Meet Tim Jefferson, Barracuda’s New VP of Public Cloud
Whether you’re just starting to explore the cloud, are already moving small projects, or you’ve fully embraced the new wave of IT — the cloud is an important endeavor for your business. The cloud adds speed and agility to your business model along with offering significant cost savings; however, there are still a lot of questions about how to migrate existing security controls. Fortunately, this is familiar territory for Barracuda, and one of the reasons we continue to invest in the public cloud — so our customers can migrate the best way possible for their business.
A recent example is Barracuda’s Cloud Ready Program, which is designed to help customers accelerate migrations, and it provides an easy path for customers to meet shared security responsibilities in the cloud. Along with innovation and resources, we also need cloud people, which is why we couldn’t be happier to have Tim Jefferson, Barracuda’s new VP of Cloud on board to help take our cloud business to the next level. Tim joins us from AWS, and we recently sat down with him to gather his thoughts on joining Barracuda, here’s what he had to say:
Why Barracuda?
Tim: Barracuda is one of the most forward-leaning ISVs when it comes to cloud, and this holds true throughout the entire organization — from CEO, BJ Jenkins to the way solutions are engineered and sold. Everything about the cloud is new for customers: the consumption model, deployment architectures, licensing, etc. Barracuda is one of the only ISVs to fully embrace this unique model, and have architected their solution portfolio to help customers move fast and be more secure in the cloud.
Coming from AWS you’re obviously very familiar with the cloud, what are some of the biggest challenges that come up, and some of the largest opportunities that you see?
Tim: Security is always a challenge because the tools that customers have been using on-premises don’t necessarily translate well to the cloud. As a result, cloud migration projects can be slowed down as customers try to figure out how to move security controls into their cloud deployments. Second, there’s a lack of security expertise in public cloud; however, Barracuda channel partners have a real appetite to bring more value to their customers by consulting, designing, building, and even managing cloud deployments. Barracuda has made the necessary investments to make its solution portfolio Cloud Ready, and there’s a big effort underway to work our channel program so traditional VARs and MSPs can align their businesses with the public cloud.
For customers, there’s a huge opportunity in the public cloud because it frees up resources, which helps them focus on growing their business instead of constantly building, deploying, and managing infrastructure. Customers are able to move faster in the cloud. For example, spinning up a proof of concept in the cloud happens in minutes, where the same project on-premises could require waiting for IT to deploy and secure servers just to get started.
What is the first thing companies should think about when moving to the cloud?
It’s really important to have a clear idea of the business goals they are trying to achieve from the cloud, and how that benefits customers. Some common examples are agility, cost savings, becoming more global, but having a clear vision of goals will help determine the right provider for their business based on the services they need, and help set the base for a healthy framework.
What does a shared security model mean for cloud customers?
Tim: The major cloud providers do a great job of articulating what security controls customers inherit when using their platforms. However, when customers move or build applications in the public cloud — the responsibility of securing those applications falls on the customer. Barracuda makes this easy and provides a flexibility that other vendors simply don’t offer. For example, Barracuda offers cloud customers a metered billing option for deployed security, which appropriately matches the way customers consume the cloud. Instead of having to pay for licenses on the solutions deployed, they are only required to pay for what they use based on the traffic that is being protected. This makes security more affordable and simplifies the shared model for customers.
Is there a difference between mid-market vs. enterprise customers in the public cloud?
Tim: The main difference is that much of the channel effort around cloud is focused on enterprise customers, which unfortunately leaves the mid-market to fend for themselves. Additionally, the traditional VARs that smaller customers are leaning on, may not have pivoted their practices to address the cloud yet, and the big partners who have that familiarity are not focusing on the midmarket. Having our product strategy appropriately aligned with the public cloud means that Barracuda sits in a sweet spot where many of our cloud customers are Fortune 500 companies, yet we have the resources, solutions, and understanding to help the mid-market migrate securely where needed because we have such a long history of serving that segment.
What’s your favorite thing to do in your spare time?
Tim: It’s always great to spend time with my wife and two children. I also enjoy getting out on all the local trails on my mountain bike. Living in Northern California, we’re incredibly fortunate to not only have fantastic weather pretty much all year long, but we’re also home to world-class trails — but don’t tell anyone.
We’re certainly excited to have Tim join the public cloud team here at Barracuda, and if you don’t happen to run into him on the trails — feel free to reach out with any cloud security questions. You can also find Tim on LinkedIn or Twitter. Additionally, here are a few public cloud resources that may be helpful:
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