AWS Cloud Enterprise Strategy Blog
Author: Stephen Orban
Stephen is the GM (General Manager) of a new AWS service under development, and author of the book “Ahead in the Cloud: Best Practices for Navigating the Future of Enterprise IT” https://amzn.to/ahead-in-the-cloud Stephen spent his first three-and-a-half years with Amazon as the Global Head of Enterprise Strategy, where he oversaw AWS’s enterprise go-to-market strategy, invented and built AWS’s Migration Acceleration Program (MAP), and helped executives from hundreds of the world’s largest companies envision, develop, and mature their IT operating model using the cloud. Stephen authored Ahead in the Cloud so customers might benefit from many of the best practices Stephen observed working with customers in this role. Prior to joining AWS, Stephen was the CIO of Dow Jones, where he introduced modern software development methodologies and reduced costs while implementing a cloud-first strategy. These transformational changes accelerated product development cycles and increased productivity across all lines of business, including The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch.com, Dow Jones Newswires, and Factiva. Stephen also spent 11 years at Bloomberg LP, holding a variety of leadership positions across their equity and messaging platforms, before founding Bloomberg Sports in 2008, where he served as CTO. Stephen earned his bachelor’s degree in computer science from State University of New York College at Fredonia. https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=4575032
Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” — Peter Drucker I was recently involved in a discussion with a group of CTOs around the concept of 10x developers. This concept suggests that a rockstar developer is an order of magnitude more productive than an average developer. I’ve worked with thousands of developers in my career, and, while I agree that […]
Some Cloud Best Practices from iTMethods
“Life is a journey. When we stop, things don’t go right.” -Pope Francis My recent post “Don’t Let Traditional Managed Services Providers Hold You Back” illustrated how shifts in technology paradigms have made it hard for some traditional managed services providers to keep pace. I feel very fortunate to have had several customers and partners reach […]
Don’t Let Traditional Managed Services Providers Hold Your Cloud Strategy Back
“You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” — Andre Gide It’s hard for large organizations to keep up with the pace of technology evolution, and I’ve come to admire those who have repeatedly proven that they’re strong enough to survive. Companies like GE, Capital One, News Corp, and Netflix […]
Cloud-Native or Lift-and-Shift?
“There is always tension between the possibilities we aspire to and our wounded memories and past mistakes.” — Sean Brady I talk to a lot of executives who are debating different migration approaches for the applications in their IT portfolio. While there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, we spend a good deal of time building migration plans […]
Always Be Reinventing & The Cloud of Youth
“The only thing that is constant is change.” — Heraclitus Most executives that I talk to tell me that their journey to the cloud is more about business and cultural transformation than it is about technology adoption. To that end, I’ve been writing a series on a mental model that I call the Stages of Adoption, which […]
AIG’s DevOps Journey
I’m fortunate to have a role which allows me to learn from many large organizations that are constantly re-inventing themselves. It’s not everyday, however, that you hear about an IT-infrastructure-focused executive leading their company away from traditional infrastructure methods and toward DevOps and the cloud. Last week, I was pleasantly surprised by a private note […]
Yes, You Can Migrate Your Mainframe to the Cloud
For many large and well tenured enterprises, the mainframe is often cited as a central point of gravity that stalls or elongates a large cloud migration. Many enterprises feel that they have few people who have the domain and technology expertise to execute a mainframe migration, and those who are still working on the mainframe […]
Identify APN Partners with Expertise in Financial Services on AWS
“Dad endorsed my learning to fly so he would have a live-in pilot, one he could get in touch with at any time.” –Ross Perot Jr. Every industry is unique, and most executives that I speak to want to work with organizations that deeply understand their industry-specific needs and challenges. Financial services is no different, and […]
6 Strategies for Migrating Applications to the Cloud
“How emigration is actually lived — well, this depends on many factors: education, economic station, language, where one lands, and what support network is in place at the site of arrival.” -Daniel Alarcón This post outlines 6 different migration strategies we see customers implement to migrate applications to the cloud. These strategies build upon the 5 R’s that […]
A Process for Mass Migrations to the Cloud
“We cannot and should not stop people from migration. We have to give them a better life at home. Migration is a process not a problem.” -William Swing This post outlines a 5-phase “Migration Process” that I hope will help executives who are considering a mass migration to the cloud. You’re reading part two of a […]