Managing Your Hybrid Cloud

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Review: Executive’s Guide to Cloud Computing by Eric Marks and Bob Lozano

By G C Network | January 26, 2010

Recently, I had the privilege of reviewing an advance copy of Executive’s Guide to Cloud Computing by Eric Marks and Bob Lozano. Available now for pre-order on Amazon, this guide is a…

DoD Cloud Computing Session at 5th International Cloud Expo

By G C Network | January 22, 2010

I’m happy to announce that I will be presenting on DoD Cloud Computing Advances at the 5th International Cloud Expo, April 19-21, 2010 at the Javits Convention Center in New…

InformationWeek Prediction: Cloud Computing for Classified Software

By G C Network | January 20, 2010

Yes, I know you’re sick of all the predictions, but I just can’t resist pointing you to Nick Hoover’s “5 Predictions For Government IT in 2010“. In summary: 1. Cybersecurity…

“Shaping Government Clouds” Just Released

By G C Network | January 12, 2010

As part of the On The Frontlines series, Trezza Media Group has just released it latest on-line electronic magazine. “Shaping Government Clouds” includes: Pete Tseronis, Chairman of the Federal Cloud…

Fed Tech Bisnow: If Nostradamus Did RFPs?

By G C Network | January 6, 2010

Nostradamus may no longer be with us, but check out the “beltway” predictions from Tech Bisnow! “Two hot trends almost all mentioned: early uptick on M&A and cloud computing ubiquity”…

Navy CANES and Cloud Computing

By G C Network | January 4, 2010

During the first quarter of 2010, the Navy is expected to make the first selection for the Consolidated Afloat Network Enterprise System (CANES). CANES is just one component of the…

GovCloud, “Cloud Musings” rated “Influential” by Topsy

By G C Network | January 3, 2010

Log in with Twitter A search engine powered by tweets My sincere appreciation and thanks goes out to Topsy for rating my tweets as “Influential”! Topsy is a new kind…

Jill Tummler Singer Appointed NRO CIO

By G C Network | January 1, 2010

Effective January 1, 2010, Jill Tummler Singer will take the reigns as CIO for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). As the CIA Deputy CIO, Ms Tummler has been a proponent…

Most Influential Cloud Bloggers for 2009

By G C Network | January 1, 2010

Thank you Ulitzer and SYS-CON Media for naming me to your list of the most influential cloud computing bloggers for 2009. My hearty congratulations go out to the other bloggers…

2009: The Government Discovers Cloud Computing

By G C Network | December 23, 2009

2009 was truly a watershed year for Federal information technology professionals. After inaugurating the first Cyber-President we saw the appointment of our first Federal CIO and the rapid adoption of…

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Photo credit: Shutterstock

Runaway cloud computing cost may be causing an information technology industry crisis. Expanding requirements, extended transition schedules and misleading marketplace hype have made “Transformation” a dirty word. Questions about how to manage cost variances and deviations with assets and cost across different suppliers abound. A recent Cloud Tech article explained that while public cloud offers considerable cost savings in comparison to private or on-premises based alternatives, there may also be significant hidden costs. Operational features like auto-scaling can cause costs to soar in line with demand for resources, making predicting costs difficult and budgeting even harder. There is also an acute need for a holistic and heterogeneous system that can track the costs of cloud services from the point of consumption (e.g., an application or business unit) down to the resources involved (e.g., storage or compute service).

Sitting at the apex of all of these issues is the CFO or corporate Vice President of Finance. As the key budget manager for most organizations, it is where many of the key financial decisions are made. This is also where the spectrum of IT cost responsibility extends from the pure financial analytics tasks of:

Optimization;
Forecasting and projection; and
Financial reporting

To the pedestrian but crucial accounting tasks like:

Show-backs and charge-backs
Charge reconciliation; and
Budgeting policy management

The most prevalent cause of these financial problems is a failure to keep track of virtual assets in the cloud. Many companies have lost complete visibility and control of cloud computing cost simply because they failed to tag and track these assets. Unfortunately, this error is typically realized after hundreds or even thousands of cloud based assets have been instantiated.

Experts have also outlined a five-step process that help enterprises bring control and governance to hybrid cloud IT cost.

Step 1: Establish governance thresholds and policies for services

Step 2: Access your cloud service provisioning accounts

Step 3: Track the costs of the services, including recurring and usage-based costs

Step 4: Enforce compliance on the costs and asset usage using the purpose built cost analytics engines; initiate and track changes

Step 5: Simulate and optimize the control and compliance actions and better control your costs

Managing spend and assets across hybrid clouds also requires the availability of actionable data. This will help the CFO focus on which assets are performing as expected and which are not. Predictive analytics and insight-based recommendations can also help to drive the prioritization of changes that can have the most effective impact.

These sort of challenges can certainly be acute but the solution for helping organizations gain control of these issues will typically include holistic hybrid cloud management. In fact, financial organizations are just now realizing their critical role in managing the operational expenditure model embraced by cloud computing. Services specifically designed to address the financial management aspects of cloud metering, billing, workload management and service provisioning policies are just now hitting the marketplace.

One of these leading financial management services is provided by IBM. Their newly launched Cost and Asset Management application helps companies address escalating cloud costs and complexity while offering guidance into the next steps of hybrid cloud transformation. Through the use of predictive analytics to monitor and provide recommendations on a single dashboard, this service can provide finance and IT on one system of reference for hybrid cloud governance. This particular service can establish and enforce governance control points using financial and technical policies. Its ability to easily combine asset tags with policies can help the CFO identify and respond to financial variances before they become problems. Through the innovative use of Watson Cognitive services, this particular application can tap into a years of IBM experience to offer recommendations using built-in advanced analytics and cognitive capabilities. Acting on these suggestions can streamline cloud usage, predict future trends and identify waste.

If your company is currently experiencing these digital transformation challenges, learn more about managing hybrid IT finances at ibm.biz/ExploreCloudBrokerage. Establishing a focus on cloud governance, cost and asset management is a truly essential step towards expanding the operational benefits of hybrid cloud.

This post was brought to you by IBM Global Technology Services. For more content like this, visit IT Biz Advisor.

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