There are more and more lines, boxes and notes on the glass wall, because Hischam Abul Ola is deliberating. He is working on a strategy to bring additional IT systems at Volkswagen into the cloud. Abul Ola and his team like to use the glass wall as a strategy board. Their workplace is the IT City, which Volkswagen has built north of the plant in Wolfsburg. The campus-like location, where most of Volkswagen’s IT and digitalization work in Wolfsburg is done, offers space for 1,500 employees. “There’s a great spirit here,” says Abul Ola. “We are in the process of moving many more applications into the cloud,” adds the 38-year-old. Data and programs can be operated and further developed there even faster and more securely.
The development of Volkswagen cloud architectures is in the hands of IT experts like Abul Ola. Cloud architects are the generalists in the IT departments, whose job it is to develop suitable cloud strategies and set up IT environments so that users feel at home in them. “We are developing applications and systems that are easy to operate”, Abul Ola says.
One example is the Volkswagen car configurator. It was introduced (technical term: migrated) into the cloud one and a half years ago, and this benefits customers and everyone interested in Volkswagens. That’s because, especially in the evening hours when many more people have the time to use it, more capacities can be made available to the program through the cloud so that everything continues to run smoothly. Abul Ola speaks here of elasticity.
As a cloud architect, Abul Ola works to configure the right solution for each task with a suitable technology stack. Successfully, of course. “Thanks to the cloud, infrastructure is no longer a bottleneck,” he says. The cloud is also changing the way people work, and that has its advantages. “Agile methods enable fast and efficient solutions,” he says. “We keep to them ourselves, because they allow quick adaptations to new requirements.”
“Our motto is: plan less, do more,” he explains. All this requires a lot of communication, spontaneous conversations and discussions. “We make sure that it works, that everything interlocks and everyone plays together,” says Abul Ola. And if that works out well, it will sound pretty cool in the cloud.
Volkswagen at CEBIT 20218 (June 12 to 15)
In the Future Mobility Hall (Hall 25) at Cebit, the Volkswagen Group will be holding a forum for interested members of the public and experts with exciting presentations, first-class exhibits and interesting rounds of discussions and talks. There will be a wide range of topics, from new types of digital automobile design, research with quantum computing and trial blockchain projects to applied artificial intelligence within the company and data-backed traffic optimization in major European cities. There will also be a world premiere on the trade fair stand.
Volkswagen specialists in human resources marketing and start-up cooperation will also be available in Hall 27. They will talk about the wide variety of tasks within the company, career entry and cooperation possibilities to budding IT specialists and start-ups.
Note to the editors:
Text and pictures are available at www.volkswagen-media-services.com.
An elaborate portrait of Hischam Abul Ola is available at https://www.volkswagenag.com/.
The series “IT-jobs at Volkswagen” is to be released continuously and regularly, including altogether 8 different jobs.