Helping Partners Transform: The Pivotal Platform Acceleration Lab

February 15, 2017 Nick Cayou

Happy 2017, Pivotal partners! As we ring in the new year, we’re pleased to announce an ambitious new initiative to help build cloud-native application skills within PIvotal’s ecosystem of systems integrators: the Pivotal Platform Acceleration Lab (PAL). Pivotal Cloud Foundry and Spring Cloud have become the de-facto platform and application development framework for major enterprises driving digital transformation. This transformation isn’t just about building new applications. It’s often about unlocking new value from existing investments. Many legacy line of business applications are prime candidates for modernization. We’re seeing more and more companies re-write these applications to run on Pivotal Cloud Foundry as first class, cloud-native citizens. As a result, these companies decrease their technical debt while improving the software-driven experience for their customers. Win-win.

 ​Students in the first Pivotal PAL class

Students in the first Pivotal PAL class in Boulder, CO, February 2017

Pivotal strongly believes in empowering our customers to build better software. It’s with this spirit that we launched the PAL. The PAL is a dedicated facility in Boulder, CO where partner software engineers and architects are immersed in a four-week application replatforming course. The PAL curriculum was developed by Pivotal consultants and emphasizes “learning by doing.” Our instructors are Pivotal developers and practitioners from our Labs and Services organization. Realizing that new tactics are developed in our field engagements, we’ve ensured that the course features guest speakers from real projects and evolves as the art and science of re-platforming changes over time.

Rohit Kelapure teaching App Modernization

Rohit Kelapure from Pivotal teaching Application Modernization techniques at Pivotal PAL program.

Our first PAL started on January 9th and graduated February 2nd, 2017. Consultants from Accenture, Capgemini, Luxoft, Mimacom, HCL and Logimethods joining the Pivotal team to dive deep on application re-platforming and modernization. Pivotal will plan to run the course approximately every 4 weeks to meet the growing demand from our customers for these skills.   

“Teaching devs application architecture through “doing it” rather than “talking about it” has alway been a strong passion of mine since joining Pivotal in 2010. The PAL program is the culmination of lessons learned helping both startups and enterprise companies achieve product / market fit while ensuring flawless technical execution.” -- Michael Barinek, VP Pivotal and PAL leader

First Pivotal PAL Program graduates

First graduates from the Pivotal PAL Program on February 2, 2017.

“The course’s progression was well thought out and the labs continually challenged the participants. So many of the technical workshops simply skim over major concepts, our PAL instructors did not.”  -- Brad Starkenberg, Principal Solutions Architect, Luxoft/INSYS Group 

“I strongly believe this training will help us to build the right mix of people to expand the practice in HCL over the next few weeks/months.”-- Vice President, Infrastructure Services Division, HCL 

As part of its commitment to our partners, Pivotal invests heavily in the Platform Acceleration Lab. We want our partners to be successful in building out their cloud-native development practices and accelerate the software-driven transformation in our global customer base. If you’re interested in joining one of our cohorts, please visit our website or email Mike Barinek or Nick Cayou.

About the Author

Nick Cayou

Nick Cayou leads Pivotal’s Global Ecosystem and Business Development Group. This group is responsible for helping Pivotal’s ecosystem partners, build, operate and extract value from next -generation big data architectures, cloud application platforms and agile development. Nick has been with Pivotal since its inception in 2013. Prior to Pivotal, Nick led global emerging technology business development for the EMC Data Computing Division after EMC’s, acquisition of Greenplum in 2010. Nick has also built and led federal operations for 3 startup companies (2 of which were acquired). Nick has 18 years of experience in the technology industry and has held a number of roles in engineering, business development and consulting at McDATA Corp, EMC Corp, Microsoft, Cisco Systems , in addition to a number of technology start-ups. 

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