12 ways to maximize your cloud investments
“In
the
current
economic
environment,
customers
may
have
a
unique
opportunity
to
secure
more
flexible
and
favorable
contractual
terms,”
Aronchik
says.
“In
the
current
economic
environment,
customers
may
have
a
unique
opportunity
to
secure
more
flexible
and
favorable
contractual
terms,”
Aronchik
says.
“To
do
so,
IT
organizations
should
build
time
into
the
process
for
reasonable
engagement
with
several
cloud
providers
on
a
competitive
basis,
or
a
single
cloud
provider
with
a
reasonable
opportunity
to
pivot
to
an
alternative
solution
if
needed.”
Read
the
fine
print
The
value
of
a
cloud
contract
is
not
fully
represented
in
the
fee
schedule.
What
the
customer
may
assume
to
be
“permitted
use,”
the
cloud
provider
may
deem
“excess
use”
or
an
“overage.”
“To
maximize
total
value
of
a
cloud
contract,
IT
leaders
should
look
for
contractual
and
technical
clarity
on
the
metrics
that
are
used
to
calculate
relevant
fees,
reliable
tools
for
monitoring
consumption,
and
the
methodology
for
addressing
actual
or
potential
excess
use,”
says
Aronchik.
Beware
of
minimum
commitments
It
can
be
tempting
to
agree
to
certain
volume
or
spending
levels
to
secure
deeper
discounts
for
ongoing
cloud
usage.
But
it’s
one
of
the
leading
causes
of
stranded
value
in
cloud
contracts.
“It’s
important
to
not
overcommit
on
the
minimum
commitments,”
Sealock
warns.
“This
often
depends
on
an
enterprise
being
able
to
accurately
predict
how
much
of
their
premise-based
footprint
they
can
actually
migrate
to
the
cloud
and
at
what
rate.”
If
an
IT
organization
runs
into
issues
that
delay
or
prevent
moving
on-premises
systems
to
the
cloud,
and
thus
miss
a
minimum
commitment,
there
will
be
costs
involved.
“Longer
term
commitments,
use
of
‘sticky’
native
services
may
drive
larger
contract
discounts
but
also
impact
your
technology
plans,”
says
Sealock.
Leave
no
cloud
stones
unturned
There
are
a
number
of
internal
factors
that
can
impact
cloud
value
realization.
“Challenge
your
IT
department
to
pull
all
levers
for
efficient
cloud
usage,”
advises
Sealock.
There
may
be
an
opportunity
to
refactor
applications
to
make
them
more
efficient
users
of
cloud
resources,
adopt
cloud
native
services
instead
of
lifting
and
shifting
existing
system
to
IaaS,
or
move
to
SaaS
options
as
part
of
ongoing
application
rationalization.
Increasing
the
focus
on
application
modernization
is
crucial
to
extracting
the
full
value
of
cloud,
says
Ranjan.
Invest
in
a
cloud
management
platform
Real-time
visibility
across
the
cloud
environment
goes
a
long
way
in
preventing
unexpectedly
huge
bills
from
cloud
providers.
But
“cloud
pricing
and
ordering
options
are
at
a
sufficient
level
of
complexity
that
it
is
beyond
the
capacity
of
a
‘smart
person
with
a
spreadsheet’
to
manage
effectively,”
says
Sealock.
There
are
numerous
cloud
cost
management
tools
on
the
market
from
established
players
and
startups
alike.
These
tools
should
have
real-time
interfaces
to
the
cloud
service
providers’
pricing
engines
and
be
able
to
automatically
match
the
enterprise’s
cloud
usage
patterns
with
the
right
cloud
services
(e.g.,
IaaS,
PaaS,
native)
and
configurations
(e.g.,
service
instance
type/size,
storage
tier).
Sealock
advises
evaluating
multiple
platforms,
looking
for
the
following
attributes:
-
Financial
(in
addition
to
technical
and
operational)
management
capabilities -
Integration
with
automation
tools
for
orchestrating
technical
deployments -
Capacity
to
pull
usage
from
both
cloud
and
on-premises
environments -
Ability
to
model
what
on-premises
environments
would
look
like
(and
cost)
on
multiple
clouds -
Engineering
support
to
ensure
the
tools
remain
properly
configured
over
time
Secure
scarce
cloud
management
talent
“Cloud
pricing
can
be
very
complex
and
dynamic
and
is
highly
dependent
on
usage,”
says
Sealock.
Without
the
proper
governance,
unnecessary
costs
can
quickly
accumulate.
Adopting
a
cloud
management
platform
is
step
one,
but
these
tools
are
themselves
complex.
IT
leaders
must
also
recruit
technology
professionals
who
know
how
to
use
cloud
management
platforms
to
continually
refine
cloud
service
usage
to
meet
enterprise
SLAs
at
the
lowest
costs.
Enterprises
are
seeing
premiums
for
cloud
skills
outpacing
those
for
standard
IT
infrastructure
skills,
according
to
research
by
Everest
Group.
“Cloud
expertise
is
in
short
supply,
but
without
in-house
experience
it
is
difficult
to
avoid
the
wasteful
pitfalls,”
Sealock
says.
“Invest
in
the
people
to
use
the
cloud
tools
properly
who
can
also
design
the
policies,
processes,
and
procedures
of
a
cloud
governance
framework.”
In
some
cases,
IT
leaders
will
create
a
cloud
center
of
excellence
that
can
be
leveraged
across
multiple
lines
of
business.
Get
serious
about
demand
management
Ease
of
use
and
self-provisioning
are
two
of
the
big
benefits
of
using
the
cloud,
but
they
also
open
the
door
to
unmitigated
(and
sometimes
invisible)
cloud
sprawl.
IT
organizations
must
create
and
communicate
clear
policies
and
processes
for
cloud
demand
management.
“Training
can
be
used
to
increase
the
socialization
of
the
policies
and
processes
to
users,
but
good
compliance
also
requires
those
policies
to
be
enforced
within
the
programmed
workflow
of
the
tools,”
says
Sealock,
who
suggests
putting
some
teeth
into
demand
management.
“Communicate
top
down
that
there
will
be
smart
constraints
on
cloud
usage
that
will
be
reinforced
via
training
but
also
codified
in
the
workflow
of
their
systems.”
Address
overruns
right
away
Some
IT
organizations
may
view
cost
overruns
as
inevitable.
But
ignoring
them
is
a
mistake.
“They
do
not
get
better
on
their
own,”
says
Sealock.
“It
takes
action
to
change
the
dynamic.”
Unexpected
—
or
worse,
inexplicable
—
cloud
costs
are
a
red
flag.
Understanding
the
root
cause
of
the
usage
and
addressing
it
as
soon
as
possible
is
important.
“You
do
not
want
to
discourage
cloud
usage,
but
you
must
insist
that
the
usage
be
smart,
deliberate,
and
cost-effective,”
Sealock
says.
Continuously
monitor
and
measure
cloud
value
Having
clearly
defined
SLAs
to
measure
performance
against
expected
value
is
crucial.
“Unless
enterprises
have
a
well-built
process
to
continuously
monitor
and
measure
value
against
their
stated
goals,
they
will
slip
off
in
their
transformation
journey,”
says
Ranjan.
Cloud
vendors,
consultants,
and
other
partners
are
likely
to
keep
pushing
more
cloud,
but
its
critical
for
IT
leaders
to
periodically
re-evaluate
the
cloud
march
to
ensure
the
organization
can
achieve
the
intended
value.
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