Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Brad Cheedle, CEO of Otava (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk about trends. What has changed? The cloud computing movement is quite mature. We first started covering cloud computing back in 2007 and people were still complaining of reservations about moving data to the cloud. This included privacy issues and security issues, but this has all gone away.

Cloud has become mainstream now. Nobody does software except in a cloud mode these days. There is also the hybrid cloud area. What are you seeing by way of movement?

Brad Cheedle: COVID has had a bit of an effect on where we see the things that we are working on at the moment. That has to do with how you manage a remote or a hybrid remote workforce environment. That involves enhancing security, enabling VPNs, and putting desktop as a service to work. I think that trend will continue.

People are now evaluating how they would come back to work. We will have to address those things. The other thing that we see is that there is a demand for migration in the cloud. It is a good idea. It has got some great tailwinds and it has great projections for growth in the future, but I also think that it is creating resource challenges for those folks where it is not their core business.

We, of course, spend a lot of time vetting, hiring, seeking, and understanding different types of skill sets that are required to support these environments. Those that build tennis shoes, for example, are not going to have the resources or the access to resources.

In terms of headcount, it could be in terms of the capital to support those sort of things that may have demand in other areas. I think resources also get pulled into the applications and how those are performing. They are reporting and providing the analytics and there isn’t always time to think about the infrastructure piece of that.

There is also a heightened visibility into security. This includes the preparedness for security, the risk, and all the things that are going on relative to the ransomware and other things that could happen in the security environment. That is an area that we are ramping up.

We are putting in investments and we are trying to understand that better in how our evolutions need to take place to protect people. There have been a number of people that have jumped into the cloud. It has been robust.

They moved into the cloud and there is this concept of hybridity, but they haven’t quite figured out the best way to leverage hybridity to optimize performance, mitigate risk, and at the same time ensure that they are doing it in a budget-conscious way.

I think there is an evolution over time where we, as providers, will help people to understand what the right mix is in their particular environment that maximizes those potential things. Lastly, we are in the middle of a number of different projects, ideas, and thoughts.

We recently made a minority investment in a company that is focused on computing at the edge and ways to address those folks where it does make sense to have these things on the edge. Those are the four critical areas that we see.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Brad Cheedle, CEO of Otava
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