New fangled magic cloud buckets – Kirk Ryan – Ep32

We’re all heading to the cloud, data is the new gold, all of our competition is putting its data in the cloud and getting massive competitive advantage, if we don’t know how to use our data and take advantage of the cloud we’ll be obsolete.

All phrases that you may well have heard, or variations on them at least and to some degree they are all true, there’s no escaping that cloud services are here to stay and certainly there is a huge shift in organisations of all types becoming more data centric.

But, if that is all true, why isn’t everyone charging headlong into cloud services and finding more and more valuable information from their data and making the rest of us a thing of the past?

It’s because it’s not that straightforward, cloud services can be complex, moving our data to them is difficult and even when we get it there, what new and ingenious things can we do?

Over the next few Tech Interviews episodes we are going to explore that subject and look at how we can take advantage of cloud, how we can get our data there and indeed, what innovative things can we do once we have, over these episodes we’ll look at how to choose the right cloud partners and speak with a company who have used cloud and data to come up with an ingenious way for charities to raise money.

But first, we take on the data challenge, how do we make it accessible to the cloud? how do we move it there? do we move it there? and if we do how do we keep it under control?

To help me explore that topic, I’m joined by Kirk Ryan, a Cloud Solutions Architect for storage vendor NetApp.

First we discuss why a “traditional” on-prem storage vendor like NetApp would need a cloud architect and how the “new” NetApp really have allowed themselves to be a “cloud first” company.

We also discuss the changing role of digital services in our organisations and how the IT purse strings are not always pulled by IT.

We look at the challenges that companies keen to embrace new technologies have to overcome. The importance of building bridges for our data between on-prem, cloud and hybrid platforms as well as the criticality of understanding our data’s lifecycle from creation through to its deletion.

Finally we look at the importance of not taking our on-premises bad habits with us to the cloud, as well as ensuring that we fully understand the economics of our move.

Because, after all, it isn’t a new fangled magic cloud bucket!

To find out more from Kirk you can contact him on LinkedIn.

To learn more about NetApp and their cloud data management tools then visit cloud.netapp.com or netapp.io.

Finally if you want to hear more from Kirk, you’ll find him, alongside me and some other industry colleagues discussing how to move to the cloud at the www.northwestdataforum.co.uk in Liverpool on July 5^th.

If you enjoyed the show and want to make sure you catch next weeks episode as we discuss choosing the right cloud partners, then why not subscribe in all of the usual places.

Until next time, thanks for listening.