S2:E5 Get Out of the Spreadsheets and Into the Cloud with James Forrester

James Forrester is Vice President Worldwide, Technical Leader of Cloud Sales at VMware. In this episode of Don’t Break the Bank, we chat with James about the whys, the hows and the future of cloud technology. This is a fantastic episode for all of you wondering what a switch to a cloud model would look like for your organization. EPISODE NOTES 3 Takeaways: When moving an application to the cloud, focus on the velocity of the move and the ability to revert rather than doing a lot of the optimization work on paper beforehand. Move and then optimize. Try to consolidate layers of redundant regulation that may have built up within an application over time. It saves customers time and money. Make sure the IT teams are seen as the heroes of the cloud transformation process because the applications they support typically produce some of the most critical business data for organizations. Key Quotes: "I'm incredibly excited that the industry has turned around to the importance of technology. We see more and more CEOs declaring themselves to be technology companies even though they're in non-technology industries. I think right now is just a fantastic time to be in tech.” - James “I think what's so compelling about where we are now is that we can really make heroes out of enterprise IT because of the cloud.” - James “When there's an excessive focus on trying to simply recreate a data center environment in the cloud - lock, stock, and barrel - that can very quickly impact the economics of moving to cloud in the first place.” - James -- Links James Forrester LinkedIn -- About the Hosts Matthew O'Neill is a husband, dad, geek and Industry Managing Director, Advanced Technology Group in the Office of the CTO at VMware. You can find Matthew on LinkedIn and Twitter. Brian Hayes is an audiophile, dad, builder of sheds, maker of mirth, world traveller and EMEA Financial Services Industry Lead at VMware. You can find Brian on LinkedIn.