Insights

Four ways to maximize cloud infrastructure investments

Andrew Das | Head of Product | UST Cloud Infrastructure Services

As undeniable shockwaves impact industries across the world, more businesses are embracing digital to stay resilient in a rapidly changing world where the future is unpredictable.

Going “digital” hardly means merely modernizing legacy systems anymore. It’s more of a paradigm shift that impacts every functional area central to business. Without a specific hybrid-cloud plan, huge unexpected costs can easily override the benefits.

Many organizations are questioning how to manage and support an optimized hybrid-cloud strategy, essential for thriving in the COVID-19 era and beyond.

The rise of boundaryless workspaces

The transition to the cloud is no new trend: businesses from enterprises to SMBs have all been steadily migrating workloads into the cloud over the last decade. The pandemic has only accelerated the trend.

Businesses were able to shift to remote, work-from-home environments by leveraging hyper-agile infrastructures that only cloud could enable. As more of the enterprise shifts onto cloud, it’s imperative to be realistic about how to manage costs while reaping the benefits of cloud-native software, without overlooking security or compliance.

Most enterprises are navigating an unpredictable business climate with less budget, making cost optimization a key driver for delivering a hybrid-cloud strategy. Working remotely has resulted in higher productivity and makes a compelling case to further reduce office space. But boundaryless workspaces also introduce new challenges and threats. These factors are forcing businesses to prioritize what’s most critical and quickly adapt.

Choosing a cloud provider often comes down to a specific business case. But unlocking the benefits each provider offers requires careful balancing of many variables and data points to drive informed actions. Multicloud management solutions create visibility into cloud operations to find the sweet spot where cost and functionality align.

Most IT organizations are investing in cloud-based remote workspaces to achieve optimal productivity and streamline labor costs. These platforms federate anytime, anywhere access to critical corporate services and automate self-service tasks to stay efficient. To support BYOD, cloud-based remote workspaces should support endpoint security monitoring and management to adequately enforce SLAs across boundaryless environments.

It’s not hard to understand why global estimates for cloud services are projected to net $623.3 billion over the next 3 years. When roughly 30% of the IT budget goes to cloud, you need to have a good idea of how to optimize that investment and the cloud-native value it offers.

Mitigating Unexpected Costs Through Greater Transparency

Having complete transparency into cloud infrastructure investments and data is necessary to monitor costs and performance. Continuously monitoring and optimizing cloud investments can make a difference. Reducing costs by as much as 25% is entirely possible with orchestration tools and even more working with managed CIS services.

Investing in a hybrid-cloud management platform that automates and aggregates cloud spend provides detailed insights and analytics to see across multiple cloud environments and even onPrem. At every stage of a cloud migration journey, it can’t be overstated that careful provisioning and real-time monitoring are critical practices for success.

Enforcing compliance and governance monitoring

Most IT organizations are managing up to 5 different cloud platforms at a time to capitalize on the full spectrum of benefits individual cloud providers offer. Flexibility is imperative with ultimate control a close second.

In terms of compliance and governance monitoring, the more the merrier isn’t always true. More endpoints spread across complex hybrid and multi-cloud environments become more challenging to monitor. More IT teams are Investing in compliance monitoring platforms to automate policy evaluation to make it easier to detect and report critical deviations and vulnerabilities on cloud infrastructures. Modern platforms will also recommend remediations to enable a proactive focus.

In-house cloud operations teams have no reason not to gain the visibility needed to orchestrate better in real time. Otherwise, tedious effort is required to monitor different cloud investments and it's usually too late to respond. Reducing governance incidents by as much as 15%, can make an impact. And the real savings is avoiding the backlash such incidents cause.

Enabling security-first architectures

BYOD and boundaryless workspaces are already here and they are rapidly redefining business cultures.

A VPN connected workspace hardly suffices when it comes to security. Secure endpoint connectivity is but one step in a complex chain of managed procedures and protocols that keeps the entire digital workspace secure across hybrid-cloud environments. With many more endpoints to keep an eye on, remote and mobile device management makes it possible to automate and orchestrate a range of critical services across more devices with the same IT resources.

Remote workspaces are the convergence between self-sufficiency, collaboration, and security enforcement which catalyzes new ways of working. With better visibility of resources across cloud and on-prem environments, CIOs, developers, and DevOps teams can tap into these insights to rapidly develop secure, cloud-native apps and standardize pipeline deployments across multicloud environments.

Where to prioritize

As pressure to deliver more while operating on less continues, what should you do to set your cloud infrastructure operations team up for success? Here are three areas to consider:

1. Exercise your hybrid-cloud strategy: Does everyone have access to the data to make sure that they make informed decisions? Have regular reviews to assess what needs optimizing.
2. Invest in a multicloud management tool: Leverage a modern automation and orchestration platform that can help Cloud Infrastructure teams discover areas for improvement across different cloud providers.
3. Evaluate your remote workspaces for efficiency and security. Determine whether managed VDI or Desktop-as-a-Service right for your organization. Is it better to manage in-house or outsource? Are higher levels of automation and real multi-tenancy needed? Do you need to reduce costs?

Learn more about how UST’s Cloud Infrastructure services align your cloud strategy for business value.