Transcript of a BriefingsDirect podcast exploring how high-performance motorcycle maker Ducati has harnessed virtualization to aid in design and production.

1. Ducati Races Ahead with Private Cloud and a Virtualization
Rate Approaching 100 Percent
Transcript of a BriefingsDirect podcast exploring how high-performance motorcycle maker
Ducati has harnessed virtualization to aid in design and production.
Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes/iPod. Sponsor: VMware
Dana Gardner: Hi. This is Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, and you’re
listening to BriefingsDirect.
Today, we present a sponsored podcast discussion on how high-performance
motorcycle
designer and manufacturer, Ducati Motor Holding, has greatly expanded its
use of virtualization and is speeding towards increased private cloud
architectures.
With a server virtualization rate approaching 100 percent, Ducati has embraced virtualization
rapidly in just the past few years, with resulting benefits of application flexibility and reduced
capital costs. Ducati has embraced private cloud models now across both its racing and street
bike businesses. [Disclosure: VMware is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]
Here to tell us about the technical and productivity benefits of virtualization and private clouds is
Daniel Bellini, the CIO at Ducati Motor Holding in Bologna, Italy. Welcome to the show, Daniel.
Daniel Bellini: Good morning. Thank you.
Gardner: Tell me why virtualization has made sense for Ducati specifically and why now you're
moving more towards a private cloud?
Bellini: Probably most people know about Ducati and the fact that Ducati is a global player in
sports motorcycles. What some people may not know is that Ducati is not a
very big company. It's a relatively small company, selling little more than
40,000 units a year and has around 1,000 employees.
At the same time, we have all the complexities of a multinational manufacturing
company in terms of product configuration, supply chain, or distribution
network articulation. Virtualization makes it possible to match all these business
requirements with available human and economical resources.

2. Gardner: Tell me why you had to do this quickly. Some people like to gradually move into
virtualization, but you've moved in very rapidly and are at almost 98 percent. Why so fast?
Bellini: Because of the company’s structure. Ducati is a privately owned company. When I
joined the company in 2007, we had a very aggressive strategic plan that covered business,
process, and technology. Given the targets we would face in just three to four years, it was
absolutely a necessity to move quickly into virtualization to enable all the other products.
Gardner: Of course, you have many internal systems. You have design, development,
manufacturing, and supply chain, as you mentioned. So, there's great complexity, if not very
large scale. What sort of applications didn’t make sense for virtualization? Are there some things
that you haven’t moved there, and do you plan to go to virtualization for them at some point?
Legacy applications
Bellini: The only applications that didn't make sense for virtualization are legacy applications,
applications that I'm going to dismiss. Looking at the application
footprint, I don’t think there is any application that is not going into
virtualization.
Gardner: So eventually a 100 percent.
Bellini: Yes.
Gardner: And now to this notion of public cloud versus private cloud. Are you doing both or
one versus the other, and why the mix that you’ve chosen?
Bellini: Private cloud is already a reality in Ducati. Over our private cloud, we supply services to
all our commercial subsidiaries. We supply services to our assembly plant in Thailand or to our
racing team at racing venues. So private cloud is already a reality.
In terms of public cloud, honestly, I haven’t any seen any real benefit in the public cloud yet for
Ducati. My expectation from the public cloud would be to have something that has virtual
unlimited scalability, both up and downwards.
My idea is something that can provide virtually unlimited power when required and can go down
to zero immediately, when not required. This is something that hasn't happened yet. At least it’s
not something that I've received as a proposal from a partner yet.
Gardner: How about security? Are there benefits for the security and control of your intellectual
property in the private cloud that are attractive for you?

3. Bellini: Security is something that is common to all applications. I wouldn’t say that there's a
specific link between the private cloud and security, but we take always charge of the security as
part of any design we bring to production, be it in the private cloud or just for internal use.
Gardner: And because Ducati is often on the cutting edge of design and technology when it
comes to your high-performance motorcycles, specifically in the racing domain, you need to be
innovative. So with new applications and new technologies, has virtualization in a private cloud
allowed you to move more rapidly to be more agile as a business in the total sense?
Bellini: This was benefit number one. Flexibility and agility was benefit number one. What
we've done in the past years is absolutely incredible as compared to what technology was before
that. We've been able to deploy applications, solutions, services, and new architectures in an
incredibly short time. The only requirement before that was careful order and infrastructure
planning, but having done that, all the rest has been incredibly quick, compared to that previous
period.
Gardner: It’s also my understanding that you’re producing more than 40,000 motorcycles per
year and that being efficient is important for you. Given the small company, the need for
precision logistics and the supply chain is very high. How has virtualization helped you be
conservative when it comes to managing costs?
Limited investment
Bellini: Virtualization has enabled us to support the business in very complex projects and
rollouts, in delivering solution infrastructures in a very short time with very limited initial
investment, which is always one thing that we have to consider when we do something new. In a
company like Ducati, being efficient, being very careful and sensitive about cash flows, is a very
important priority.
The private cloud and virtualization especially has enabled us to support the business and to
support the growth of the company.
Gardner: Let’s look a little bit to the future, Daniel. How about applying some of these same
values and benefits to how you deliver applications to the client itself, perhaps desktop
virtualization, perhaps mobile clients in place of PCs or full fat clients. Any thoughts about
where the cloud enables you to be innovative in how you can produce better client environments
for your users?
Bellini: Client desktop virtualization and the new mobile devices are a few things that are on our
agenda. Actually, we have been already using desktop virtualization for few years, but now we’re
looking into providing services to users who are away and high in demand.

4. The second thing is mobile devices. We're seeing a lot of development and new ideas there. It's
something that we're following carefully and closely, and is something that I expect will turn out
into something real probably in the next 12-18 months in Ducati.
Gardner: Any thoughts or words of wisdom for those who are undertaking virtualization now?
If you could do this over again, is there anything that you might do differently and that you could
share for others as they approach this.
Bellini: My suggestion would be just embrace it, test it, design it wisely, and believe in
virtualization. Looking back, there is nothing that I would change with respect to what we've
done in the last few years. My last advice would be to not be scared by the initial investment,
which is something that is going to be repaid in an incredibly short time.
Gardner: One last issue. How about the management? Are you using vCloud Director or other
ways that you can manage these environments, because one of the things that happens when
there is a lot of virtualization is that it can be complex when you're dealing with heterogeneity?
How about on the management issue? Is there anything that you've done there that you would
share back to others?
Bellini: Director is probably one of the most exciting things I've seen in the last few years. I can't
disclose what I'm planning to do with Director, but it’s something that is opening very interesting
and new scenarios for IT and for a multinational company like Ducati.
Gardner: Well, very good. We’ve been talking about how high performance motorcycle
designer and manufacturer, Ducati Motor Holding, has greatly expanded its use of virtualization
and is speeding towards increased use of private cloud models.
I’d like to thank our guest. We've been here with Daniel Bellini, the CIO at Ducati. Thank you so
much, Daniel.
Bellini: Thank you.
Gardner: This is Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions. Thanks again for
listening and come back next time.
Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes/iPod. Sponsor: VMware
Transcript of a BriefingsDirect podcast exploring how high-performance motorcycle maker
Ducati has harnessed virtualization to aid in design and production. Copyright Interarbor
Solutions, LLC, 2005-2012. All rights reserved.
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