Dain Ehring: A Financial Services Case Study: Converting to the Cloud One Module at a Time -- Implementing PaaS and SaaS Where Legacy Systems Once Ruled

Cloud Computing Conference - Cloud Slam 2009.
Author: Dain Ehring, Founder & CEO Dorado Systems
Dain Ehring has served on Dorado’s executive management team since the company’s inception in 1998, and has led the company through a decade of rapid growth. In 2006, the company was listed as one of the nation’s fastest growing companies by INC. magazine, and today, the company’s enterprise SaaS lending platform is being used by top ten banks in the U.S. and Canada. Before founding Dorado, Mr. Ehring was Director of Market Development and Strategic Sales for JavaSoft, Sun Microsystems’ Internet company. Prior to joining JavaSoft, he was Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Service at Lighthouse Design Ltd., an applications developer later acquired by Sun. Mr. Ehring has also held a variety of senior management roles at NeXT Computers, IBM, and Unisys. He holds a Master’s degree in Space Physics from UCLA and worked at NASA before moving to the private sector.

Abstract:
While most large financial institutions are moving towards the adoption of SOAs (Service-Oriented Architectures), cultural, political and other issues often get in the way. In fact, the larger the institution, the greater the resistance to change. Loyalty to long-time vendors and vested interests in maintaining entrenched legacy systems can often present both political and implementation mine fields for the bank management seeking to create a more agile enterprise via SOA. The solution? Think globally, but act locally. Plan for an overarching cloud strategy while implementing and realizing this strategy one business unit, or one set of processes at a time. One of the greatest advantages of the SaaS model is its flexibility – it can be organized in modules that are vendor-agnostic and that can work with any number of legacy vendors and outside data suppliers. Mr. Ehring will discuss how Dorado is socializing and implementing its PaaS and SaaS solutions at some of the world’s largest banks using this modular approach.

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