ONUG Is A Connected Community

Remember, upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all. ~ Alexander the Great

ONUG has always been a community of enterprise technology consumers and suppliers focused on building and running the digital enterprise at scale. Over the past few years, the community has focused on providing solutions to the hardest problem in IT; that is, operationalizing multi-cloud consumption to gain the widest range of options and choices for infrastructure and developer teams as they create business value. As we progress on this journey, one concept has become crystal clear: the ONUG Community is a connected community; that is, we are linked together with a shared fate.  

As a community, we are connected on many levels including:

Connected by Products and Services Used: Every ONUG consumer utilizes a wide range of IT products and services. There is much overlap between these products and services used by community members to the point that their experiences are shared and now connected. They know which products work and which ones do not, and which suppliers are well staffed to service their needs. They also know which products and services work well together and which ones don’t. The ONUG Community is connected through a shared experience of operations.  This connection enables them to voice common use cases, problems, and solutions.

IT suppliers gain from this connected operational experience at ONUG. Suppliers gain insight into which companies consumers are using with their products and services to meet a need or solve a problem. As the industry becomes ever more multi-cloud, every supplier’s customers are part of the ONUG connected community. Suppliers cannot think of their products and services in isolation but rather as an ecosystem. This information informs supplier executive management on which business relationships would have a positive customer impact. It also informs product development managers to prioritize features and functions. 

Connected by Personas: The ONUG Community is connected across multiple roles and responsibilities. ONUG members attending ONUG Fall comprised IT professionals in networking (20%), security (17%), cloud (15%), DevOps (22%), and IT management (26%). At ONUG, these professionals connect/network across these personas. This unique perspective affords valuable insight into a wide range of topics and issues that only happen when professionals in the same industry but in different roles get an opportunity to share. The biggest topic across personas at ONUG was the massive gap between infrastructure and developer teams and how to close it. This will be the theme at ONUG 2023.

Connected Across Industries: ONUG started 10 years ago at the intersection between high tech and high finance. This intersection is still the core of ONUG, but over the years, many other industries have joined the community. Finance, banking, and insurance used to represent over 80% in the early days, but now represents 11% as community membership has skyrocketed over the years. Healthcare and pharma, manufacturing, retail, education, state and Federal government, entertainment/content plus utilities and energy are now well represented at ONUG.  Yes, ONUG members are connected across industries, and what they have found is not how different they are, but how much they have in common! They use this set of common issues to speak in one voice through the ONUG Collaborative and Conferences.

Connected by a Common Purpose: The strongest connection between ONUG Community members is that they share a common purpose. They seek options and choices in their common quest to develop business value. This was best communicated by Daniel Conroy, VP, Enterprise Infrastructure Services & Chief Technology Officer, Digital, Raytheon Technologies, during his ONUG Fall keynote titled Being Digital at Raytheon Technologies. Daniel was joined by Joe Bernik, Cyber Executive of Global Banking, Bank of America, and Ken Hartling, Executive Director, Cloud, Raytheon Technologies. It’s a must-see keynote, and you can watch it here. Daniel talks about our common purpose and that now is the time to come together as a community to drive change to deliver greater options and choices for digital enterprise builders so the industry doesn’t suffer innovation stagnation and high inflation that accompany massive lock-in.  

Our fate in this industry is shared. At ONUG, we offer the opportunity for suppliers and consumers to build a better world–a world… 

  • where technologies are more open and extensible, and best practices are shared easily.
  • where infrastructure and developer teams deliver business value quickly and at scale for their customers.  
  • where suppliers hear directly from consumers what problems they need solved and funded.  

As a supplier, when you sponsor ONUG, you are becoming part of its connected community. Its consumers are the large global enterprise market so their problems are complex but they have the massive budgets to solve them. It takes time to develop meaningful and material business relationships, but it’s well worth it.  ONUG is the platform where its connected community exchanges ideas, use cases, and evaluate solutions. We welcome all suppliers and consumers to be part of this connected community and have a positive influence on our shared fate.

Author's Bio

Nick Lippis

ONUG