Stephen Orban Makes His Google Cloud Debut as VP of Migrations
Plus, news on Broadcom-VMware, JumpCloud, SADA and DigitalOcean. Find out where SMBs stand on generative AI.
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The non-compete leash is off.
Stephen Orban, who most recently ran the Amazon Web Services Marketplace, now acts as vice president of migrations at Google Cloud — a brand-new role. And he’s talking up initiatives around transferring cloud workloads to the company.
Recall that Orban worked for AWS for about eight years, then left last June for Google Cloud. All went silent on the Orban front as he ostensibly could not put on a public face due to non-compete clauses he signed with AWS. That’s changed, and Orban, who has spent the past seven-ish months behind the scenes at Google Cloud, is keen to discuss the Rapid Migration Program (RaMP).
Orban oversaw his first cloud migration a decade ago as CIO of Dow Jones. Since then, he has been key to more of the same projects. And now, he’s in charge of such initiatives exclusively at Google Cloud.
Find out more about RaMP on the next slide.
Google Cloud says it has combined “multiple” cloud migration programs under RaMP. That means the company has brought together processes, tools and technology that used to exist in silos under one program, under Orban.
RaMP aims to empower channel partners and end users to execute large-scale migrations to Google Cloud, according to the company. At the same time, Google Cloud positions RaMP as an effort that reduces migration costs. Finances often turn out to be a big hurdle for organizations seeking to transition from on-premises setups to the cloud, or even when developing a hybrid cloud environment.
With that in mind, Orban offered five best practices he has baked into RaMP as guides. Go to the next slide for those insights.
Compared to 10 years ago, Orban wrote in a May 3 blog, cloud migration best practices “are much better understood.”
Even so, he added, some organizations aren’t moving as quickly to cloud as they would like and they want “prescriptive” advice from Google Cloud.
Orban said the following five best practices address those concerns:
1. Develop a business case that shows where executives across business, IT, finance, security and operations are aligned. (Might we be so bold as to suggest also evaluating where leaders are not aligned on cloud migration, to understand potential project roadblocks sooner than later?)
2. Craft a plan for each role involved in a cloud migration so the people involved can gain skills and lessen fear, uncertainty and doubt.
3. Institute a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE). This team oversees best practices, setup and blueprints for scaling cloud usage and migration.
4. Lean on the CCoE experts to define, communicate, measure and report on goals for the cloud migration.
5. Ensure program governance by regularly reviewing progress against the set goals, as well as triaging risks, issues and challenges, Orban said.
Google Cloud RaMP is working with its first set of customers now, aided by partners including Accenture, Deloitte, SADA, Slalom, Wipro and more.
“Huge fan of Stephen Orban’s RaMP approach,” Christophe DeMoss, managing director of Seattle-based consulting firm Slalom, wrote on LinkedIn. “I love how RaMP is taking the best of what Google Cloud and its partners have to offer, through the lens of people, speed and OKRs (Objectives, Key Results).”
On the next slide, we shift gears and take a look at the latest developments around the $61 billion Broadcom-VMware deal.
Broadcom is working hard to convince European Commission antitrust regulators that its pending acquisition of VMware serves the best interest of businesses and consumers.
After months of back and forth, CEO Hock Tan last Friday met behind closed doors with authorities in Brussels.
The meeting came after regulators have continued to push back against the proposed transaction, which ranks as the second-largest deal of 2022.
Before that encounter, though, Tan earlier last week posted a blog touting how Broadcom plans to pump $2 billion per year into VMware. Half of that would fund research and development, while the other would go toward “helping to accelerate the deployment of VMware solutions through VMware and partner professional services,” Tan said.
Go to the next slide for Tan’s thoughts that appear to address regulators’ fears that Broadcom would restrict market competition for certain hardware components.
Part of the European Commission’s concerns around Broadcom buying VMware ties to market dominance. Broadcom had hoped that the presence of the Big 3 hyperscalers, among other large cloud providers, would lessen such concerns; that has not yet seemed to happen. But pouring money into R&D and bulking up professional services will help — at least per Tan.
“If companies can run VMware as a private cloud on-prem, they should be able to take their same application workloads to the public cloud without needing to re-engineer that application or worry about being locked into the public cloud providers that they choose,” he wrote. “By extending our multicloud strategy, we will invest in extending VMware’s software stack to run and manage workloads across private and public clouds, which means any enterprise can run application workloads easily, securely and seamlessly on-prem, or in any cloud platform they prefer.”
He added that Broadcom aims to achieve this goal “in a way that is cost-neutral to customers, while allowing them to choose where they want to run applications or workloads. That’s what this is all about — ensuring customer choice and flexibility in managing their data and workloads.”
The channel will be vital to those aims, Tan noted. Go to the next slide.
Part of that $2 billion per year Broadcom is promising would go into professional services led by partners.
“[W]e plan to build capabilities for enterprises to deploy private clouds through a significant investment in professional services,” Tan wrote. “This means an investment in professional services support and in external partners.”
Tan sees a future where VMware teams with more global system integrators and Broadcom accordingly doubles its investment in VMware’s professional services.
“VMware needs more partners to grow, and we will help it succeed in doing so,” Tan wrote.
He added that “the wider technology industry, as well as customers, will only stand to benefit from Broadcom unlocking VMware’s potential by helping it build on its strengths and ambitions.”
But will European regulators buy Broadcom’s assertions? That remains to be seen. The Commission has until June 21 to make a final decision regarding a Broadcom-VMware pairing. (Hence the reason Tan was in Brussels May 5.)
Zero-trust directory platform provider JumpCloud has teamed with Google Cloud on a new joint offering — one they hope will take a bite out of Microsoft Active Directory market share.
Together, the companies aim to combine Google Workspace with JumpCloud’s open directory platform. This will strengthen organizations’ security postures and the way they manage hybrid workforces, the two contend. The partnership also helps end users struggling with aging Microsoft Active Directory servers, they said.
Channel partners are integral to the effort (no surprise, given that Google Cloud wants its partners to handle the services end of deals). In fact, JumpCloud soon will announce some very familiar managed service provider names. And as end users look for alternatives to on-premises Microsoft Active Directory servers, partner expertise in Google Workspace and JumpCloud will come in handy, per the two providers.
“Closed, legacy and on-premises systems are rigid, making it nearly impossible for organizations to modernize with cloud solutions,” said Greg Keller, co-founder and chief strategy officer at JumpCloud. “Our partnership with Google Cloud gives IT teams an open, modern and affordable solution to ensure their workforces can collaborate effectively with Google Workspace and any IT resource from any location from a trusted device. This package also delivers tremendous opportunity for Google Cloud’s channel partners, empowering them with a single, competitive solution for workforce collaboration, directory services and device management.”
Kevin Ichhpurani, vice president of global partner ecosystem and channels at Google Cloud, agreed.
“Global organizations can now combine Google Workspace’s innovative communications capabilities with JumpCloud’s device management and directory services, providing IT teams with a modern collaboration solution that is flexible and can evolve with their business’ needs,” he said.
The Google Workspace-JumpCloud package combines collaboration and productivity, directory services, device management, single sign-on, multifactor authentication and more. The capabilities are available through Google Workspace resellers.
At the risk of turning this latest cloud computing news roundup into an all-Google Cloud event, we now take a look at news from SADA.
SADA, of course, is the Google Cloud-only MSP based in Los Angeles. The consultancy recently unveiled its Enterprise Transformation with Google Workspace solution. The package gives businesses the tools for overseeing global, mobile and hybrid workforces. As such, it includes Google Workspace tools as well as SADA services and technology from certain ISVs.
To that point, SADA’s Enterprise Transformation package offers data migration to Google Workspace in 90 days; a Google Workspace security assessment; and cloud adoption guidance.
“The future of a business is not dependent on employees working firmly in either a remote, hybrid or on-premises capacity, but having the flexibly to work asynchronously with their peers, which is why it is so important to have technology that is inherent and digestible for any environment,” said John Veltri, SADA’s managing director of productivity and collaboration.
Everyone’s talking about generative AI and SMBs are not immune to the phenomenon.
That’s according to a new report called “Currents,” from independent cloud provider DigitalOcean (which targets SMBs).
Among the findings is this: Sixty-one percent of SMBs expect AI usage to increase in the next year and are becoming more likely to incorporate it into daily tasks. While 70% have used ChatGPT in some capacity, its place within the SMB remains a bit of a question mark. Respondents said they are still in the early testing stages; only 9% have crafted policies about using ChatGPT.
On a different yet similar note, DigitalOcean found that SMBs continue to struggle with security issues — on a variety of IT fronts, not just cloud. Security dominated conversations at the 2023 Channel Partners Conference & Expo, pointing to widespread opportunity for channel partners to take the reins on behalf of their customers.
Everyone’s talking about generative AI and SMBs are not immune to the phenomenon.
That’s according to a new report called “Currents,” from independent cloud provider DigitalOcean (which targets SMBs).
Among the findings is this: Sixty-one percent of SMBs expect AI usage to increase in the next year and are becoming more likely to incorporate it into daily tasks. While 70% have used ChatGPT in some capacity, its place within the SMB remains a bit of a question mark. Respondents said they are still in the early testing stages; only 9% have crafted policies about using ChatGPT.
On a different yet similar note, DigitalOcean found that SMBs continue to struggle with security issues — on a variety of IT fronts, not just cloud. Security dominated conversations at the 2023 Channel Partners Conference & Expo, pointing to widespread opportunity for channel partners to take the reins on behalf of their customers.
Amid the hubbub and pace of last week’s Channel Partners Conference & Expo in Las Vegas, quite a bit happened in the cloud computing world. Maybe the biggest piece of news to emerge was Stephen Orban finally going public at Google Cloud.
Google Cloud’s Stephen Orban
Remember that Orban ran AWS Marketplace for about a year before departing for a role at the world’s third-largest cloud provider last June. He stayed under the radar until now, and he’s talking up cloud migrations — since he’s in charge of them and all. Our slideshow above looks at that development.
After that, find out what’s new regarding Broadcom’s anticipated, $61 billion purchase of VMware. CEO Hock Tan traveled to Brussels for one special purpose, which we discuss.
From there, this cloud news roundup almost looks like a Google Cloud-only affair. Stephen Orban and cloud migrations marked just the start. But two of the vendor’s partners – JumpCloud,
also a vendor, and SADA, a managed service provider – have announcements of interest to the channel.
But we offset the seemingly all-Google Cloud news with a look at a new report from DigitalOcean. Partners who serve SMBs will be particularly keen to understand their customers’ reliance on generative AI (which this Motley Fool article predicts is the key to cloud companies’ futures anyway).
See the slideshow above to get started.
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