soft layer ask lance
DESCRIPTION
Keynote presentation.TRANSCRIPT
Parallels Summit: Innovate, Optimize, Grow
Feb ‘10Lance Crosby, CEOSoftLayer® Technologies
http://twitter.com/lavosby
http://twitter.com/softlayer_news
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Access the presentation on:
www.slideshare.net/SoftLayer_Ask_Lance
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Innovate, Optimize, Grow
SurvivedThe worst recession and economic collapse in history.
EvolvedChanged our offerings, pricing, and business models to meet market needs.
GrewAs individual companies and as an industry we have excelled in a time of panic.
A quick look at the last 12 months in the hosting industry.
InnovatedBrought many new products to market, including leading the charge into cloud services.
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Innovate, Optimize, Grow
Eco-systemsIf you can’t be good at everything, what should you be good at?
Opportunity90% of all servers sold are NOT hosted!! Stop competing against each other.
ScaleHow do I scale my business to take advantage of the opportunity in the market?
So, what does the future hold?
InnovationHow can we (as individuals and an industry) stay ahead of the market and increase awareness?
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SoftLayer® Value Statement
InnovationWe lead the industry, bringing solutions to market before others realize the need for them.
EmpowermentWe push complete control to the end user to create the virtual data center experience.
IntegrationWe bring together hardware, software, security, networking, and storage in a single easy to use on-demand service.
SoftLayer Delivers Innovative World Class, On-demand,
Infrastructure Services.
AutomationWe automate every single facet of the data center environment to bring efficiency and standardization.
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SoftLayer® Difference
Automated Services and Standardized Solutions Customer-controlled, automated management of core functions including
OS installs and reloads, reboots, software installs, network management, monitoring, load balancing, firewall management, and more.
Industry-Leading Customer Portal and Open API Direct access to more than 150 backend systems and activities, executed without
any human intermediation. Mature API – over 1500 and growing
Industry Exclusive Private Network Server-to-server communication, out-of-band management, and unlimited data
transfer via VPN over dedicated carriers segregated from our Public Network.
Integrated Geographical Diversity Three data centers connected via private, 10G point-to-point connections,
and integrated through proprietary automated tools. Customers Choose
True Virtual Data Center Services Innovative infrastructure, solutions, and automation capabilities provide unique
advantages for virtualized solutions and a truly virtual data center.
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Innovate: Fully Integrated Environments
SoftLayer Provides the Only Completely Integrated Solution in the Industry.
Dedicated servers, virtualized environments, and cloud solutions all operate together seamlessly to create an on-demand solution that can be scaled in real time.
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Optimize: Automation is the Key
The Physical Server is the Fundamental Building Block to All Technologies.
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Grow: AKA SoftLayer® History
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Results: After 4 Years of Operations… $52 million in revenue for 2008 $83.5 million for 2009 $110 million annualized run rate (Feb 10) $1M in annualized revenue added every 10 days
175 employees
Dallas: 18,500 square feet raised floor Seattle: 15,000 square feet raised floor Washington DC: 10,000 square feet raised floor Capacity of 45,000 servers across current facilities
More than 5,800 in over 110 countries More than 25,000 deployed servers Average of 4 servers per customer Revenue of ~$1,600 per customer
Employees
300+ GB of connectivity 8+ network providers and hundreds of peers Sustained traffic of over 80Gbps
Financial
Data Centers
Network
Customers
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SoftLayer® 2009 Product Launches CDN Enhancements Cloud Storage Native IPv6 SUSE O/S SSD as Storage Option
Cloud Computing Image Management Storage Network WAN Acceleration
SSL Certificates API Enhancements Evault Bare Metal Restores NetScaler WebsiteSpark (Microsoft)
Private and Bare Metal Cloud Data Center Expansion in DAL, SEA, WDC
Q2 – 2009
Q3 – 2009
Q4 – 2009
Q1 – 2009
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Our Plan to Innovate, Optimize & Grow
Bring all of our services closer to customers
Expand our geographical footprint
Network, network, network
Grow
Accelerate new product launches
Enhance existing products with new features and capabilities
Innovate
Drive automation across all business functions
The only way to scale is to eliminate redundant processes through automation
Optimize
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SoftLayer® 2010 Product Roadmap
Q1 – 2010
2-Factor Authentication XenServer Essentials VMWare ESX Cloudkick Integration
Data Center Expansion – San Jose, CA Nationwide Network Expansion VPN & DNS Geographic Expansion Public API Parallels Bare Metal Server White Label Portal Mobile Applications – iPhone, Android, BlackBerry
Automated Managed Services Automated Colocation AutoScaling Cloud Portal Refresh
Cloud Appliances PCI Compliance Services Enterprise Software Integration Data Center Expansion - Europe
Q2 – 2010
Q3 – 2010
Q4 – 2010
Question / Answer
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Ask Lance
What’s the secret to building a high growth start-up?
Answer
Write your business plan
Create scalable systems
Diversify your personnel
Stop and look for mistakes
Question
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Ask Lance
What’s going to happen to pricing in hosting? Will the current high margins in cloud turn hosting intointo a commodity?
Answer
It’s too early to head into price competition
New market with lots of growth ahead
And it is critical to understand CapEx vs Margin trade-offs
Understand the trade-off between building and buying your own cloud
Question
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With the Right Tools, Cloud Can Be Profitable
Don’t Rush to Lower Prices – Rush to Raise Margins
$4,000 in fully loaded CapEx
$6,000 in fully loaded CapEx
$300 in MRR13 month payback
$1,200 in MRR5 month payback
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Ask Lance
What’s the internal mantra at SoftLayer regardinggrowth?
Answer Challenging, but not overwhelming
Question
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Ask Lance
How do you accurately guess what customers want?
Answer
Put yourself in the position of the customer and then build a menu that will satisfy that appetite.
Example…
Question
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Think Like a Customer.
Give the People What They Want
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Ask Lance
As hosting companies, we generate a lot of revenue from bandwidth. What’s the future of that as an offering?
Answer
Are you a telco? Or are you a hosting or managed services company?
We see bandwidth becoming both relevant and irrelevant in the next 24 months
Relevant… because customers will drive bandwidth requirements through the roof
Irrelevant… because it’s going to become the handle not the blade
Question
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Ready for “Free” Bandwidth?Addition of 7 PoPs and a New Data Center in San Jose
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Ask Lance
What’s the deal with IPv4 and IPv6? As a hosting company, should this concern me?
Answer
IPv4 is a limited resource and we are about to run out. Sometime in the next 12-24 months allocations will be reduced.
Shifting to IPv6 is possible, but it take planning and effort.
Why would you launch cloud without IPv6?
Question
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Ask Lance
How do I scale my business to take advantage of theopportunity in the market?
Is debt for capex a good idea?
Answer
2010 looks to be a solid year. IT spending is rising. Projects are accelerating, but capex is still very limited
Build an opex oriented business and leverage partners to create scale
Question
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Ask Lance
Why do anything? I’ve built a good business over the past 10 years, so why change now?
Answer
Traditional hosting isn’t dead (yet)
The hype of cloud in late 2008 was turned into a reality by the collapse of the global economy
The pace of change in hosting has never been faster than what we will see in the next 24 months
Question?
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Ask Lance
How can small hosting companies stay ahead of themarket and larger competitors?
Answer
Define your customers and strategic advantage and then focus on that
Smaller companies move faster than larger ones
Come together as an industry and work together
Our focus should be servers in closets not each other
Question
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Ask Lance
As a business leader, how do you prepare for changethat may be hard to predict?
Answer
Start with a great team and study everything around you.
And ask yourself how far ahead of the curve you want to be in delivering services
Trend-spotting is not easy and has high risk.
Question
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Ask Lance
Is cloud for real? Or is this just another buzzword fad?
Answer
The word may change meaning, but the concept is here for good.
It doesn’t matter if you are an _aaS, a Grid, a Utility, or a Cloud, just understand the implication for your business and find a way to participate.
Question
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Ask Lance
How do I make big revenue from hosting? What should I do if I am already a SoftLayer customer and have a web hosting business?
Twitter Q#1
How does SL see themselves in a year or 2, ahead of the competition technology wise, or are there any massive things planned?
Twitter Q#2
Lance Crosby, CEOSoftLayer® Technologies
http://twitter.com/lavosby
http://twitter.com/softlayer_news
Thank You!