By Cloud cost strategies in most enterprises stop at consumption monitoring and commercial negotiation. The runtime layer, where Java applications actually execute, remains outside the CFO‘s line of sight. That gap means real optimization opportunities are left untouched while cloud bills continue to grow.
In this interview on TFiR, Peter Maloney, CFO and COO at Azul, walks through where the Java runtime fits in cloud cost reduction and what executive alignment is required to move from visibility to application-level performance change.
Guest: Peter Maloney, CFO and COO at Azul
Show: TFiR
Here is what every CFO, CIO, and platform engineering leader needs to know.
Technical Deep Dive
Q: Should CFOs think about JVM optimization, or is that too far into the technical stack?
Peter Maloney, CFO and COO at Azul, argues that CFOs do not need to understand every technical detail of how the JVM operates, but they do need to engage with it as a cost lever. The CFO’s role is to partner with CIOs, product leaders, and engineering teams to identify where runtime-level changes can drive savings that pure consumption management cannot reach. Treating JVM optimization as outside finance’s scope means leaving a significant optimization layer entirely unmanaged.
“You’re not going to have all the answers. You’re going to have to partner with your CIO and your product people, engineering people, to make sure you’re making the right decisions here.” — Peter Maloney, CFO and COO, Azul
Q: What does Azul do differently compared to standard cloud cost management approaches?
Maloney describes Azul’s approach as moving customers past the first level of cost management, which focuses on consumption monitoring and commercial controls, toward changes that affect how applications actually operate at the runtime level. Azul works across CFO, CIO, and engineering functions together rather than engaging with a single stakeholder, because runtime optimization requires decisions that span financial, architectural, and operational domains.
“What we’ve been able to do as a company is work with our customers, CFOs, CIOs, product people, engineers, and try to help them go from just managing consumption and commercials to actually changing how their applications operate.” — Peter Maloney, CFO and COO, Azul
Q: What does it mean to go beyond visibility and automation in cloud cost reduction?
Maloney draws a clear line between two levels of cloud cost strategy. The first level covers visibility tools and automation that manage spend reactively. The second level involves working across executive and engineering functions to find solutions that change application performance directly, reducing the underlying resource consumption rather than managing its cost after the fact. He frames this as the direction CFOs should push their organizations toward.
“I would work with the other executive partners and functional departments to go find the optimal solution to go beyond just visibility and automation, to go to something that actually changes the performance.” — Peter Maloney, CFO and COO, Azul
Q: Where does the Java runtime layer fit in cloud, AI, and automation cost conversations?
Maloney positions the runtime layer as the point where organizations can take full advantage of cloud, AI, and automation investments by ensuring the underlying application execution is as efficient as possible. Without addressing how Java workloads actually run on the JVM, organizations absorb the full cost of cloud and AI infrastructure without extracting proportional value. The runtime layer is where efficiency gains compound across all workload types.
“Going beyond just visibility and automation, to something that actually changes how applications operate, is how you take full advantage of cloud, AI, and automation.” — Peter Maloney, CFO and COO, Azul
Resources and Documentation
- Azul, Java runtime platform focused on performance optimization and cloud cost reduction for enterprise Java workloads
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👇 Click to Read Full Raw Transcript
Swapnil Bhartiya: Of course, Azul is a Java company at its core. When we talk about software efficiency and running leaner workloads, let’s talk about bringing Azul and Java into picture. Where does the runtime layer fit into this conversation? If JVM optimization is something CFO should even think of, or it’s too high level for that, but still, what role does Java, what role does Azure play in taming these costs and allowing organizations to take full advantage of cloud, AI and automation?
Peter Maloney: Yeah, so I think from a CFO’s role, right, and you try to learn more and more about technology and how applications run, you’re not going to have all the answers. You’re going to have to partner with your CIO and your product people, engineering people, to make sure you’re making the right decisions here. I think that what we’ve been able to do as a company is do exactly that. We work with our customers, CFOs, CIOs, product people, engineers, and try to help them go from the next level of just sort of managing consumption and commercials to actually changing how their applications operate. And so as a cfo, what I would do is I would work with the other executive partners and functional departments to go find the optimal solution to go beyond just visibility and automation, to go to something that actually changes the performance.
