Podcasts Technology Screaming in the Cloud Making Data Migration to the Cloud Easy with Ricardo Gonzalez

Making Data Migration to the Cloud Easy with Ricardo Gonzalez

Published: July 25, 2023, 10 a.m.

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Ricardo Gonzalez, Senior Principal Product Manager at Oracle, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss his approach to Product Management and cloud migration. Ricardo explains how a chance conversation landed him a role at Oracle, and why he feels it\\u2019s so important to always bring your A-game in any conversation. Corey and Ricardo discuss why being a good Product Manager involves empathy for your customers and being able to speak their language as well as the language of your product and development team. Ricardo also explains how he\\u2019s seen the Oracle product suite grow, and why he feels more and more companies are seeing the value of migrating their data to the cloud.\\xa0

About Ricardo

Ricardo is a Product Manager at Oracle, in charge of Database Migration to the Cloud, and the ZDM and ACFS products.

Ricardo is a native Costa Rican and has lived in Mexico, Italy and currently resides in the United States.


He is passionate about technology, education, photography, music and cooking. He loves languages and connecting with people from all over the world. In a future life, Ricardo wants to own a taco truck, and share taco happiness with everybody.

Links Referenced:



Transcript


Announcer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.

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Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud, I\\u2019m Corey Quinn. Some wit once said that 90% of life was just showing up. And I\\u2019m not going to suggest that today\\u2019s guest has only the fact that he shows up going for him, but I do want to say that when I first met him, it was at a drink-up that I threw here in San Francisco. And he kept turning up to a variety of community events, not just ones that I wound up hosting, but other people, too. By day, Ricardo Gonzalez is a Senior Principal Product Manager at Oracle. But in the community, he is also much more. Ricardo, thank you for joining me today.



Ricardo: Thank you so much for having me, Corey. It\\u2019s a great pleasure to be here with you today.



Corey: So, it is interesting watching you come to what I can only describe as the other side of the tracks. Because you work at Oracle. I make fun of AWS all the time, so yes, I suppose our companies do have that in common, but I digress. You also work in the database world, which is, I guess you could say I do and that I misuse things as databases, mostly for laughs and occasionally for production. And you\\u2019re over in the product manager side of the world, which for me, has always\\u2014may as well be a language that I do not understand, let alone speak. Yet you have consistently shown up and made great contributions to every conversation you\\u2019ve ever been a part in. Where did you come from? How did you start doing this?



Ricardo: Well, I\\u2019m originally from Costa Rica, right, which is I wouldn\\u2019t say uncommon, but then again, there\\u2019s just a few of us. And I was doing my master\\u2019s degree in Mexico when I showed up to a recruitment event dressed up like a business student and realize all of my peers were actually developers\\u2014although I\\u2019m a computer scientist by trade\\u2014looking for a job at Oracle\\u2019s Development Center in Mexico, right? And by showing up, something magical happened. I stayed at the session, they made a raffle with numbers. I didn\\u2019t win, but they asked us questions nobody answered, and as you can see, I talk a lot.



I raised my hand, and they said, \\u201cOkay, answer these questions.\\u201d And then it became, like, a competition, and I won. And back then I got, like, a tablet. I think it was an iPad; it was great. I thought, okay, no job for me because I wasn\\u2019t working\\u2014looking for a job in development.



And then this person, which is now an SVP in my company, which has been my mentor in many ways, approached me, and he said, \\u201cI really liked what you did. It seemed you do have some technical background. We need somebody that can talk like that with customers, but at the same time, understand the requirements for a technical product and work with engineers. Do you want to come to the office tomorrow?\\u201d And a week later, I got an offer my life change in ways, like, we\\u2019ve never foreseen.



Corey: This is a hard thing to talk about because it\\u2019s the way the world works, but when you say it, people love to come back and tear you down, like, \\u201cYou just got lucky.\\u201d Or it\\u2014\\u201cWell, yeah, that works for you, but it doesn\\u2019t work for other people.\\u201d But I\\u2019ve found invariably that the seminal moments that happened in the course of my career have all come from conversations I had with people I didn\\u2019t need to be talking to at events I didn\\u2019t need to be attending, but one thing leads to another. Instead of sitting at home and brooding, I put myself in situations where I could, for lack of a better term, make my own luck. Sure, if only one conversation in a thousand winds up turning into a career opportunity, okay, but that means you need to have a thousand conversations to get there, so time to get started. And you are probably one of the best living embodiments of this that I\\u2019ve ever met.



Ricardo: Well, it\\u2019s interesting. You\\u2019re right. I mean, the luck part plays a factor, I guess, but you have to change your own luck. And it\\u2019s complicated to talk about that because there\\u2019s also privilege in both, and being part of\\u2014like, I was in college. I had the privilege to go to college, although, I mean, there\\u2019s a whole, like, list of things that made me get there and the sacrifices from family, et cetera.



And not everybody has the same level of field, right? But what I can say though, is that I heard somebody said something that really resonated with me, which is, \\u201cFor some of us, right, we won\\u2019t be the main player in the game.\\u201d [reading 00:04:25], like, so imagine you have, like, a sports event where\\u2014whatever sport you want\\u2014and there\\u2019s a game of playing, right? The coach will not call you. But they might call you over the last five minutes, but when they do, you have to be there and score a goal, touchdown, whatever you want to call it, be the best player because that\\u2019s the opportunity you have and you have to make the most out of it. Some people were born and they have the opportunity to be in the starting lineup. Some of us will be just called at the last minute. But when you do, your A-Game has to be there on top and you have to be the best you can because that\\u2019s the only way you have to shine.



Corey: I think that you\\u2019re right. There\\u2019s a tremendous amount of privilege baked into all of this. And privilege is one of those things you can\\u2019t just set aside. It\\u2019s something that we wind up all manifesting in different ways to different degrees. But it\\u2019s a, \\u201cOh, just be like me,\\u201d is fundamentally what a lot of advice comes down to, regardless of whoever it is the me in question that\\u2019s talking about it.



But there seems to be just certain things that lend themselves to better possibilities of success. One of the things that has always impressed me is that you just show up and start great conversations with people, left and right. That\\u2019s a skill that I honestly wish I had. I have to be noisy and public to get people to approach me, whereas you, ah, you don\\u2019t have the time for that. You just walk up and start talking to them. I\\u2019ve never been good at that.



Ricardo: I guess part of my upbringing\\u2014also, you know, my home country has a whole history of [horizontalness 00:05:47], but that\\u2019s a different discussion. And we are, I guess, not shy to just talk to people, right, which sometimes can bring into interesting conversations with management and, like\\u2014because if I disagree, I will let you know, right? I will be completely candid about things. But I think it\\u2019s important, right? Because like, we\\u2019re all human beings trying to do the same thing, right?



We all wake up in the morning with the same set of problems and then get to share moments in between each other. Why don\\u2019t make them as pleasant as possible and try to see how can we actually grow together? It\\u2019s important that you\\u2019re not only getting things and growing yourself but also see how can with that help others grow as well, right? So that\\u2019s, I think, part of what conversations can be\\u2014I mean, starting conversation with anybody just it\\u2019s really important to say, \\u201cOkay, nice to meet you. How can we, you know, make the most out of it for both of us?\\u201d And, you know, either even if it\\u2019s just, like, you\\u2019d have a great conversation or, you know, help each other or just me help you, et cetera.



Corey: So, I want to talk a little bit about your day job. Given that you work in product management, I have to assume that having people skills is kind of a prerequisite for the role. At least you would think. I\\u2019ve worked in places where that was apparently not the case, and not for nothing, it kind of showed.



Ricardo: Yeah, I mean, it\\u2019s really important. I think product management is one of these positions in which you are in the middle of things. When people ask me\\u2014and these are people that don\\u2019t work in technology\\u2014\\u201cWhat do you do?\\u201d I tell them, \\u201cI\\u2019m a translator,\\u201d right? And when they ask me, like, \\u201cOh, so you do it between languages?\\u201d I said, \\u201cWell, yeah, I speak different languages with us.\\u201d



So, the point is, I am able to talk with people that have a less technical acumen or are actually just users of our product, right, and [unintelligible 00:07:17] highly skilled, and then go back to the engineers, which have a different point of view, right? So, I\\u2019m always back and forth. But that people skills, as you mentioned, is really important because otherwise you cannot do your job. The thing that is interesting for me is that product management itself is not really a thing that can be defined. I mean, yes, of course, there\\u2019s, like, books on it and people that have done their careers and, like, saying how it works, but it changes from company to company.



And even within the same company, there are different product managers doing different things. What I do\\u2014and I\\u2019ve been really fortunate to have really good managers that I\\u2019ve worked for the last seven years, I think\\u2014has a lot to do with the people skills that you mentioned, right? And it allows me to be as good as I can with my job and try to do me just, you know, grow every day.



Corey: It\\u2019s easier to sit here and reason about these things in the context of specifics, on some level. And it\\u2019s also easy for me at least to look at a company and think, \\u201cOh, they do one thing,\\u201d but I have it on good authority that Oracle is a large-ish company that might have more than one product at any given point in time. What product do you work with? Where do you start and where do you stop?



Ricardo: Okay, well, I\\u2019ve been part of three different teams, if you could call it that way. Although, like, over the last seven years, I\\u2019ve been focusing mostly for\\u2014I mean, always within the database organization, so like database development. And then over the last, like, six, seven years, I\\u2019ve been on the high-availability team, which focus on a thing called maximum availability architecture, right, which is basically helping customers to achieve all their requirements. And we\\u2019re talking about, like, heavy usage of, you know, regular Oracle database with high availability, scalability, I mean, requirements for, like, 24/7, like, great uptime.



And I started working with them with the cluster file system, which I still do, but my main job over the last, like, let\\u2019s say, four, almost five years, have been working towards helping customers come to the cloud, right, to Oracle Cloud. And my product, I\\u2019m the product manager for protocols ZDM, Zero Downtime Migration, and it\\u2019s been in the market for the last three-and-a-half years, right? So, I was there since it\\u2019s all started as a whole interesting story about cross-work with different teams in Oracle getting together to get this product out. So, that\\u2019s my day-to-day job, just enabling customers on maximize the usage of the Oracle database in the high-availability realm, and also helping them move to the cloud, the Oracle Cloud, if that\\u2019s what they want and the mission they have right now in their organizations.



Corey: I know that people are going to have opinions about Oracle Cloud, and I\\u2019m just going to say something that I think is relatively uncontroversial, in that the technology is freaking solid. I have used it in a bunch of different ways, I\\u2019ve talked to folks who have, and there is remarkably little argument that when you use it as directed, that stuff works. And there\\u2019s a lot to be said for that. So, you focus a lot on the migration story, specifically, to my understanding, databases inward from a variety of other places. Do they tend to find themselves living in on-prem environments? Are they in other cloud providers? Are they, God forbid, well, we have this filing cabinet full of paperwork and we\\u2019re hoping you can help us digitize it all, which, yes, those projects exist. And no, I don\\u2019t want to be within 6000 miles of them.



Ricardo: Well, mostly, we\\u2019re talking about on-premises customers, right, that have large fleets of Oracle databases and we\\u2019re trying to help these customers, either as small businesses, it could be public or enterprises move to the Oracle Cloud when they deem that the strategy they\\u2019re doing, right? So, my product, what it does is it actually orchestrates, it automates that process for them so that when they\\u2019re actually doing the migration, it\\u2019s as seamless as possible for them. Because there\\u2019s a lot of, like, caveats and a lot of things to consider when we\\u2019re talking about database migration into the cloud.



Corey: When you take a look at what is going on in the larger ecosystem, it\\u2019s easy for me to sit here and say, \\u201cWell, I don\\u2019t see Oracle databases very often.\\u201d And yeah, in the context of companies that I work with, that are very often founded in the last few years and are born in a particular cloud provider\\u2014in my case, AWS\\u2014yeah, there doesn\\u2019t seem to be a lot of those things. But at the same time, Oracle rose to its current position by having database technology that was second to none. There\\u2019s a reason that all of these quote-unquote, \\u201cLegacy companies,\\u201d by which of course, we mean, companies that made money and had the temerity to be founded more than three years ago, have wound up standardizing across Oracle to a large extent. As a result then, we\\u2019re seeing a stupendous amount of those companies now looking and weighing, what does moving into the cloud actually look like because we have an increasingly dire raccoon problem in our data center?



Ricardo: Yeah, I mean, we have all the latest technology over the last 40 years. Like, Oracle, as you mentioned, right? It has impressive technology and it\\u2019s quite solid. Now, you\\u2019re asking me about companies that, you know, that might not be using Oracle or that you\\u2019re not aware of they\\u2019re using Oracle. The interesting thing, and when people asked me about this, right, is that it\\u2019s really easy, both me and you without knowing, use Oracle products today, right?



Because you check your bank account, you use certain financial services, you made phone calls, et cetera, right? And a lot of the underlying technology and infrastructure that runs the world today\\u2014either you took a plane, et cetera\\u2014is running on Oracle, right? There\\u2019s a lot of deployments there, right? It\\u2019s just that is not that maybe we\\u2019re not doing\\u2014you know, again, we\\u2019re talking about the whole ecosystem that runs a lot of infrastructure that normal people would do on a daily basis, but it\\u2019s right on the back end, so you might not hear about it, or it\\u2019s not as known, but it is there in the top companies all over the world. So, what we\\u2019re doing now is helping these companies, right, migrate to the cloud when their needs really adapt to exactly that goal.



And sometimes it\\u2019s actually more, \\u201cOkay, how can we actually modernize your data center, right?\\u201d So, Oracle actually has Cloud@Customer, and we also help them with that migration as well. So, we have a whole set of products and deployments that would work within the customer data center, but within a cloud managed by Oracle.



Corey: I think that that\\u2019s an interesting question in its own right, which is you have these companies that are doing incredibly important things. Like this, like Oracle databases, run hospitals, they run DMVs\\u2014



Ricardo: Yep.



Corey: At various states. They run basically everything big infrastructure that you can imagine a lot of places. They run banks, for example. And now these companies are looking at transforming into a cloud approach, on some level. How on earth you convince them to move something as critical as a workload on Oracle database, which in many cases, is a bedrock layer upon which aspects of society depend, to, \\u201cOh, yeah, just go ahead and move it to this cloud thing. That\\u2019ll be fine.\\u201d It feels like an almost impossible goal, but it\\u2019s clearly not. What drives it.



Ricardo: Well, it\\u2019s happening all over the industry, right? People are realizing that cloud, it\\u2019s\\u2014I wouldn\\u2019t dare to say the future because it\\u2019s been happening for, you know, over the last years, but clearly for cost management, security, administration, resource scaling, you name it, it\\u2019s the way to go, right? So, it takes time, and depending on who you\\u2019re working with the projects could, you know, span, three years, et cetera. But people, that\\u2019s the way you like, you know, the whole ecosystem is going, right? So, what we\\u2019re doing is, and we didn\\u2019t reinvent the wheel here, at least with my product, right, was to take technology has been used for over 40 years as a standard for, you know, backup, export, data transfer, synchronization, security, database management, and integrate it into a single product that would be, like, automated and helping the customers.



And what we wanted to do, and it was really important for me is, like, we want you to be in our cloud, we want to help you, so let\\u2019s make this free. Even if we\\u2019re using other products that Oracle already has that have a cost, if you\\u2019re using the migration suite that we offer, it will not cost you money.



Corey: There\\u2019s a lot of value to being able to make assurances like that but, on some level, that feels like whatever someone migrates anything anywhere, but a few things are certain. One is that there\\u2019s going to be technical challenges with it. There always are. That is the nature of large systems, particularly systems built upon systems built upon systems. And too, as humans, as much as we love talking about the idea of blamelessness, everyone\\u2019s going to be looking for a scapegoat when something inherently goes wrong.



The database is always an easy thing to blame, and the cloud, aha, that\\u2019s stuff where it\\u2019s non-deterministic and we can\\u2019t go and put our meaty hands on it in the data center the way we used to when things start breaking. How do you avoid becoming the blame center in a scenario like that?



Ricardo: That\\u2019s a great question and it\\u2019s interesting because it could happen, right, that somebody says, \\u201cWell, because of the migration, things are not working as expected,\\u201d et cetera. So, we do help customer\\u2014there is a lot of implications when you\\u2019re talking about migration, right\\u2014to the proper planning, sizing, are there any architecture implications? Are you doing any cross-endianness? Then, you know, database-wise, Oracle has different architectures, so we have the previous model of non-containerized or no-container databases. Now, we\\u2019re going to tenant-based.



We\\u2019re working\\u2014are you doing an upgrade as well? Are you doing, you know, you\\u2019re coming from an older version to a newer version? Are there security implications? Because a lot of the database is on-premises might not have encryption, and we by default encrypt at the target level because it\\u2019s a requirement in the cloud, right?



So, what we work with the customers is two things. First of all, do all the planning and testing as possible before the migration so that you know what you\\u2019re doing is correct. Is the app certified with newer version and the environment you\\u2019re going into, right? And we can work with you to do all these tests. And then one thing that we realized was really important in the product is to have a way to have, like, knobs or control of what you\\u2019re doing, and you could actually do testing before the actual switch over into the cloud.



So, you will have, like, a standby database, like, a copy of your database, running in the cloud, [unintelligible 00:16:47] synchronization with your on-prem, your database, right, on your application, but you can use that to just do all the testing you want and then be sure. And only when you\\u2019re ready, then you will do a switchover, and then things would work as expected, right? But again, there\\u2019s a lot of process. And we\\u2019ve worked with customers that you know, they know what they\\u2019re doing, they were, like, super happy and they did it quite fast. There\\u2019s others that said, \\u201cYou know what? I am going to do a nine-month testing process because my week that I\\u2019m going to be migrating and then the weekend that I\\u2019m going to do the switchover is crucial.\\u201d And then we work with them over those nine months. But then when it happened, it went, you know, perfectly, right? So, it really depends on the project. But we do ensure that everything is taken care of because as you mentioned, it\\u2019s a big change, it\\u2019s the big shift.



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Corey: I think that there\\u2019s a very true story about how oh, we just try to close our eyes and cross our fingers and hope for the best and press the migrate button that everything will work out flawlessly. It doesn\\u2019t work that way. The way that we always wound up handling migrations in places that weren\\u2019t riddled with dysfunction up, down, and sideways\\u2014at least not in this particular way because everyone\\u2019s environment\\u2019s terrible\\u2014is that we would test these things out, we\\u2019d stage them, we would have rollbacks that were tested and known to work. In some cases, we\\u2019d begin with the rollback before we started the migration plan, just because we absolutely cannot have this system down outside of a maintenance window or outside of certain constraints. And it feels like a lot of that planning is wasted when things go well. But it\\u2019s not. It\\u2019s the reason that important things don\\u2019t crumble underneath us. Like, on some level it\\u2019s, do I feel like I wasted money on my airbags and seatbelts because I\\u2019ve never used them? Not really no.



Ricardo: Well, I mean, this is, like, the classic [unintelligible 00:18:23] ops thing and support thing, right? People always complain when things don\\u2019t work, but when they do work, they don\\u2019t realize it because of all the worries that all the people that infrastructure and planning and support and ops were doing, right? So it\\u2019s\\u2014yeah, there\\u2019s a lot of time that can be spent in planning and people would think that it\\u2019s actually wasted time, that actually is super important and crucial for these. The other thing I think it\\u2019s important is that you always should have a fallback plan. There\\u2019s, like, different configurations in which these might be more cumbersome or complex, but we do have the possibility to, like, keep replicating back to on-premises, so that if anything happens, people do have that option, right?



And we do have customers that like the idea of having a disaster recovery configuration in which they have, like, something in the cloud and then another thing on-premises, so there\\u2019s always an option for you. But planning is crucial, right? So, we even have a thing called, like, evaluation mode in which we could we dry run a migration without actually doing it, just to tell you what could happen. Of course, when you do things live, there\\u2019s always things, right, that could be related to many other factors, but we really, really try to dial in and be sure that when you\\u2019re doing the migration and you properly planned, things will be automated and work for you.



And so, we\\u2019ve grown over the last three-and-a-half years, and I was doing some research, right, and we\\u2019ve had, like, you know, thousands of databases migrated, great customer that have been using us, and surprises, so sometimes we don\\u2019t know, right, and we find out, oh, somebody\\u2019s doing a course in one of these learning platforms based on our product, which is really new, but it\\u2019s, oh, it\\u2019s cool. Like, when we\\u2019re not creating, like, even your [unintelligible 00:19:50] et cetera, right? And I\\u2019m really glad that what your doing has an impact and helps people. That\\u2019s all you want. You want to help people achieve their goals.



Corey: So, I have to ask. On some level, building something that migrates a database from one location to another naively would seem to folks to be a, \\u201cOkay, at some point, this gets declared feature-complete and then we go work on other interesting problems.\\u201d But yet the fact that you\\u2019ve remained employed in the role that you\\u2019re in where you continue to work on the problem would strongly suggest that this is not, in fact, true. How does the product continue to evolve once you are, let\\u2019s be clear, shipping this to paying customers?



Ricardo: Well, I mean, the product will evolve, as you mentioned, right\\u2014



Corey: And I want to be clear, that\\u2019s not just a rephrasing of, \\u201cHey, quick, justify your job.\\u201d Obviously, this stuff has to evolve. This is not one of those, \\u201cSo, what is it? You\\u2019d say these do here,\\u201d crappy questions that isn\\u2019t really a question so much as an accusation. Those come in a slightly different tone of voice.



Ricardo: That\\u2019s, you know, it\\u2019s a super valid question and I actually appreciate it a lot because it also makes me reflect on how much we\\u2019ve grown right? I mean, I think the magic of ZDM and the team behind it is that it\\u2019s kind of like a startup within Oracle, right? It all started because different teams [within 00:21:03] Oracle, right, you\\u2019re banded together, a team propose a prototype based on existing technology, right? So like, again, as I mentioned, like, Oracle technology for database has been over 40 years in the making. And, you know, a team said, \\u201cOkay, what are the standard tools to actually do a backup or an export of data transferred, you know, to a location\\u201d\\u2014in this case, the cloud\\u2014\\u201cDoing a whole synchronization, encryption, et cetera, and then the switchover?\\u201d Right?



So, the thing is that databases come in many flavors, there are different options, different ways for databases to work. There\\u2019s also different targets in the Oracle Cloud and those then change how you would be migrating into, you will have different workflows, physical, logical, you could use different backup locations, so of course, in Oracle Cloud, the standard is the object storage, right? You can do a direct data transfer; you have that technology as well. If you\\u2019re doing migrations to [cloud 00:21:51] customer, you\\u2019ll definitely will require, like, external storage, like NFS. If you\\u2019re doing a conversion from AIX or Solaris into, you know, the cloud target which is Linux, then again, there\\u2019s other implications, if you\\u2019re doing an inflight upgrade, if you\\u2019re changing architectures, from non-multi-tenancy to multi-tenancy, if you\\u2019re doing, you know, coming from other clouds, there are also certain considerations.



So, now that I mentioned all of these, you can see how a product from the get-go can have all those, right? So, we started with a subset of features and we\\u2019ve grown up to six releases now over the last three-and-a-half years that have incorporated everything that I\\u2019ve just mentioned. And we can do all those things, but it keeps getting better. And then there\\u2019s always, like, things that we realize that customers are using us in ways that maybe were not expected, which is great because oh, okay, cool, then this is something that we can actually, like, make better or enhance, right?



And there\\u2019s always requests from customers on what they want to do or see change in the product. We also integrate with our team. So, there is an advisor that does a pre-check for the database and checks, okay, what are, like, the recommendations on what you should do? So, those integrations and working with our teams across Oracle, again, take time, and hence why, you know, products keep growing and evolving. And you\\u2019re right, maybe at some point, we will be able to cover everything that there is to do, right?



What we\\u2019re doing now, and we\\u2019ve been working, again, in partnership with our teams at Oracle, right, is, like, be the engine of other Oracle migration strategies. So, there is a native service in Oracle Cloud infrastructure called DMS that has a subset of our features and it uses ZDM under the hood, right? So again, there\\u2019s always work to do and a lot of it sometimes is go to communication and working with customers, but there\\u2019s also a lot of, like, going back to the drawing board and see how can the product be improved.



Corey: I think that there\\u2019s a certain lack of attention also given to the fact that every time you think you\\u2019ve seen it all, all it takes is talking to one more customer, where they have a use case that you potentially hadn\\u2019t considered. And maybe it sounds ridiculous to you, but it\\u2019s ridiculous in load-bearing ways in an awful lot of these other places. Empathy becomes such a key aspect of this that I\\u2019m somewhat surprised that more folks don\\u2019t spend more time than they do thinking about these things.



Ricardo: Well, I think as a product manager, this is really important, right? You need to put yourself in the customer\\u2019s shoes. And you also need to use the product. Sometimes using the product, like, so I use it, like, to create my own workshops that we have. There\\u2019s a platform called Live Labs in Oracle that has, like, I don\\u2019t like 6000 labs that are free for you to use and learn about our technology, right?



So, in order to better the product understand, and then you know, when we\\u2019re doing a new release, et cetera, then see the key features, like, we create materials like that and we use it. But that doesn\\u2019t give us the whole scope of how a product customer would be using it. So, for all internal migration that we have within Oracle products into the Oracle Cloud, we use that and then that gives us a lot of insights. But then going to a customer and spending time with them, sometimes developing relationships that go more than a year because we were talking about, like, big [fleet 00:24:41] migrations, thousands of databases, you realize, oh, the scope is broader than we expect, but it\\u2019s actually a really\\u2014there\\u2019s a lot of satisfaction in learning from them and then getting back to the development team. Or even including. I think that\\u2019s really important as well.



I think a good PM would include development sometimes in the conversation with customers because they then\\u2014there is, like, a better understanding from both sides of the aisle. And even bring them to conferences, et cetera, so that the actual, you know, empathy of the customer requests and what they need, it\\u2019s created.



Corey: Yeah, I think that there\\u2019s also a presupposition that you can look at a company and say, \\u201cOh, you\\u2019re using X technology? You must be crappy,\\u201d or whatnot. Something I\\u2019ve learned is that every company of a size that is remarkably small compared to what people often think he is using basically everything already. Like, I\\u2019m at this point at a company that has less than ten employees and we already have five different clouds that we have accounts with, doing different things in different ways. This explosion of different tools and different utilities is like it is for a reason. And it\\u2019s very tricky to really, I think, appreciate that until you\\u2019ve walked a mile in the shoes of someone who\\u2019s building things like that.



Ricardo: Yeah. It\\u2019s interesting. There\\u2019s a whole, like, view of product management, right, and having this idea of building and building and building products, but what you\\u2019re doing is actually helping people with their needs, and their needs can be really broad, so maybe the solution is not your product. And maybe the solution is not your technology. But I think good PM, and I think anyone in technology, a good person, would actually, like, help these users or customers to get where they need to, even if it\\u2019s not using your technology, right?



Corey: I would agree wholeheartedly. I really want to thank you for taking the time to go through what it is you\\u2019re up to and how you view the world. If people want to learn more, where\\u2019s the best place for them to find you other than, you know, local community meetups when you happen to be in town?



Ricardo: Well, I mean, of course, anybody can, like, go to LinkedIn and look me there. I have a Twitter account @productmanaged, so product manager, but without the R and a D instead because of course. Twitter handles are\\u2014or handles over on social media are hard to get, although I\\u2019m as active lately on Twitter. And I, you know, I opened an account on Bluesky, which is [@productmanager 00:26:54]. I did get that one. But um, I only starting now to use it, right, so, you know, I guess those three would be the places to.



Corey: Awesome. And we will, of course, put links to that in the [show notes 00:27:04]. Thank you so much for your time, I appreciate it.



Ricardo: Anytime. And one thing. If anyone is ever in San Francisco, you know, I\\u2019m more than happy to meet up. I love this city. It has changed my life tremendously and I\\u2019m happy to show you around. I consider myself now somebody that really, really, really cares for this place and happy to just, you know, have a good time, talk technology or not. I also love to cook. So anytime, I\\u2019m here.



Corey: I highly recommend that. He\\u2019s not just fun to hang out with, he is an excellent cook as well. But I don\\u2019t know if there\'s a good way to put that in show notes, so you\\u2019ll have to take my word [laugh] for it instead.



Ricardo: [laugh].



Corey: Ricardo Gonzalez, Senior Principal Product Manager at Oracle. I\\u2019m Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you\\u2019ve enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you\\u2019ve hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with an angry, insulting comment that one day I will find a tool to migrate into a central database. I know not where.


Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.


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