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Software Licensing Expert Flexera Software Shares Cloud Migration Insights

By Tammy Wolf, TMCnet Web Editor

From promoting the “Desktop Transformation” trend to introducing several innovative solutions this year – including its FlexNet Producer Suite for cloud migration – software licensing company Flexera Software is in the perfect position to help both vendors and intelligent device manufacturers migrate their applications to the cloud and virtual environments.

Unfortunately, a lot of perplexity revolves around this trend currently sweeping across all industries and verticals as more and more IT managers attempt to understand how to effectively bring virtualization and cloud technologies into their businesses. In order to provide some guidance on cutting through this cloud clutter pervading IT environments, Flexera Software recently hosted a webinar in which the software licensing company identified, dissected and discussed some key cloud challenges and shared best practices for licensing and porting applications to both the private and public cloud.

During the one-hour webinar, CA Technologies’ (News - Alert) Andi Mann, and Jeanne Morain, director of Strategic Alliances for Flexera Software, navigated all aspects of cloud migration, touching upon the different types available in the marketplace, market trends driving cloud adoption, difficulties and solutions surrounding licensing cloud models and how companies can architect their IT environments for change, as well as the cloud’s impact on current systems. In addition, Mann and Morain dived into the “Visible Ops Private Cloud,” a three-part book series focusing on simple, step-by-step advice on how to quickly gain the best benefit from proven practices.

In Mann’s overview of today’s three basic types of cloud – infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, and software as a service – as well as the three basic environments out in the marketplace – private, hybrid and public – he reviewed how organizations can analyze various factors like unit cost, agility, desired service quality, and the footprint they want to maintain in the data center, to determine which cloud may be the best option.

“This is not an ‘either or’ decision. You need to be ready to choose which models work for you – not just one, but multiple,” Mann said. “It’s likely that any given enterprise will choose multiples of these models. That means for service providers or any software vendors, you need to be able to create the cloud and work within the clouds that enterprise customers choose.”

Mann and Morain both went on to examine new per user consumption behavior, in which the actual usage requirement is shifting from a machine-centric view to a more application-centric model, and the factors contributing to this behavior, which includes consumerization of IT. Then, shifting gears to licensing, they touched on the rise of new consumption models, which include cloud bursting, per access device and/or cloud, and even monthly subscriptions.

“For these new license models, customers are really re-looking at their contracts and agreements so that they can add or enhance these new consumption models,” Morain said as a message to vendors and ISVs. “At the end of the day, your customers still want to be compliant with what they need to do. They are just looking for solutions that are going to enable them to be compliant and they’re going to look to build that into your contracts.”

In addition to dissecting other cloud aspects like the compliance in the private to public clouds opportunity, as well as adoption trends, Flexera’s webinar focused particularly on insights directly from the “Visual Ops – Private Cloud” guidebook. According to Mann, the book’s prescriptive guidance touts four phases: cut through the cloud cutter, design services, not systems; orchestrate and optimize resources; and align and accelerate business results.

So, what advice does Flexera have for those businesses looking to move to the cloud?

“We tell customers to start with the private cloud first,” said Morain. “So, as you’re looking at your application components, if you can solve a lot of the complexities foundationally with the private cloud, then look at what does it mean to burst, what does it mean for these other avenues… What services are your applications going to plug into? What additional enhancements do your customers need to leverage those products for? What are new models that you can provide that will help them, such as burst abuse models? How can they address how applications will fit into the application catalog and be consumed?...”

Morain also suggests “really defining what the discovery requirements are both contractually and as they go to burst to these other cloud environments. Leverage this opportunity to lay the foundation for going to hybrid-based or public-based cloud environments for these customers that are using your products on-premise.”

To hear the complete webinar in full, click here for the archived version.

Tammy Wolf is a TMCnet web editor. She covers a wide range of topics, including IP communications and information technology. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Carrie Schmelkin