In a market guided by the breakneck pace of cloud computing innovation, business processes must be as agile as their constantly transforming software. But while companies work at building flexibility into their culture, they also must retain long-term business operations for a balance that doesn’t limit the value of new tech opportunities.

All that takes an all-hands-on-deck approach to key decision making at every level, according to Keith Townsend (pictured), a solutions architect at VMware Inc.

Townsend spoke with Stu Miniman (@stu), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the VTUG Winter Warmer event in Foxborough, Massachusetts. They discussed the tentpole industry shifts around data and multicloud, as well as how businesses can keep up. The answers were condensed for clarity.

There’s so much change in the industry. How do I keep up?

There is so much to learn that you’re a bit overwhelmed, and as I’m talking to executive CTOs, CIOs and VPs of infrastructure; they’re feeling excitement at the same time. We had the big cloud movements over a few years ago, [and] I think we’re at the hype cycle where organizations are starting to understand that cloud isn’t the destination; it’s part of a strategy. Everyone seems to be in the throes of figuring out what that means for us.

What I’ve learned the past few months is that VMware has to move at the speed of the CIO. A few years ago, a cloud strategy is that thing that could sit on the desk for a year and still be valid. But if you’re going to do a strategy, [you’ve] got to revisit that every six months. We have to now become super-agile and figure out how to keep the lights on and innovate at pace.

What are some of the big commonalities that you’re seeing as they’re actually moving to new things?

Customers cannot get enough conversation around data. What do they do with data? How did they get compute closest to data? How do they extract value and really protect data? And how do they make sure their compliant with the data is something that that’s driving a lot of innovation.

I had a conversation with a CDO, and not only does he report directly into the CIO, which is to be expected, but he meets regularly with the board of directors. It’s not just about the technology; it’s about the whole approach to this asset that we have. It’s critical to [create] a C-level position that today might be reporting to the CIO but is most definitely accountable to the board of directors.

Have we built silos in multicloud today? Is everybody pointing the business in the same direction? Give us the good and the bad.

The good is that that the umbrella of infrastructure is starting to work as a single unit. Storage, compute networking, even configuration management groups were kind of confrontational before and territorial. Those groups are starting to come under one senior manager or executive looking at how to provide services as a group and providing those services.

There’s a different view of the world, and today I think developers haven’t yet gotten the budget power of operations. But the business wants solutions, and they’re going out there competing with traditional IT to get the dollars to run the services in the cloud.

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the VTUG Winter Warmer event:

Photo: SiliconANGLE