Demystifying the AWS OLA offering

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I'm your host Shelby Skirhawk, and our guest today is Casey Piasac, Senior Partner Solutions Architect with AWS. Casey, Welcome, Hi Shelby, Thanks for having me. Thank you well. Today we're talking about the AWS Optimization Licensing Assessment or OLA and a little bit about that.

But first, Casey, tell us about yourself and how you made your way to AWS. Yeah. So I've been with AWS for a little over two years now. I'm a Senior Partner Solutions Architect and I've spent about twenty six years in the Partner channel prior to my experience at AWS, where I actually work in the Partner Channel team, I support distributors and one of my primary partners is Ingram Micro and I spent eleven years at Citric Systems prior to my time here at AWS, and then prior to Citrix, I spent about ten years working for a partner.

So you have seen things on the other side of this. You've seen it on both sides. Really, yeah, that's for sure. During my partner days, the partner that I was working at is actually a downstream partner of Ingram Micro.

So I've got It's funny how life comes full circle where you know you're working at a partner building a practice, you know, purchasing through distribution, working with Ingram Micro, and then now now on the AWS side, I get to take that experience and you know, when I'm working making decisions with Ingram and AWS, you know, I'm able to really put my feet in the shoes of the partner. What was it like when when I was working as a partner, and what are some of the things that could have benefited when I was working there?

So it's it's definitely full circle. It is. It is. Well, that is tremendously helpful and you're able to see it.

Then, So let's start off then with kind of one oh one then, So I mean, tell us what the we've We've had several episodes about this, but for those that are kind of just tuning in, what is the AWS Optimization Licensing Assessment? Right? Yeah, So the Optimization Licensing Assessment or OLA, since we lower acronyms in tech, it's really a data driven approach that helps the customer make decisions a lot of times when customers are looking at Okay, I'm on prem today and I'm looking to move to the cloud, what does life look like there?

Is it just a lift and shift of my workloads? What does the cost look like? Are my licensing transferable? What the OLA does is help demystify all of that.

It helps them provide them the data for right sizing those workloads when they move to the cloud, helping to reduce costs in areas that makes sense, and explore flexible licensing options. And I think customers really find value in that when partners are able to leverage because it's not just you know, the partner's opinion. The partner gets the vendors backing on this is what this is what AWS believes is the right choices for you, and here are your options for moving and here's some ways that can help you actually reduce costs In.

Some cases, do you find that the fear of the unknown is really that first step and so being able to have an assessment like this where this is really quantifiable. I mean it will tell you, like you said, the status, licenses and what the actual cost could be all of those factors. I mean, that's pretty reassuring for a partner, right. Yeah, especially if it's your first time moving moving some workloads into the cloud.

Having that data of being able to, you know, really look at things not just a not just a marketing slick or a PowerPoint slide going hey, move, move your workloads here, but an actual here's what your costs will will typically look like. And and not only that of looking at way when you move to the cloud, you have a different set of tools that you have available to you that can help, you know, modernize those workloads, reduce some of that power behind them, and then look at licensing in ways that you might not have been able to do before.

You know, with AWS, we have over two hundred services available for our customers today and you get to take advantage of all those when you when you move to AWS. So looking at things differently than just my on prem vironment, maybe I'm leveraging virtualization today. You have a whole different set of tools that allow you to modernize those workloads and also take advantage of newer services that you can't on prem Like how do I position myself for artificial intelligence and gen AI?

Right? Like? Where do I go with that today? And how do I get my data in a place where I can leverage those sets of tools to help create those solutions that provide business agility to you to my business.

Yeah, well, I want to talk about you know who this is for, but focusing in on the OLA itself, the licensing part of it. I mean it's in the name. How important is or I guess how misunderstood is the importance of licensing when you're looking to go from on prem to the cloud and understanding what is required to get there. Yeah, I think that is just as important to me as the workloads itself.

I think it's a it's kind of a two two parter conversation. It's you know, you're you're looking at those existing workloads, what does that take to move that you know, compute storage, you know, power the same applications and data that you had running on prem in the cloud, And how can I do that in a more efficient way? And then there's the licensing component, like you mentioned, where are there ways that I can optimize today? You know?

Now now I can have certain you know, services and potential options that I might not have been able to utilize before. And the licensing components you know, could help you reduce costs quite significantly. So I think that's a two prong approach where you have to look at your your hardware spend if you were will right, your your compute, your storage, your you know, how many servers do I need in my data center to keep this running? What's my refresh cycles look like today for my data center?

And then how can that how can I optim and modernize those workloads in the cloud to slim those down to make them more efficient? And then what services can I use to help, you know, reduce some of my licensing spend? And that's a huge part of it, right, because you want to you want to look at all of that in the assessment phase and not just you know, your your server licensing, your database licensing, but also if you're a virtualization customer today right using products like VMware, what does that look like?

How is your contracts currently set up and you know, during that phase will help you look at all that and and that's a great tool for partners because it allows them to be able to not just come with you know, their unique perspective and migration capabilities. But but you have vendor data now that you can you can leverage, which is which is very helpful during the early sales stages, right. I mean it's data directly from I guess prior migrations. It's it's not just like you said the sales deck about what's possible in theory, it's really the nuts and bolts of it.

That's right. That's right. Well, so who then is this for? I mean one, you know, obviously moving from on prem to the cloud or a hybrid environment is you know, that's a conversation in and of itself, but specifically for utilizing the o l A.

Is it for the big guys, is the partners that have multiple, multiple you know, customers that are making this shift or is it for more more smaller business. Yeah, we typically you know, see a lot of heavy usage in the in the SMB space. We usually like to. See you know a minimum of around twenty five servers to start with.

But you know, I think the tooling around you know, the OLA can can help almost any customer in any situation. And the OLA itself, I guess talk about why Ingram Micro then, I mean OLA is an AWS product that's I assume available for any any customer, not just with Ingram Micro. Is that right. I'm glad you asked that question.

I've been waiting for that one. Shehlp me. So why I think Ingram provides an amazing service around the OLA. The OLA is a menu.

Option in their cloud readiness assessment, and what that vehicle entails allows them to help meet partners wherever they're at with their capabilities and helping customers solve business problems. And whether that's leveraging the OLA, whether that's looking at other programs that might be a value to the partner and customer, like map assess or which is our migration accelerator program, you know, the varying degrees of complexities that might be around migrating that workload, and not even just programmatically like the OLA, but also looking at things like the partners still livery capabilities.

Maybe there's a certain. Piece of this that partner might not have experience it and can lean on Ingram for services. And one of the things that I love working with Ingram today is Ingram has invested heavily into professional services globally and one of the things we said in motion this year with our strategic Collaboration agreement is helping to really bolster those numbers and capabilities in all regions of the world. And that's where I think Ingram can really help a partner.

So if you look at something like the OLA, you know, statistically ALLLA, since it's a data driven component of an assessment and gives customers, you know, real insight into what things are going to look like, take demystify some of the questions or fear that they might have, or things that they heard and maybe that's not the case, or or things they didn't consider and now we're talking about those and have the on the table. Typically we see you know, about a fifty percent conversion rate right from an assessment to a migration leveraging aws's OLA.

But the way Ingram leverages the OLA with their Cloud Readiness assessment, we see those numbers bump into the seventy percentile. And that's that's really awesome. I mean, that's that you almost have a twenty percent higher success rate just by leveraging Ingram, and it's because they're looking at all those things they're they're taking a consultative approach when working with a partner. That's like when I was working at a partner and I was, you know, leveraging Ingram and distribution.

You know, it was more transactional in those days. I'm buying products, I'm looking for discounts, I'm using distribution as a purchasing mechanism. But today the way Ingram Micro has really invested in their professional services and consultative approach to business, it's like having a true partner on your side to help you enhance and accelerate your business. So if you're going through those assessments and there's pieces of those that you might not have experience with, or even you're tapped out, you've got so much business and you know you can't take this on this project on right away, you can lean on Ingram to help you pull those across across the line.

Ingram doesn't work directly with customers, so there's no fear of Ingram stepping in or anything like that. They work on behalf of the partner, so it's a great offering that Ingram has that that OLA is just just a piece of So all these all these different components like VMware assessments, storage assessments, database assessments, these are all line items in the cloud readiness assessment, if you will. That's a lot and I think that's you said a fifty percent conversion rate.

That's impressive, it is, and that just that just kind of it shows the power of you know, the data that the customer can look at and say, Okay, well I didn't you know what, this makes more sense to me now or you know, I thought it was like this, but it's really like that, And I think that's helpful in itself. But when you see that number uptick by over twenty percent when you're using a partner like Ingram, that's a testament to the value that they're bringing to the table when you work with them.

So partners that are already looking they're already working with Ingram Micro and they're looking at this. I guess if maybe you would want to drive the point home for that partner listening right now, why do you need this? Why should you be looking at this AWS journey and a OLA? Yeah, So the OLA is really going to help give you the data to make the decisions when working with customers around their licensing and their application and data workloads today and helps you paint that picture of what it could look like.

And more importantly, partnering with Ingram during that phase and leveraging their skills and consultative approach around the US assessment will help you look at all those other places of your business when delivering to your customer to maybe bring new ideas to the table. Have you considered this service, have you considered migrating to you know this this database infrastructure, or even leveraging professional services in a way to accelerate your business as well and offer services that you might not be today.

That's the key to and even beyond the assessment journey as a partner, when you're working with your customers, leaning on Ingram to develop your own practice with AWS, leveraging other areas of their business focus like accelerated development, where Ingram helps partners again, you know, demystify the partner journey with AWS and help you achieve competencies and partner tiers that you know you aren't able to get to today quickly and really help you put a plan it's like almost like a financial advisor help you.

You know, let's figure all this out, see where you want to get to, what are your plans, and let's accelerate how you can get there as fast as possible. That's some great programs that AWUS has with Ingram as well as Marketplace and Hyperscaler Marketplace, getting your listings out for everyone to see on those public marketplaces and you know through Ingram Advantage. Those are awesome programs and if you get in contact with your Ingram Cloud advisor, they can help connect you with the right people and programs to get your business moving in the right direction.

Let's look a little future future thinking, future looking and look at the I guess the why as a big picture, I guess where do partners need to grow into. I mean you mentioned at the at the top of the episode Ai and jen Ai. What's the big picture hit there? You know, why do they need this and to be able to have this capability and this agility really to take their business forward.

Yeah, that's a great question, Shelby. So when we look at you know, customer business value of migraines of the cloud and more specifically migrating to aws we see a lot of different categories and improvements that that you get moving to the cloud. There is cost savings that you can incur from hardware spend. There's you know, productivity gains, operational resilience, business agility, security improvements.

That are all you know, inherent values of migrating to AWS and the cloud. But the one I like to specifically focus in on is I think the business agility. When we look at the evolution of compute and data today, we've gone through a lot of different you know changes in from mainframes to distributed computing with physical machines, to virtualization, to containers and server lists, and now we're in the ai H right where now we have all this disparate data everywhere. How do I access that data?

How do I make my business more efficient and leverage and get that information into the right hands. I mean, if you think about where all those data sources are today from you know, chat sessions within folks or document management repositories, or you know all these different places databases from applications. You have all this data everywhere, so that that we're in the data age now, and when you move your applications to the cloud, it allows you access to services where you can create this this culture of innovation where you can you know, reimagine some of that the workloads that you have, take advantage of you know, micro services, and also access that data in new ways that not only can enhance how you know, your your corporate employees access and interact with each other, but also your customers.

How do your customers get information from you today? And how can you create new new ways to provide self servicing mechanisms to resolve issues faster and get to that data quicker. And that's where I think the you know, the real crux of jen AI is today, and that's that's really about how can how can businesses access that data in a more efficient manner than they than they have in the past. And you hit it.

I mean, with the amount of disparate information out there, we are in the data age, and so you need to be able to have that to connect the dots. Really, that's right, that's right. And a lot of businesses today, their executives, their board members are looking to their you know it practice and business unit owners going what's your AI plans for this year? Right?

And this is. Engaging you know Ingram's cloud advisor team and helping partners get to a place where where they get comfortable and familiar with all of these services and help and help customers figure out what they're what their AI plans should be, What what should the future look like? How can we reimagine these workloads that you're running today in a way that props you up for stronger business agility, right and maximize the cloud benefits? What what I think what sometimes you know folks look at is it's it's almost like you know storage, I can take my things from over here and I can move it over there.

Right, So this it's not just about lift and shift migrations anymore, or take these workloads exactly the. Way they are and move them into the cloud. It's really looking at those workloads and how can we do better today? How can we drive that business agility by.

By modernizing those workloads? And that that's that's where the spirit of every partner should be today, trying to help their you know, partner alongside their customers and help them really evolve their businesses and ways they haven't been before. Right. Right.

Well, for listeners who have any questions, maybe they have something specific they want to ask you about or you know, just kind of start this journey. How can they reach out? Sure? Sure, so first I would tell them, you know, reach out to your Ingram Cloud advisor.

I know, We're going to put a link in the chat too. If you're not already any Ingram partner today or you don't have an assigned Ingram Cloud advisor, you access that form in the link and Ingram will get We'll get back to you and get your point in the right direction. Excellent Caseie. I appreciate your time and your insight today.

Thank you so much for joining me. Yeah, thanks Shelby, Thanks for having me. This was fun. Yeah, and thank thank you listeners for tuning in subscribing to B to B Tech Talk with Ingram Micro.

If you haven't subscribed, be sure to do so and don't forget. You can find all of these episodes on the Ingram Micro Exvantage platform. Until next time, I'm Shelby Scarehawk. You've been listening to B to B Tech Talk by Ingram Micro.

This episode was sponsored by Ingram Micro Exvantage. B to B Tech Talk is a joint production between Sweetfish Media and Ingram Micro.