How to break up with your vendor

We need to talk…

You’re unsatisfied with one of your monitoring providers. They aren’t responding to your bug reports and support tickets. They want to charge you more than you pay for any other infrastructure contract. They’re missing that one big feature that would be a game changer for your team. You’ve considered finding a new solution, but the thought of migrating your data off their platform sounds more painful than all of these issues combined. So you keep letting things slide until you realize that you’re in the dreaded land of vendor lock-in.

Amy Nguyen and Cory Watson explain how to make a deadline for an infrastructure-critical software migration while ensuring that everyone’s requirements are met and no data has been lost. Amy and Cory demonstrate how to evaluate alternative solutions and gather requirements from your coworkers and detail what happens once you decide to make the switch. You’ll learn how to manage a tight timeline, how to write automated tools for migration, and how to socialize the change across your organization.

Transcript

1. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 How to Break Up With Your Vendor Amy Nguyen (@amyngyn) Cory Watson (@gphat) Velocity NYC October 2, 2018
2. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Our background • Combined, we've done four SaaS migrations and managed ~10 contracts with SaaS vendors • Stripe Observability team: 9 engineers during our most recent migration • Migration scale: ◦ Led migrations alone and in large teams ◦ Hundreds of GBs of data or millions of metrics ◦ Hundreds of dashboards and queries ◦ > 1,000 employees @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018
3. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Evaluation Negotiation Migration Velocity NYC 2018
4. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 • Security questionnaire • SSO and account management • Audit logs • Access controls • GDPR • API tokens • Mutual NDAs • Sensitive data scrubbing Work with security and legal ASAP.
5. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Identify your most important users. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 • Who has the most critical workflows and/or the largest scale? • What questions are they trying to answer? • How do they want to consume this information? (API, dashboards, TV, alerts?)
6. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Gather informed feedback. • "Seems fine" is not sufficient. • Pair with someone for an hour to see how much they really use the tool • Turn off your old tool and see what happens • Look at audit logs to see total usage
7. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Test as many different workflows / data types as you can during the trial. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018
8. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Collect feedback from their customers. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 • How was the contract renewal process? • What features do they use the most? • Any surprises or unexpected behavior? • How responsive is customer support? • How quickly do bug reports get fixed? Feature requests? • How have they handled outages and contract violations? • How long have they had a contract? • How much data are they sending? • Which teams use the tool?
9. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Understand how data usage, outages, sudden spikes, and quota limits are handled. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018
10. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Be realistic about shiny new features. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018
11. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Evaluation • Work with security and legal as soon as possible. • Identify your most important users. • Gather informed feedback. • Test as many different workflows / data types as you can during the trial. • Collect feedback from their customers. • Understand how outages, sudden spikes, and quota limits are handled. • Be realistic about shiny new features.
12. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Negotiation From the latin “neg” (no) and “otsia” (leisure). Yay.
13. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Negotiation: Resources • Training? • Do you have a procurement team? • Any help in finance? • Is there teammate that’s done this you can ask? • Friends from other companies? • Know any other customers?
14. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Negotiation: Advice • Build or Buy: capex, opex, core competencies, staffing • Understand the money: cost of capital, alignment of fiscal year • Sales folks are probably not your friends. • Really, really learn the billing
15. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Negotiation: Advice • What’s it worth to you? • Talk to finance/stakeholders first: What’s the goal? • Pro/Con list • Being the user and the negotiator is hard, need to separate.
16. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 • Month to month flexibility • Prepaid / annual savings • Training freebies • Guaranteed features • Support timeliness • Advisory boards Negotiation: Cost Creativity • A la carte features • Brand / logo usage • Term (months, years, etc) • Blog posts, case studies, conference talks, etc • Conversion help Velocity NYC 2018
17. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Negotiation: Teeth • SLAs: Match? Good returns? (3 9s = 8.77H) • Overage costs: Where can they stick you? • Automatic renewal / timelines: Acceptable? • Termination of contract: Terms ok? • Requirements: Getting done?
18. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Negotiation • Check for resources: class, finance, coworkers, friends, customers • Establish value, work with stakeholders • Build v Buy: capex, opex, core competency, staffing • Pro Con / Plus Minus lists • Get creative with cost • Match up terms with value and need
19. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Migration
20. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Migration: How much are you going to do? • You can and should automate the process. • Collect metrics for how often people use each object. • Write scripts to parse and transform based off each tool's API. ◦ Grammar: Parslet. API for creating resources: Terraform provider. • Get fancy: Chrome extensions. • Document everything. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018
21. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Migration: What's your plan? • Have a migration schedule before you sign the contract. • Add an extra month. Just kidding, I meant two months. • Set an end date for shutting off the old tool. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018
22. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Migration: Point of No Return • Like the “climax” of a movie • Prepare for this phase! • Save up some fun stuff (order cupcakes, have a dance party) • Start a “nice things” thread where people send positive things they hear • Reach out to leadership to invigorate the team • Get creative! @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018
23. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Migration: Some Managerial Tips • Use this opportunity to empower others • Be very clear with assignments and expectations • Give clear updates to Leadership • Engage dissent early and often • Follow up with tips, guidance, and information
24. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Migration: Socializing • Have a message • Repeat the message • Set a cadence for updates, keep em realistic • Have a bit of fun with your updates (gifs, comic sans, jokes, etc) • Prompt writers, share responsibility • Measure / speak to the message
25. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Migration • Plan your effort and data • Automate • Set a real end date • Share the load, empower others • Communicate with customers and leadership • Plan for the low points
26. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Evaluation Negotiation Migration
27. @amyngyn, @gphat Velocity NYC 2018 Thanks! amynguyen.net onemogin.com stripe.com/jobs Come chat tomorrow at the Observability lunch table!