We hear from customers and prospects that usage data is important. Even companies with as few as 100 end-users don’t know what’s running on their LAN, what software their users depend on, or how the applications are being used. The customers know that they are responsible for them (the apps)…but they don’t know what they are, how important they are, how much they cost, etc.

One unique feature of Exoprise CloudReady is the analysis it does of your software stack(s) to understand application and end-user usage. We’re focused on messaging and the move to the cloud right now but in the future we will expand that coverage to other application stacks and workloads. We analyze the way end-users use their e-mail systems, the way they collaborate, mobile devices, 3rd-party applications that they are dependent on and what would happen if you tried to upgrade them or move them to a different platform. We do all of this to give IT leaders the knowledge to make the right decisions about what cloud properties to switch to.

Power, Smart, and Simple Users

When we started to analyze e-mail systems that have thousands of users we needed a way to roll-up the data and have it make sense for the operations teams, the CFO and CEO. We needed a convention to describe the kind of user of that system. I labored for the right terminology for quite some time. The term “Power User” is pretty universally understood — it’s an advanced user that requires more resources and uses more features. Past that term, “Power Users”, there was no consensus amongst prospects that I talked to. I focused on the other end of the spectrum and searched for a term that wouldn’t offend. That’s how I came up with “Simple User” — users that use only the most basic features of an application stack, could be easily moved and are less costly to support. For the middle, I chose “Smart Users” which nicely encapsulates the middle of the road, users who use the broad basic set of features but might occasionally use advanced features.

That’s how CloudReady breaks down usage across its analysis. We break down feature usage by “Power, Smart & Simple”, we aggregate the total application’s usage by “Power, Smart & Simple” and we are beginning to extrapolate TCO, upgrade cost, migration cost, charge-backs and business unit data according to that breakdown of usage type as well. It’s valuable for our customers who are contemplating the cloud vs. on-premises and trying to plan their adoption strategy.

Are your users Power, Smart or Simple?