How to Move to the Cloud Seamlessly: Q&A with Matt Maloney of Flexera

Matt Maloney, Senior Director, Technology, Agility, Strategy, Flexera, talks about the necessary first steps in cloud migration in this riveting Tech Talk Interview with Toolbox. Matt discusses why security is a significant challenge for companies using ERP platforms. Matt addresses what cloud engineers can do to improve business outcomes and how to move to the cloud seamlessly with minimal data breachOpens a new window issues.

As a software company that accelerates conversations around asset management, Flexera’s goal is to help IT leaders make more insightful purchase decisions. With a career spanning more than 20 years in technology services, Matt leads the AI and machine learning technology arm for cloud management at Flexera. In conversation with Toolbox, he tells us how companies can streamline their cloud migration processes to accelerate their digital transformationOpens a new window programs. In the wake of AI and digitization, what’s necessary is a robust framework for cloud migration and not nervousness towards cloud services, notes Matt.

Matt also answers questions on:

• What are the 3 biggest pain points for cloud engineers in cloud migration?
• What framework can be used when data breach issues crop up in the cloud?
• What are the possible solutions to leverage SaaS effectively?

Key takeaways from this Tech Talk interview on cloud migration process:

• Find out the top 3 insights on how asset management can become a business strategy
• Learn how companies can optimize their cloud spends
• Stay updated on cloud migration trends for 2020

Here’s what Matt shares on how to move to the cloud:

Matt, to set the stage, tell us about your career path so far and what your role at Flexera entails.

I joined Flexera in February. Previously, I’d been at ScienceLogic, a leader in the emerging AIOps market, where I saw first-hand the impact of cloud on modern IT service delivery. I was responsible for ScienceLogic’s AI/ML strategy, where we were applying AI/ML to drive automated insights on the huge amounts of data being generated by our monitoring platform.

My role at Flexera, as the agility strategy lead, is focused on governance and automation. The primary goal is to ensure that we are making the right investments over the next 12–36 months, with the vision of helping our customers deliver IT services faster and at a lower cost through automation and continuous governance.

What are your thumb rules for companies to accelerate their digital transformation program?

You can’t manage what you can’t measure. Specific action items include:

• Benchmark where the business is today. Avoid falling into the trap of using vanity metrics—those that are not actionable but can be made to look great.

• Define 3-year business goals for the digital transformation program and map them back to specific organizational metrics, with a set of near-term, 12-month initiatives.

• Develop a digital roadmap, designed around current gaps and tangible steps on realizing the 3-year business goals. For example, for a cloud first strategy, get out of the datacenter business; increase business agility and customer value through adoption of new technologies, processes, and knowledge.

Conduct a digital audit of people, processes and technology. Review:

• People gaps, in skillsets and resources.
• Process gaps (e.g. agile vs. waterfall, lean vs. monolithic). Do you have the right supporting processes and the right metrics?

Do a technology assessment. Consider:

• Proactive vs. reactive solutions. Technology being considered or already implemented should be assessed in terms of how proactive the solution at hand is. Can it help mitigate or avoid issues by providing proactive information or taking proactive action?

• Centralized analytics. A single pane of glass is essential for a successful digital transformation initiative. This means collecting and connecting data from all parts of the business and housing it in one place, with a unified view that can discover insights across the entire business.

• Digital native offerings (SaaS-centric) vs. legacy on-prem monolithic offerings: Where possible, adopt SaaS native solutions and retire legacy on-premise applications. This should be done on a case-by-case basis, contingent on the business requirements. The SaaS solutions in question should support bulk data import/export and a subscriber model that allows for real time consumption of SaaS application data by a centralized analytics solution.

• OPEX vs. CAPEX IT service consumption models: OPEX will increase naturally, as more services are consumed from cloud providers and subscription-based software companies. Focus on using what is needed, when it is needed. This can potentially enable more efficient spend, by mapping spend to actual usage. CAPEX costs can be significantly reduced over time by getting out of the data center business and consuming more services in the cloud. This becomes even more important as the business scales up, as the requirement for a data center expansion and overprovisioning infrastructure for future workloads goes away.

What are the 3 biggest pain points you see for cloud engineers in cloud migration? How can they streamline processes to benefit the organization from a cost and efficiency perspective?

Cloud migration is a cross-functional journey that touches on many parts of the IT organization and the broader business. Here are the top 3 pain points and ways to navigate them:

• Not knowing what applications and infrastructure you have, what state it is in, and how it has been configured. Use an appropriate agentless discovery solution that supports application and infrastructure discovery, application-to-application and infrastructure dependency mapping, capacity/utilization analysis, and software/hardware asset intelligence.

• Not knowing what to move. Identify high-impact, low-risk workloads for migration, aligned to business value. Conduct what-if analysis based on cloud compatibility (scoring workloads based on lift-shift, re-platforming, and re-architecting requirements) and cost of running in a given cloud (cloud shop and/or align with IT cloud standard).

• Not knowing how to optimize, resulting in sticker shock and reactive rightsizing after migration. Right size before moving to avoid sticker shock and ensure the results of the cloud migration meet the business requirements. Continually govern and optimize workloads once they’ve been moved to mitigate cloud sprawl and cost creep.

Learn More: How Cloud Migration Creates New Security ThreatsOpens a new window

What kind of framework can be used by organizations when data breach issues crop up in the cloud?

The following framework can be used on-prem as well as the cloud:

Notification:

• Notify all possibly affected parties of a potential data breach.

Triage & scope:

• Identify where and when the breach occurred.
• Determine size of breach, who was impacted, and what information was exfiltrated.
• Determine how the breach occurred, i.e. lack of security controls, monitoring tools, malware, bad actors, etc.
• Conduct a security assessment and identify any other potential weaknesses in security that may lead to future data breaches.

Response:

• Implement a solution to address the data breach and mitigate future data breach risks.
• Notify affected parties of the exact nature of the breach and impact, including the remediation plan and possible compensation, if necessary.
• Notify required regulatory bodies if data breach violated a regulatory compliance mandate.

Data breach gap analysis/process improvement:

• Update processes, controls, and knowledge through appropriate security training.
• Acquire any necessary technology to help mitigate/avoid future breaches (SEIM tools, threat/malware detection technology, etc.)
• Engage with a third-party security firm to perform periodic penetration tests and security control audit reviews.

SaaS usage continues to grow across companies. Do more SaaS apps mean more challenges? What are the possible solutions to leverage SaaS effectively?

SaaS adoption has created a new class of challenges:

• Shadow IT. Swipe a credit card and go: The decentralization of IT through chargeback and SaaS adoption has resulted in SaaS sprawl too many different applications that do the same thing; lack of governance and overspend due to siloed management.

• Spend management: It’s difficult to keep track of each SaaS application, understand whether it is being used, how it is being used, and who is using it

• Employee onboarding/offboarding: Onboarding can be difficult due decentralization of the SaaS application management, unlike installed software, where there is typically a centralized solution that is integrated into Active Directory or LDAP system. Offboarding is often overlooked, resulting in unused accounts, increasing the cost to the business and in some cases preventing new employees from being able to use the SaaS application due to limits on licensed seats.

• Security & data: Managing who has access to what in a given SaaS application is difficult because each SaaS application is different, with no centralized access control method across all SaaS applications. In addition, controlling where data is stored and who can download the data can be very limited, depending on the SaaS vendor and application in question.

Learn More: Google Boosts Cloud Competition with Alooma Data Migration Tool AcquisitionOpens a new window

A few methods that can help lower the cost and improve the business value of SaaS adoption include:

• Shadow IT & spend management: There are several SaaS management solutions that can discover Shadow IT spend via expense reports and financial analysis. These solutions can identify SaaS sprawl and zero in on Shadow IT by tracking spend. Alternatively, SaaS applications can also be discovered through firewall and proxy log inspection.

• Employee onboarding/offboarding: Integrate the SaaS management solution into the company ITSM solution and/or use an equivalent self-service to tie SaaS application provisioning with the HR onboarding/offboarding process.

• Security & data: Most SaaS applications support one or more SSO vendors. This allows direct control over who can access what SaaS application (aside from Shadow IT usage). The SaaS management solution should also integrate with the SSO service and support SaaS governance with respect to specific SaaS applications including access control.

What are your top 3 insights on how asset management can morph from a compliance driven process to a business strategy-based one?

• CAPEX to OPEX service consumption: Being able to track OPEX consumption is becoming more important because in a SaaS/cloud world, IT ‘assets’ are far more ephemeral and the need for near-real time management and monitoring of these ‘assets’ is critical.

• Just in time service delivery: Being able to deliver only what is needed, when it is needed at the right price point. Asset management solutions that can make recommendations in optimizing service delivery can help the business operate more efficiently and move faster. In some cases, the asset management solution can help automate onboarding/offboarding of SaaS/Cloud services.

• Business insights: Understanding what is being used, how it is being used, and where it is being used can help the business leverage its technology investments more effectively; identify areas that need improvement; and be proactive when it comes to compliance, risk, and spend management.

Public cloud continues to grow at a rapid pace. What are the four steps in which companies can optimize their cloud spends?

1. Identify underutilized instances; retire, downsize or consolidate. In some cases, it may make sense to reduce the number of hours that a given instance runs (i.e., don’t run on weekends). Also consider using containers/functions, if supported by the application.
2. Use reserved instances for long running applications that are relatively steady state in resource consumption. Use burstable instances and spot instances for variable workloads.
3. Leverage enterprise discount programs (i.e., AWS EDP). Negotiate a discount based on an annual spend with the cloud provider over a period. These are typically negotiated directly with the cloud provider.
4. Consider leveraging the Bring Your Own Software and License program (BYOSL). In some cases, using your own software license can reduce cloud costs by up to 75% with Azure Hybrid Benefit.

Learn More: IBM Gathers Tools and Tech into Cloud Migration FactoryOpens a new window

Tell us about the upcoming projects in cloud deployment at Flexera that you are excited about.

As Flexera continues to grow and acquire companies, we are always in the process of integrating or connecting solutions in the cloud. We use our own solutions to help manage SaaS and IaaS spend and to optimize and improve service delivery across the business.

Which trends are you tracking in this space as we approach 2020?

We are tracking container, serverless, and Machine Learning as a Service adoption. In addition, we are also looking at the next evolution of cloud management, as customers move from being reactive to being proactive, as they continue to mature their operational cloud management processes.

Source: RightScale 2019 State of the Cloud Report from Flexera

Neha: Thank you, Matt, for sharing your invaluable insights on how companies can move their data seamlessly to the cloud. We hope to talk to you again soon.

About Matt MaloneyOpens a new window :

Matt Maloney is a technology strategist with more than 20 years of experience in the high-tech industry and is passionate about building market-driven solutions that customers love. He has a diverse technology background from IT Asset Management, HPTC, App Virtualization, Desktops as a Service, ITOM, and AIOps to Cloud Management. More recently, Matt has been focused on AI/ML technology and web-scale data challenges faced by large enterprise businesses. He founded and funded the AI/ML team at ScienceLogic and was instrumental in the development of several market disrupting AI/ML and business service intelligence capabilities. Presently, Matt is a Senior Director of Technology Agility Strategy at Flexera, a leader in ITAM and Cloud Management.

About FlexeraOpens a new window :

From on-premises to the cloud, Flexera gives companies clarity into their technology “black hole,” helping business leaders turn insight into successful action. With a portfolio of integrated solutions that deliver unparalleled technology insights, spend optimization and agility, Flexera helps enterprises optimize their technology footprint and realize IT’s full potential to accelerate their business.

About Tech Talk:

Tech Talk is a Toolbox Interview Series with notable CTOs from around the world. Join us to share your insights and research on where technology and data are heading in the future. This interview series focuses on integrated solutions, research and best practices in the day-to-day work of the tech world.