AppFirst recently sat down with Eli Almog, a thought leader in the application performance management space. Eli formerly served in the office of the CTO at BMC. In our discussion, he goes over how to prepare to migrate to the cloud, and what to do once you’re there.

1.
http://www.appfirst.com/cloud-­‐channel
What can the
cloud do for me?
An interview with Eli Almog,
formerly in the office of the CTO at BMC.
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2. http://www.appfirst.com/cloud-­‐channel
Executive Summary
• What exactly is the cloud and what are the benefits of cloud computing?
• How do I know which cloud environment to move to?
• What do I need to do before moving to the cloud?
• Once my application is moved to the cloud, what do I do next?
• Conclusion
About
AppFirst is the leading SaaS-based application problem resolution
service designed to provide mid-market application architects and DevOps
complete visibility into their applications across the entire application stack.
AppFirst is an agnostic solution, supporting a wide range of applications,
regardless of language, application type or location (cloud, physical or virtual
servers) and incorporates its patent-pending Miss Nothing Data capability. This
unique feature is designed to provide clear insight into executing applications
and quickly correlate with other data sources, allowing a proactive approach
where IT professionals can see changes before they become problems, reduce
customer churn, and drive down the cost of operations.
Founded in 2009, AppFirst is a New York City-based company backed by top-
tier venture capital investors, including Javelin Venture Partners, FirstMark
Capital and First Round Capital. For more information, visit www.appfirst.com.
Follow us on Twitter @appfirst, or subscribe to the AppFirst blog to stay up-to-
date on the latest AppFirst news.
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Page 2

3. http://www.appfirst.com/cloud-­‐channel
AppFirst
recently
sat
down
with
Eli
Almog,
a
thought
leader
in
the
application
performance
management
space.
Eli
formerly
served
in
the
office
of
the
CTO
at
BMC.
In
our
discussion,
he
goes
over
how
to
prepare
to
migrate
to
the
cloud,
and
what
to
do
once
you’re
there.
What
e xactly
i s
t he
c loud
a nd
w hat
a re
t he
benefits
o f
c loud
c omputing?
The
most
basic
thing
you
need
to
mechanism
where
one
can
allocate
define
when
you
talk
about
the
resources
quickly.
The
goal
behind
“cloud”
is
what
the
cloud
really
is.
that
is
to
get
better
overall
Generally,
when
people
hear
the
utilization
from
the
compute
power.
word
“cloud”
they
think
it
means
In
today’s
organizations,
a
typical
hosting
their
application
outside
physical
environment
utilizes
about
their
firewall.
And
some
15%
CPU.
Cloud
computing
and
organizations
aren’t
ready
for
that.
virtualization
gives
you
the
ability
to
You
don’t
want
to
use
umbrella
create
a
“mini-­‐container”
in
the
form
terminology
because
you
lose
the
of
virtual
machines
that
can
fit
on
a
attention
of
a
big
part
of
the
shared
device(s),
giving
you
much
community
that’s
not
ready
to
host
better
utilization
from
physical
their
application
outside
of
their
hardware
(around
50-­‐70%
CPU
firewall.
You
really
need
to
look
at
it
utilization).
This
number
will
through
the
eyes
of
virtualization:
fluctuate,
but
it
depends
on
the
private
cloud
(on-­‐premises,
behind
organization
and
how
aggressive
your
firewall),
public
cloud
they
want
to
be
in
the
cloud.
This
(computing
resources
shared
among
means,
for
the
very
first
time,
you
multiple
customers)
or
a
hybrid
can
really
get
the
most
out
of
your
solution.
infrastructure.
And
in
terms
of
a
public
cloud,
having
dynamic
access
At
a
very
high
level,
the
cloud
is
to
resources
is
very
compelling.
leveraging
automation
and
In
addition
to
optimizing
CPU
virtualization
by
providing
a
utilization,
another
major
benefit
of
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4. http://www.appfirst.com/cloud-­‐channel
moving
to
a
cloud
environment
is
provider
is
giving
you).
The
whole
that
you
pay
as
you
use.
You
don’t
idea
of
usage-­‐based
pricing
and
buy
a
box
and
get
stuck
paying
for
it
charge
backs,
(which
is
information
when
it’s
not
in
use.
You
buy
that
can
come
from
the
monitoring
compute
power
and
pay
for
the
time
infrastructure),
is
critical
to
ensure
that
it’s
up
and
running
(based
on
your
engagement
in
cloud
services
is
whatever
measurement
the
cloud
economically
sound.
How
d o
I
k now
w hich
c loud
e nvironment
t o
move
t o?
There
are
three
ways
you
can
move
For
example,
based
on
the
into
a
cloud
environment.
You
can
functionality
point
of
view,
some
opt
for
a
private
cloud,
a
public
people
will
tell
you
not
to
put
heavy
cloud,
or
a
hybrid.
This
decision
is
I/O
activity
in
the
cloud.
So
one
way
based
on
your
organization’s
needs
to
handle
this
situation
is
by
splitting
and
the
needs
of
your
application.
up
your
application
architecture
with
Some
components
of
your
a
hybrid
solution.
There
could
be
application
are
better
staying
on
parts
of
your
application
architecture
physical
servers
than
moving
to
the
that
need
to
be
on
physical
cloud.
infrastructure,
such
as
an
area
that
requires
I/O
from
physical
storage.
While
you
keep
your
heavy
I/O
activity
on
physical
boxes,
the
subsystems
of
your
application
that
are
CPU
or
memory
heavy
could
be
moved
to
the
cloud.
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5. http://www.appfirst.com/cloud-­‐channel
What
d o
I
n eed
t o
d o
b efore
m oving
t o
t he
c loud?
Once
you’ve
defined
what
the
cloud
servers
that
sit
behind
a
load
really
is,
the
next
thing
you
need
to
balancer,
another
five
or
ten
take
into
consideration
is
that
in
application
servers,
and
connections
order
to
move
to
the
cloud
with
to
one
or
two
databases.
Because
minimal
risk,
you
need
to
fully
app
stacks
are
so
much
more
understand
your
entire
application
complex
than
they
used
to
be,
you
stack
and
your
overall
application
really
have
the
make
sure
you’re
workload.
You
need
to
be
able
to
looking
at
the
complete
safely
say
to
yourself:
environment.
“Yes,
I
can
share
resources
The
only
way
to
do
that
is
to
make
with
other
applications
and
sure
you
have
the
right
application
performance
management
solution
I
don’t
need
to
have
my
in
place
and
the
right
measurements
own
physical
device,
of
your
physical
environment.
That
because
I
have
some
level
way,
you
have
clear
definitions
and
of
guarantee
that
I’ll
descriptions
of
how
your
application
performs.
If
you
have
the
right
always
have
the
resources
I
monitoring
tool
and
you
have
the
want.
And
if
I
want
or
need
right
measurements
of
your
more
resources,
I
can
get
application
behavior,
you
can
right-­‐
them
fairly
quickly.”
size
what
you
need.
Nowadays,
when
you
talk
about
This
is
all
about
confidence.
Once
applications,
it
doesn’t
necessarily
you
fully
understand
your
application
mean
one
process
on
one
box.
and
how
it
runs
now,
you
can
feel
Applications
today
have
multiple
much
more
comfortable
moving
to
tiers,
and
each
tier
might
have
the
cloud
because
you
know
what
different
instances.
For
example,
you
you
need
in
order
to
feel
safe.
could
have
four,
five,
even
ten
web
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6. http://www.appfirst.com/cloud-­‐channel
Once
m y
a pplication
i s
m oved
t o
t he
c loud,
w hat
do
I
d o
n ext?
After
you
migrate
and
feel
Even
worse
is
that
this
changes
comfortable
that
everything’s
throughout
the
day.
Your
application
running
well
in
your
new
world,
you
could
be
running
just
fine
at
9
AM,
need
to
continuously
monitor
and
but
be
significantly
impacted
at
2
understand
your
applications’
overall
PM,
because
your
neighbor’s
performance
and
behavior
because
resource
requirements
increased,
and
change
is
always
happening.
that
means
your
application
is
getting
less
resources
than
it
was.
Now
you’re
in
a
situation
where
you’re
sharing
resources
with
several
Some
of
the
resources
you
once
had
other
virtual
machines.
Their
full
control
of,
you
no
longer
have.
behavior
is
something
you
don’t
When
you
had
your
own
physical
box,
know
and
have
no
control
over.
If
all
you
didn’t
share
it
with
anybody.
So
of
a
sudden
your
“neighbor’s”
when
there
were
problems
on
the
application
requires
a
lot
of
memory,
box,
the
only
one
to
blame
was
you
your
application’s
memory
needs
and
your
application.
No
one
else
may
be
impacted.
The
cloud
vendors
was
using
your
resources.
So,
in
don’t
provide
this
level
of
visibility
to
essence,
while
cloud
technology
is
you;
you
need
to
be
on
top
of
it
making
your
life
easier
in
terms
of
yourself.
And
just
because
a
cloud
resource
utilization
management,
all
provider
says
you
are
getting
certain
the
monitoring
problems
you
had
in
bandwidth,
for
instance,
you
might
the
past
get
magnified.
not
be
getting
it
all
the
time.
You’re
sharing
the
physical
network
with
For
instance,
as
a
customer
of
a
others.
So
if
you
have
what
is
known
cloud
environment
or
a
cloud
as
a
"noisy
neighbor,"
your
monitoring
solution,
you
need
to
application
can
suffer
considerably.
know
your
data
is
secure
and
Your
neighbor
could
be
"hogging"
all
unexposed.
You
need
to
know
if
your
the
resources.
providers
are
truly
multi-­‐tenant
and
that
your
data
is
completely
invisible
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7. http://www.appfirst.com/cloud-­‐channel
to
others.
You
need
to
be
smart
and
efficient.
But
most
importantly,
you
need
to
Today,
it’s
not
just
about
moving
to
have
the
data
to
truly
know
the
the
cloud.
It’s
about
moving
to
the
resources
your
application
needs
to
cloud
and
monitoring
your
cloud
deliver
a
great
customer
experience
applications
thoroughly
to
ensure
and
save
money.
you
are
running
at
peak
performance.
Conclusion:
Although
the
cloud
might
be
the
right
environment
for
your
application,
you
need
to
be
thoughtful
about
it.
You
need
to
ensure
you
have
complete
visibility
into
your
application,
understand
what
it
means,
and
be
constantly
watching
your
environment
for
changes.
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Page 7