This week, SiliconANGLE’s theCUBE is broadcasting live from Las Vegas at the EMC World 2014 Conference. The first guest to join co-hosts John Furrier and Dave Vellante was the Senior Vice President of EMC Global Services, Tom Roloff. They discussed the emergence and acceptance of shadow IT, the evolving role of the CIO in the Enterprise and the responsibilities expected of IT in the modern organization.

Starting off the interview, Furrier asked Roloff, a CUBE alumni, to discuss the massive disruption occurring in the industry and to offer his take on why this year’s EMC World, now in its fifth year, is different than those that preceded it.

“It’s an interesting time in IT. CIO’s and IT are seeing opportunity to finally be part of the revenue stream for the company,” Roloff began. Until only the very recent past, IT groups within organizations were seen as merely a cost center, necessary for the continued operation of the business. “The bar is being raised,” he continued. That bar refers to the expectations now being placed on IT and how they step up.

Roloff sees IT, which he regards as the steward of data, as being ultimately responsible for bringing value to both the end use customer and within the line of products produced. The future, according to Roloff, will see less focus on the technology in IT and more focus on the information.

In the five years that EMC World has been around, the role of the CIO within the organizational structure has changed significantly. As Roloff notes, “In some organizations, the CIO can now lead discussion on driving the direction of the business. They now can be at the table to talk about services that need to be created by IT.”

Gone are the days where the CIO is responsible solely for providing e-mail or ERP as a service to the organization. The CIO is able to now connect to the business and get a seat at the table through the presentation of their service catalog. “That way, the conversation goes from ‘here’s what I have,’ to ‘what does the business need?’”

The growing importance of shadow IT, public clouds

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In the keynote address this morning, presented by EMC CEO Joe Tucci, the topic of the emerging importance of public cloud and shadow IT was discussed. “Amazon is being mentioned in an EMC keynote. That’s not usual,” noted Furrier.

“I think the public cloud is raising the bar on internal IT in a very healthy way,” explained Roloff. He sees the unwillingness of some to even acknowledge public Cloud offerings is a sure sign they are setting themselves up for failure. “The hybrid Cloud future is what we want to embracek,” he explained. “I want us to be the broker of workloads going forward.”

The brokerage that Roloff alluded to has, according to Furrier, been significantly accelerated as a result of Shadow IT having come out of the closet. This led Furrier to ask if Roloff had observed a trend towards acceptance of Shadow IT by the IT community, at large.

“Shadow IT used to be the server under the business guys desk,” Roloff stated. “Now it is swiping your credit card and spinning up software and infrastructure. Some can say it’s a terrible idea and let me show why it is not going to work. But embracing it are the CIO’s that are bringing Shadow IT out of the closet.”

To watch this and every other interview broadcast live on SiliconANGLE’s theCUBE, be sure to visit the SiliconANGLE YouTube channel.

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