

SK: I agree, this is a cycle I've seen throughout my career: centralize, decentralize and centralize again. Our customers also want to standardize, but at the same time they're buying additional database types. Whether it's open source or SQL Server pushing on the enterprise, there are new applications and new opportunities that have to be managed in the context of business driving the solution.

DMR: Your EITM [enterprise IT management] strategy seems pointed toward business control of outcomes. As an infrastructure product provider, are you getting the attention of business decision-makers?

SK: We're very engaged with the business at high levels, starting with CIO and COO problems when it comes to service-level objectives for those people and their customers. A good example is IT compliance and Sarbanes-Oxley. Is that more of a business discussion or is it an IT discussion? It depends on whom you are talking to. The CIO's objective is to align IT with business, and so those types of people are going to be at the table.