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Genius.com, VP of Engineering and Operations Shirley Foster, details the benefits of cloud computing solutions and provides advice and tips about purchasing cloud solutions. Foster gives a hit list of what to look for and what to look out for when purchasing in the cloud.
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What to Look for and What to Look out for When Purchasing in the Cloud
Shirley Foster VP of Engineering and Operations
Genius.com
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Agenda
• My role at Genius
• An overview of Genius
• Benefits from solutions in the Cloud
• What drives our purchases at Genius
• What we look for when purchasing in the Cloud
• What we try and avoid
• Genius case study
• My “hit list” for Cloud purchases
• Where you can find me
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A Bit about Me
Shirley Foster, VP of Engineering and Operations, Genius.com:
– 20+ year technology veteran
– Engineering and IT Leadership at Autodesk Buzzsaw, Sterling Software (now CA) and MailFrontier (now SonicWALL)
– Expertise in SaaS, enterprise security, email delivery and agile development
– Leads all Genius.com Engineering and Operations efforts
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Smarter Marketing Faster Sales
Sales & Marketing Instantly Identify and Connect with Their
Best Prospects in the Cloud
Email Marketing/AutomationEmail Marketing/AutomationEmail Marketing/AutomationEmail Marketing/Automation
Aligns Marketing & SalesAligns Marketing & SalesAligns Marketing & SalesAligns Marketing & Sales
Real Time Lead ManagementReal Time Lead ManagementReal Time Lead ManagementReal Time Lead Management
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100% in the Cloud100% in the Cloud
Marketing Automation LeaderMarketing Automation Leader
Low-cost Inside SalesLow-cost Inside Sales
Land/Expand Subscriptions Land/Expand Subscriptions
SMB and EnterpriseSMB and Enterprise
Instant DeployInstant Deploy
The Genius Business
ITIT
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230+ in 2008
CustomersCustomersCustomersCustomers
55,000+
UsersUsersUsersUsersPartnersPartnersPartnersPartners
50% Revenues
Building Momentum
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Benefits in the Cloud
1. Speed of deployment
2. Ease of Use
3. Scales seamlessly
4. Accessible anywhere
5. Low total cost of ownership
6. Customer success driven
7. Interoperability
8. Self-service
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When is “in the Cloud” just a lot of hot air?
“Cloud” is Hot : Beware of imposters…
• Single tenant data architectures
• Heavy customization/setup
• Partially on-premise
• Need to ‘call Support’ to add users/configure software
• Requires additional headcount to manage
“We’ve redefined ‘cloud computing’ to include everything we currently do. So it has already achieved dominance in the
industry. I can’t think of anything that isn’t cloud computing.”- Larry Ellison, Oracle
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What We Look for?
1. Solving a core business need
2. Quick return on investment
3. Low switching costs
4. Seamless updates
5. Ease of integration
6. Completeness of the product versus competition
7. Strength/viability of company
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Things to Avoid
1. Potential Security Risks
2. Performance issues
3. Complex products
– Hard to use means lower adoption
– Requires staff overhead to manage
4. Unplanned service downtime
5. High cost to scale
6. Islands: Inability to integrate with other systems
7. Required on-premise software or hardware
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Cloud Solutions at Genius.com
Engineering and Operations Sales, Marketing and Finance
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Genius Case StudyImproved Performance Monitoring
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Key Requirements
• Monitor performance of ‘realistic Customer transactions’
• Multiple transactions/types
• Seamless multi-node monitoring (domestic/international)
• Ease of setup/maintenance
• Ability to easily troubleshoot performance anomalies
• Historical trending
• Integrate to existing monitoring systems for exception management
On-Premise solution not an option
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Evaluation Process
• Companies Evaluated
• Process
– Evaluation
1. Reporting requirements
2. Transactional flexibility
3. Demos against specific scenarios (incl. monitoring and troubleshooting)
4. ~2 week hands-on evaluation
– Reference checks (both vendor-recommended and personal networks)
Selection:
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Results
• Web-based online training (3 hours)
• 5 day(s) ‘go live’
• Fully integrated to NOC
• Monitoring nodes in US and UK
• Monitoring multi-step ‘customer’ transactions, internal services and QA environment
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Results, con’d
• Integrated ‘early warning’ and troubleshooting process
– Threshold-based, detailed alerts to NOC
– Intuitive interface for troubleshooting
– Easily distinguish between provider issues and application or infrastructure issues
– Deep-dive on issues to determine likely cause(s)
– Problems can be addressed or Customer Support notified for proactive customer service
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Cloud Purchasing Hit List
Look for:1. Ease of use
2. No/limited IT involvement
3. Track record of quality
4. Self-service provisioning
5. Interoperability
6. Single-instance, multi-tenant architecture
Look OUT for:1. Complex/costly setup &
customization
2. Extended time to value
3. Security
4. Availability
5. Scale/performance
6. Single-tenant architecture
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Key Take always
• Make sure the purchase fits your long term company strategy
• Reference for track record (quality, scale, availability)
• Consider total cost of ownership
• Look at company viability
• Make sure company is “customer success” oriented
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Contact Information
Shirley Foster
VP of Engineering and Operations, Genius.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/shirleyfoster
650-645-1003
