Moving to the Cloud - Risk vs. Reward

Moving to the CloudRisk vs. Reward

@StevenRobert

Chief Information Officer

Billhighway.com

• ‘Quickbooks’ for Communities:– 11 Years Old– Sustained 5-Year Annualized Growth > 70%– Transact ~$5M/Per Day (>$4B cumulative)– Approaching 1M Customers!– ~10M Pageviews/Month

• Online Billing, DonationsDues/Fees Collection

• [Patent-Pending] Cash & Accounting Integration

• Membership Management

Alphabet Soup

• Cloud (Private, Public, Hybrid, Cloud 2.0)• SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, NaaS, DaaS, CaaS• 100% Web• 3-Screens• Ellison?

*Image Courtesy: Wikipedia

Defined

• Platform or “Service” accessed over a network to provide advanced, often transparent functionality for mass consumption and high-availability.

• Seasonal or as-needed utilizationis a classic use-case

• Evolutionary:ASP-> SaaS-> PaaS = Cloud.

Innovation Sources

Adoption

Tech

nolo

gy M

atur

ity

Trends

• Innovation– Local motors can take a car from concept to creation

in under 18 months. (Wired Magazine)

• Collaboration– 81% correlation between collaboration and innovation.

(Future Foundation, 2010)

• Social– By 2012, 50% of businesses will use micro-blogging (Gartner, 2010)

• Mobility– Smartphone sales to exceed desktop and notebook PCs in 2012.

(Morgan Stanley, 2010)

Challenges

• Inhibitors Restricting Your Ability to Adapt:

– $8 out of $10 spent in IT is ‘dead money’, not contributing to business change or growth (Source: Garner, 2010)

– Complex Interfaces; applications often built for business process vs. usability

– Device Centric; limited productivity, restricted dependencies, minimal collaboration.

IT Value is Dead.Long Live Business Value

• Business Outcomes Are The Real And Only Measure of IT Worth

• Shift From Alignment To Engagement

• There Are No IT Projects (Really!)

• Enter: Revenue Performance Management

• Speed To Market– Leverage 3rd Party APIs, Ecosystems and Frameworks– Continuous Improvement; Fail Fast & Cheap

• Research & Development– High Performance Computing– “Cloud-Bursting”

• Agile Business Transformation– Hybrid; Bridge Solutions to Migrate Toward Web– Less Dollars Toward Infrastructure, More to Innovation

Opportunities

• Cloud Driven By: Users & Customers– Expectations Have Changed

• Information Based Technology– Answer Business Problems First– Ability To Be More Surgical When Migrating

• Think Differently– Add Value Quickly. Shorten Feedback Loops– Change Mindset; Not A Marathon, Series Of Sprints– Time to Value

Transformation

• Billhighway Sends >1M Emails/Month

– Outbound (via SendGrid/Return Path)• Best Practices, DKIM, SPF• 96% Delivery Rate

– Inbound (via MXLogic; now McAfee) • >90% Spam (Filtered Prior To Our Network)• Inbound Protection: AV/Anti-Spam & HA

– Full Time Staff: 0

Example

• Not All Clouds Are Created Equal• Truly Disruptive!• Poor Connectivity != Cloud• Standards Not Fully Baked• GRC Still In Infancy• Consumerization of IT (Simplicity, UX)• Cloud = Modern Mainframe?

Truths

• Amazon Cloud Goes Down, Takes Every Hot Startup With It. (April, 2011)

Live by the Cloud,Die by the Cloud

• Comm-puting?– Cisco, HP, IBM

• Verizon/Terremark partnership w/SAP?

• Conservative vs. Progressive?

Magic Quadrant

• Assess Your Risk Appetite: – Maturity Levels, Security, Compliance, Performance,

Reliability– Reliquishing Control of IT Assets

• Hedge Risk w/Cloud Broker?– Service Intermediation– Aggregation– Arbitrage

Risks

• Don’t Move for Technology Sake– Identify What’s Broken– Where Is Value, Lost or Opportunity?

• Embrace Change– Consumers Are Driving Force– Reduce Friction With An Open Mind

• Present Actionable Information– Context Is Everything

Guidance

Questions?

• Twitter: @stevenRobert• Email: srobert@billhighway.com