Author Archives: Lucian Systems

AWS Weekly Roundup: AWS Transform, Amazon Neptune, and more (September 8, 2025)

Summer has drawn to a close here in Utrecht, where I live in the Netherlands. In two weeks, I’ll be attending AWS Community Day 2025, hosted at the Kinepolis Jaarbeurs Utrecht on September 24. The single-day event will bring together over 500 cloud practitioners from across the Netherlands, featuring 25 breakout sessions across five technical […]

Cloud Exit Economics: Real-World ROI and Financial Models

Key takeaways Cloud Migration and Cloud Exit are not opposing strategies – they are both part of the same Digital Transformation Lifecycle. Companies must explore each decision as context-dependent instead of trend-driven. Real-world Cloud Exit Cost Modeling should include more than monthly cloud bills. Staffing changes, parallel operations, transition periods, and potential applications  retirement affect […]

Avoid Downtime: Proven Strategies for On-Prem to Cloud Mailbox Migration

Picture this: You sit down with your morning coffee, ready to check your emails. You open Outlook, but nothing loads. Your inbox is empty, a vague error message stares back at you, and frustration starts to creep in. Sound familiar? Most professionals have experienced that moment when email stalls, and with it, so does productivity. […]

Software commands 40% of cybersecurity budgets as gen AI attacks execute in milliseconds

“With volatility now the norm, security and risk leaders need practical guidance on managing existing spending and new budgetary necessities,” states Forrester’s 2026 Budget Planning Guide, revealing a fundamental shift in how organizations allocate cybersecurity resources. Software now commands 40% of cybersecurity spending, exceeding hardware at 15.8%, outsourcing at 15% and surpassing personnel costs at […]

AWS Weekly Roundup: Amazon EC2, Amazon Q Developer, IPv6 updates, and more (September 1, 2025)

My LinkedIn feed was absolutely packed this week with pictures from the AWS Heroes Summit event in Seattle. It was heartwarming to see so many familiar faces and new Heroes coming together. For those not familiar with the AWS Heroes program, it’s a global community recognition initiative that honors individuals who make outstanding contributions to […]

Why Cloud Resellers Still Matter in an Era of Direct Cloud Buying

The world of cloud has always celebrated self-service. With AWS, Azure, and GCP making it ridiculously easy to spin up resources in minutes, the natural assumption is: Why would anyone still need a reseller? After all, enterprises can buy cloud services directly from hyperscalers without a middleman. And yet, cloud resellers not only continue to […]

New general-purpose Amazon EC2 M8i and M8i Flex instances are now available

Today, we’re announcing the general availability of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) general-purpose M8i and M8i-Flex instances powered by custom Intel Xeon 6 processors available only on AWS with sustained all-core 3.9 GHz turbo frequency. These instances deliver the highest performance and fastest memory bandwidth among comparable Intel processors in the cloud. They also […]