In the 1980s and 1990s, global software company Novell's contribution to the emergence of local area network (LAN) completely altered the commercial computing landscape. The US tech company has now set its sight on the cloud and its enterprise collaboration solution -- Project Cockpit -- that will implant the social networking model in the enterprise space, changing way people interact and share information inside and outside their organisation. Kent Erickson, senior vice-president and general manager -- workgroup of Novell spoke to DNA's Praveena Sharma on how Novell is sitting on the cusp of a business transition. Excerpts:
What challenges and opportunities has cloud computing thrown up for Novell as a software company?
We have built a strong business on identity and security management software by provisioning users, providing access to accounts and providing the compliance management to customers. The natural extension would be to the cloud. Our customers want to use cloud-based services but they are nervous. The questions they are asking are -- How secure is it? Do I lose control of my data? Can I control access?
Our model (related to cloud) is to provide compliance management and provisioning of users to software as a service (SAAS) providers. However, it (our model) operates with our customers' access management and provisioning system inside their enterprise. This way, I can control and get to provision users to my customer's system. I also get to monitor the whole process with compliance reports coming back to us.
How are you securing collaboration on cloud?
We have got the identity and security capability to open enterprises to the cloud. A lot of what happens on the cloud network is about collaboration. Now, how can I secure this collaboration? Microsoft has collaboration tools. We also have collaboration tools and Google is trying to introduce some new collaboration tools.
We are working with Google on securing collaboration tools. For this, we need to help our enterprise customers to understand and use Google wave protocol securely. We are stepping in to secure wave protocol by giving users control over who gives access to it and what happens to their data. A user may not want the data to land on the Google network but he may want to use its wave protocol to communicate. Some of the data may be so sensitive that the user may want to bring it back and store it at his enterprise. Some others may be okay to reside and be stored on a cloud. We get to set that policy for users. We set their compliance and identity policy for collaboration. What we are doing is setting up a wave (communication link) with users without necessarily always going to the cloud or to Google's cloud (to secure information).
How has Novell's tool for collaboration within and between enterprises evolved over the years?
We enable people to share information. We did that with the local area network (LAN), which enabled sharing of information through local file systems. Then enterprises grew beyond the local file systems and people began sharing information through email. We have an email system -- Novell NetWare -- that's been in the market for 26 years.
These are still very valid ways for people to share information and they do so even today. But the world is changing. People now want to share information not just within the enterprise but beyond their enterprise. They want to talk to their customers directly. They want their customers to send feedback directly. People within an enterprise want to work with partners in the same way they work on the social network. They want to use those high speed interactive tools (of social network). We have seen these tools generating new kinds of formats of data and causing data to explode. Our storage requirements are doubling every year. So, being able to securely manage how people communicate across these networks is very important. So, just as we enabled people to share information with LAN at the enterprise level, we are now enabling them to share it across all networks.
How will your Project Cockpit change the way information is shared?
Cockpit is introducing a new way for people to work together. Here, instead of hosting my information and hoping that someone will get to it or attaching it in an email, we use the model used in the social network space. It's a follow-me model where I not only choose to follow someone but also choose the information I want to go after. In turn, that information follows me and I get connected. But the important thing here is to manage connectivity to social network. You may not want certain social networks to come inside the enterprise. So you need to have control that. Since, Novell has cloud and enterprise security as the new backbone, we secure anybody who comes into your collaboration space from inside your company or outside.
When do you expect your initiatives on cloud and Cockpit to take off?
Cloud security service is new. We announced it last summer in June and are just entering the market. The strategy and solution for it is being developed and by 2010, we'll be in the market.
As for Cockpit, there has been a lot of interest for it but it is not yet available in the market. It will be in the beta form in November and we intend to release it next spring. It will be introduced and delivered as cloud service as well.


