Doing something bizarre, skipping an Ed Bueche session. Going to listen to Mark Arbour talk about the OnDemand offering. While not true cloud, theoretically it can deliver some of the same benefits to consumers. Will be interesting.

Notes

• Managed Service with database, storage, application servers, and all services taken care of for user
  • Captiva, Documentum plaform, Document Sciences, and xCP work on platform
  • One week from request to having system integrated into your network, including security. VPN and other security aspects on client side make it take that long
• They upgrade the environment, working with client to make sure the solutions upgrade cleanly
• Offers Disaster Recovery and High Availability
• VMWare View product must be installed on end-user network in order to manage the environment
• Virtual machine infrastructure allows isolation of systems while sharing
• In Q3, they’ll drop the entire OnDemand offering onsite for people
• Branch Office Caching Service (BOCS) is supported but BOCS must be installed in the customer environment.
• Just opened their 2nd data center
• vCube is single tenant, storage and database is shared resource
• Worked with VMWare and other EMC groups to find the best way to create this offering
• VCube is a “virtual datacenter”
• When provisioned, include multiple environments, Dev, Test, Prod
• Access is not as restricted in non-Production environments.
• OnDemand is priced as a service, based upon products, users, storage, level of availability, disaster recovery, and so forth.
• All the associated licenses including database and virus protection are included
• 60% of current tech support are environment issues. Eliminated in OnDemand
• Releasing an ROI document in next few weeks. Observed 20-25% cost savings over doing it directly
• Feedback as per Forrester survey with multiple vendors, not OnDemand survey results, this was Private cloud efforts people took on. Question: “Which of the following statements best describes your experience with ECM in the cloud?”:
  • 39% were happy across board
  • 20% had issues with Custom Code
  • 9% had migration issues (always hard)
  • Customization and OnDemand is an issue (same for any cloud apps if allowed at all). Goal is D2 and xCP which are configurable versus configuration.
    • Will consider low-risk customizations that aren’t likely to break upon upgrade.
    • Customizations can be hosted on-premise if “risky” and communicate to OnDemand via Web Services
    • Will allow client partner or services to manage risky customizations
  • Drivers for moving to OnDemand
    • Consolidation into one environment
    • Infrastructure refresh (covert capital to operating expense)
    • New Solution
    • Fix performance issues
    • Enhanced disaster recovery plan
    • Solve the lack of deep technical expertise, more prevalent in small to mid-sized organizations
  • Lots of new content around TCO, ROI, security, and other topics is coming out in a few weeks

Off to drop off my items in my room before tonight’s events.

Disclaimer

All information in this post was gathered from the presenters and presentation. It does not reflect my opinion unless clearly indicated (Italics in parenthesis). Any errors are most likely from my misunderstanding a statement or imperfectly recording the information. Updates to correct information are reflected in red, but may not be otherwise indicated.

All statements about the future of EMC products and strategy are subject to change at any time due to a large variety of factors.