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SADA Systems taps Google Cloud solutions lead Miles Ward as CTO

When SADA Systems hired Miles Ward as CTO, his gear arrived at the Los Angeles-based cloud technology consultancy before he did.

Ward, formerly director and global lead for solutions at Google Cloud, officially joined SADA Systems on May 20. But the equipment he ordered to build an Anthos demonstration machine arrived about two weeks ago. Anthos, an application management platform that Google unveiled last month, lets organizations create applications that run unmodified across Google Cloud, third-party clouds and on-premises hardware.

“Anthos is an incredible opportunity,” Ward said, perhaps explaining his early start.

The Anthos demo box he’s creating is not a promotional stunt, Ward contended.  The machine will let SADA Systems “bring a chunk of the cloud” to customers, allowing them to deploy containers and manage services. “I could leave it at an office and it would work and Google would patch it remotely and it would load balance between the cloud and [on-premises hardware],” he noted.

Ward sees an overarching opportunity to span the gap and reduce the friction between public clouds and the enterprise data center. Technology, he said, is transitioning to the intercloud, which will “blur the line between on-premises infrastructure and cloud infrastructure.” The intercloud concept envisions a cloud of clouds, following the precedent of the internet becoming a network of networks.

The corporate generation gap

The generation gap — as applied to enterprises — also opens an opportunity for SADA Systems, according to Ward. He said it’s possible to profile companies that are 5, 15 or 100 years old in the same way assumptions can be made about Generation X and millennials.

Companies within a particular age group “generally have some consistent way they approach technology,” Ward noted. He suggested younger companies may be adept at building a technology stack, but may struggle with other aspects of running a business. On the other hand, older firms may excel when it comes to building a strong balance sheet, but struggle with digital adoption.

SADA is in a position to “take a little of the experience from the digital natives and the most sophisticated technology consumers and bring it back to the [longer-established] businesses that are the most successful business operators in the world,” Ward explained. “Some of that bridging is going to be important.”

Keeping legacy in the loop

SADA Systems also stands to help its customers bridge the gap between legacy technologies and modern cloud-based platforms, Ward noted. The company’s differentiator, he said, is not the ability to read the “shiny and easy to understand manual for new technology,” but rather the capacity to connect the new with the old.a>

The mix of cloud, on-premises gear, decades-old systems and emerging technologies make for a varied technology environment. SADA’s objective is to work with clients on their complex topologies and find ways to take advantage of Google Cloud services, Ward said.

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