Cloudy With A Chance of Brain - Bringing the Cloud Down to Earth Cloudsoft

Joe Daly, Director of Community at the FinOps Foundation, joins the pod to discuss his FinOps journey, tackling cloud molehills before they become mountains and his top picks for a Scottish FinOps playlist.
This episode was recorded in late 2021 whilst Joe was in his previous role as Director of Cloud Optimization at Nationwide USA.
As an accountant by training, Joe approaches FinOps from a financial, rather than developer, background and took his first FinOps related role as Manager of Cloud Cost Optimisation at Cardinal Health back in 2016 - showing that the need for FinOps has been growing for a long time in Cloud computing terms!
“I’m not a technical engineer by training, I’m a tax accountant by training…that grew into a FinOps position pretty naturally”.
Joe understands that the benefits of cloud can be a double edged sword - its agility and its accessibility are what causes it to be a pain. Similarly, whilst conversations within businesses about the value of cloud often come down to cost reduction Joe argues that this is the wrong approach to long term value: “FinOPs should be leading you to driving value…cost control is often the entryway to FinOps but it’s not the end goal”.
Savings means ‘I can reduce your budget’ (budget line item which can be removed)Cost avoidance - avoidance of future expense Value - means different things for different people in different companies. Cloud value is a combination of performance, execution and savings but is ultimately in the eye of your customer - what do they find valuable, what improved their experience?
Finally, Joe talks about why more non-developers should join the FinOps Foundation, particularly why he would love to see more procurement professionals join the Foundation as procurement is a huge part of the public cloud: “When you’re in the public cloud every engineer has just become a procurement professional”.
Connect with Joe on LinkedIn

About the hosts

Aled Sage (VP Engineering at Cloudsoft) brings 20 years of experience developing distributed applications, mostly in the enterprise sector. Particular areas of interest include devops, automation, cloud, concurrency and distributed systems.

Connect with Aled

Alasdair Hodge (Principal Engineer and Solutions Architect at Cloudsoft) is a leading
authority in cloud, software applications and automation across all major cloud platforms, he has been engaged in the design and optimisation of cloud services in banking and finance.

Connect with Alasdair

About Cloudsoft

Cloudsoft specialise in applications, automation and the cloud. Our top-down, application-centric approach is what sets us apart and empowers our customers to tame their IT estates and drive real business value.
Our public cloud IT transformation expertise is embedded our Tempo cloud services, helping our clients to transform faster and exploit the benefits of cloud. We’re an active contributor to the Apache Brooklyn open source project, an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner with Well-Architected, Microsoft Workloads, DevOps Competencies, a FinOps Foundation Member and a FinOps Certified Service Provider.

Our flagship AMP software is a Digital Platform Conductor, enabling customers in Banking, Defence and other heavily regulated industries to cut through the complexity of their estates. and maximise value from their technology investments, drive down costs and reduce risks.

November's guest is Joe Pindar,  Founder of FreshSecurity, who aim to provider a hacker's view of you and your business.

And Joe really knows his stuff - kicking off his cyber security career at GCHQ, followed by stints at the National Crime Agency and Metropolitan Police, Joe has more insight than most into the range of threats in the cyber age.

Joe talks to us about the kinds of attacks you should really be worried about, why cybercrime is sophisticated business, how the cloud has changed how we think about IT security and where the security industry is headed.

Connect with Joe on LinkedIn

About the hosts

Aled Sage (VP Engineering at Cloudsoft) brings 20 years of experience developing distributed applications, mostly in the enterprise sector. Particular areas of interest include devops, automation, cloud, concurrency and distributed systems. Prior to joining Cloudsoft, Aled was Chief Architect at Enigmatec Corporation. He holds a PhD (Computer Science) from the University of St Andrews.

Connect with Aled

Alasdair Hodge (Principal Engineer and Solutions Architect at Cloudsoft) is a leading
authority in cloud, software applications and automation across all major cloud platforms, he has been engaged in the design and optimisation of cloud services in banking and finance and other service-based sectors such as telecoms, electronic design and supply-chain automation for over 12 years.

Connect with Alasdair

About Cloudsoft

Cloudsoft specialise in applications, automation and the cloud. Our top-down, application-centric approach is what sets us apart and empowers our customers to tame their IT estates and drive real business value.
Our public cloud IT transformation expertise is embedded our Tempo cloud services, helping our clients to transform faster and exploit the benefits of cloud. We’re an active contributor to the Apache Brooklyn open source project, an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner with Well-Architected, Microsoft Workloads, DevOps Competencies, a FinOps Foundation Member and a FinOps Certified Service Provider.

Our flagship AMP software is a Digital Platform Conductor, enabling customers in Banking, Defence and other heavily regulated industries to cut through the complexity of their estates. This maximises value from their technology investments, drives down costs and reduces risks. Cloudsoft AMP is the only product which strategically manages applications throughout their lifecycles across hybrid infrastructures, regardless of environment or location.
We're based in Edinburgh, UK, but work with clients around the world. 

Can you trade cloud like you trade coal?
This month Aled and Alasdair are joined by Dr James Mitchell, founder and CEO of Strategic Blue. Strategic Blue specialise in cloud financial operations and partner with leading cloud vendors like AWS, Microsoft and Google to bring a commodity trading approach to cloud resale. 
A scientist by training, James’ journey to cloud was an unconventional one. From a PhD in DNA Nanotechnology to commodities trading and investing in green data centers, we delve into how James developed Strategic Blue’s unique approach, how it helps them offer better prices than the vendors themselves and the options for cloud consumers to manage and optimise their costs. 
This approach to cost optimisation, coupled with FinOps Principles, helps to accelerate cloud adoption within organisations, so James has some great tips for quick wins to save on your cloud spend alongside longer term solutions for optimisation. 
We also talk about the need to educate CFOs about the value of cloud, especially in unpredictable times and how to join up Financial Operations with Cloud Operations for maximum value. 
You can listen to Strategic Blue’s own podcast, What’s New In Cloud FinOps, here.

About the hosts

Aled Sage (VP Engineering at Cloudsoft) brings 20 years of experience developing distributed applications, mostly in the enterprise sector. Particular areas of interest include devops, automation, cloud, concurrency and distributed systems. Prior to joining Cloudsoft, Aled was Chief Architect at Enigmatec Corporation. He holds a PhD (Computer Science) from the University of St Andrews.

Connect with Aled

Alasdair Hodge (Principal Engineer and Solutions Architect at Cloudsoft) is a leading
authority in cloud, software applications and automation across all major cloud platforms, he has been engaged in the design and optimisation of cloud services in banking and finance and other service-based sectors such as telecoms, electronic design and supply-chain automation for over 12 years.

Connect with Alasdair

About Cloudsoft

Cloudsoft specialise in applications, automation and the cloud. Our top-down, application-centric approach is what sets us apart and empowers our customers to tame their IT estates and drive real business value.
Our public cloud IT transformation expertise is embedded our Tempo cloud services, helping our clients to transform faster and exploit the benefits of cloud. We’re an active contributor to the Apache Brooklyn open source project, an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner with Well-Architected, Microsoft Workloads, DevOps Competencies, a FinOps Foundation Member and a FinOps Certified Service Provider.

Our flagship AMP software is a Digital Platform Conductor, enabling customers in Banking, Defence and other heavily regulated industries to cut through the complexity of their estates. This maximises value from their technology investments, drives down costs and reduces risks. Cloudsoft AMP is the only product which strategically manages applications throughout their lifecycles across hybrid infrastructures, regardless of environment or location.
We're based in Edinburgh, UK, but work with clients around the world. 

Aviation has been particularly hard-hit by the covid-19 pandemic. Restrictions on travel and customer confidence saw passenger numbers at Edinburgh Airport, Scotland's busiest airport, drop by over 90%. Airports are complex, tech-rich environments with high security needs and IT estates which cover everything from Air Traffic Control towers and boarding card scanners to get you to Security to apps where you can pay for parking, or order food to your seat in the Departure Lounge.

We caught up with Alec Hodgson, Head of Digital at Edinburgh Airport,  and Berit Jimmink, Digital Product Manager at Edinburgh Airport, about how the cloud has enabled them to respond to passenger needs and given them freedom to experiment and innovate.

We also talk about building trust between Digital teams and IT operations in high-security environments, getting business buy-in for new digital initiatives and how the team used the lockdown period to develop innovative commercial digital products for the Airport.

Connect with Alec and Berit.

About the hosts

Aled Sage (VP Engineering at Cloudsoft) brings 20 years of experience developing distributed applications, mostly in the enterprise sector. Particular areas of interest include devops, automation, cloud, concurrency and distributed systems. Prior to joining Cloudsoft, Aled was Chief Architect at Enigmatec Corporation. He holds a PhD (Computer Science) from the University of St Andrews.

Connect with Aled

Alasdair Hodge (Principal Engineer and Solutions Architect at Cloudsoft) is a leading
authority in cloud, software applications and automation across all major cloud platforms, he has been engaged in the design and optimisation of cloud services in banking and finance and other service-based sectors such as telecoms, electronic design and supply-chain automation for over 12 years.

Connect with Alasdair

About Cloudsoft

Cloudsoft specialise in applications, automation and the cloud. Our top-down, application-centric approach is what sets us apart and empowers our customers to tame their IT estates and drive real business value.
Our public cloud IT transformation expertise is embedded our Tempo cloud services, helping our clients to transform faster and exploit the benefits of cloud. We’re an active contributor to the Apache Brooklyn open source project, an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner with Well-Architected, Microsoft Workloads, DevOps Competencies, a FinOps Foundation Member and a FinOps Certified Service Provider.

Our flagship AMP software is a Digital Platform Conductor, enabling customers in Banking, Defence and other heavily regulated industries to cut through the complexity of their estates. This maximises value from their technology investments, drives down costs and reduces risks. Cloudsoft AMP is the only product which strategically manages applications throughout their lifecycles across hybrid infrastructures, regardless of environment or location.
We're based in Edinburgh, UK, but work with clients around the world. 

In this month's episode we talk to Kylie Fowler,  a leading consultant in the realm of IT and Software Asset Management, enabling companies to optimise their IT estate through best practice and maximise their investments in tech. Connect with Kylie on LinkedIn.

Joining Alasdair is Cloudsoft's Vicky Glynn, who spoke alongside Kylie at the DIGIT Cloud First conference in June 2021. We wanted to continue the conversation around Cloud's promise of simplicity and the complex, hybrid technology world most organisations actually inhabit.

Kylie, Vicky and Alasdair delve into this complex reality, and talk about how organisations can use new tactics like composability, alongside more traditional asset management strategies, to get their disparate technologies singing in harmony.


About the hosts

Alasdair Hodge (Principal Engineer and Solutions Architect at Cloudsoft) is a leading
authority in cloud, software applications and automation across all major cloud platforms, he has been engaged in the design and optimisation of cloud services in banking and finance and other service-based sectors such as telecoms, electronic design and supply-chain automation for over 12 years.

Connect with Alasdair

Vicky Glynn (Head of Strategic Growth, Cloudsoft) has spent 20 years driving success for customers with large and complex IT estates, specialising in regulated industries. She is passionate about the benefits cloud and infrastructure solutions can bring, and on delivering technology solutions and services, in a no nonsense way, that help customers grow and innovate, ensuring they remain competitive and resilient in an increasingly complex market.

Connect with Vicky
 
About Cloudsoft

Cloudsoft specialise in applications, automation and the cloud. Our top-down, application-centric approach is what sets us apart and empowers our customers to tame their IT estates and drive real business value.
Our public cloud IT transformation expertise is embedded our Tempo cloud services, helping our clients to transform faster and exploit the benefits of cloud. We’re an active contributor to the Apache Brooklyn open source project, an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner with Well-Architected, Microsoft Workloads, DevOps Competencies, a FinOps Foundation Member and a FinOps Certified Service Provider.

Our flagship AMP software is a Digital Platform Conductor, enabling customers in Banking, Defence and other heavily regulated industries to cut through the complexity of their estates. This maximises value from their technology investments, drives down costs and reduces risks. Cloudsoft AMP is the only product which strategically manages applications throughout their lifecycles across hybrid infrastructures, regardless of environment or location.
We're based in Edinburgh, UK, but work with clients around the world. 

Yan Cui (aka Twitter's The Burning Monk) is goldmine of knowledge when it comes to Serverless Architectures. But what is Serverless? And where did the inspiration for his Twitter handle come from? Aled and Alasdair spoke to him to find out...

To Yan going Serverless makes "all the sense in the world" and he has been an AWS Service Hero since 2018. With experience spanning e-commerce, streaming, gaming and social media platforms we had plenty to talk about!

What kinds of applications are suited to serverless? How do you get started? And why should you consider adopting a serverless architecture? These questions, and more, answered in this week's podcast!

Learn more about Serverless on AWS here.

Connect with Yan Cui here, read his blog here and find out more about his Production-Ready Serverless workshops here.

About the hosts

Aled Sage (VP Engineering at Cloudsoft) brings 20 years of experience developing distributed applications, mostly in the enterprise sector. Particular areas of interest include devops, automation, cloud, concurrency and distributed systems. Prior to joining Cloudsoft, Aled was Chief Architect at Enigmatec Corporation. He holds a PhD (Computer Science) from the University of St Andrews.

Connect with Aled

Alasdair Hodge (Principal Engineer and Solutions Architect at Cloudsoft) is a leading
authority in cloud, software applications and automation across all major cloud platforms, he has been engaged in the design and optimisation of cloud services in banking and finance and other service-based sectors such as telecoms, electronic design and supply-chain automation for over 12 years.

Connect with Alasdair

About Cloudsoft

Cloudsoft specialise in applications, automation and the cloud. Our top-down, application-centric approach is what sets us apart and empowers our customers to tame their IT estates and drive real business value.
Our public cloud IT transformation expertise is embedded our Tempo cloud services, helping our clients to transform faster and exploit the benefits of cloud. We’re an active contributor to the Apache Brooklyn open source project, an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner with Well-Architected, Microsoft Workloads, DevOps Competencies, a FinOps Foundation Member and a FinOps Certified Service Provider.

Our flagship AMP software is a Digital Platform Conductor, enabling customers in Banking, Defence and other heavily regulated industries to cut through the complexity of their estates. This maximises value from their technology investments, drives down costs and reduces risks. Cloudsoft AMP is the only product which strategically manages applications throughout their lifecycles across hybrid infrastructures, regardless of environment or location.
We're based in Edinburgh, UK, but work with clients around the world.