Make your hybrid cloud environment a cost-effective business investment.
Infrastructure based in the Hybrid Cloud environments are now more popular among Australian businesses than any other IT model. Despite widespread adoption, we often speak to IT leaders that haven’t fully optimised their cloud-based environments.
Your reasons for moving to Hybrid Cloud may have involved modernisation or growth. But, if your environment is not optimised, Hybrid Cloud alone will not enable you to meet these goals.
Managing cloud spend is one of the top challenges for businesses – the same study estimates wasted cloud spend at 32%. With Australian cloud spend set to pass $18 billion, that is $6.3 billion a year wasted nationwide.
Gartner predicted 2024 as the year of Hybrid Cloud optimisation, but the earlier you start, the sooner you will reap the financial benefits. Here are 5 cost-cutting exercises you can perform to reduce your cloud spend and optimise the value of your IT infrastructure:
1. Automation
Automating your IT processes using Hybrid Cloud increases precision, reduces costs and frees up time that can be allocated elsewhere. Statistical analysis has proven that automation makes workers more productive, as predicted by Gartner in 2019.
Processes like patching, system updates, incident response, security compliance and migration are examples of processes that can be automated using automation for Hybrid Cloud optimisation. Capture low-hanging fruit early to gain momentum and prove the value of automation to executives and stakeholders.
Although automation does not equal employee redundancy, nervousness among middle management and their reports justifies handling the topic with care and sensitivity. Negate tension by focusing on the benefits automation brings to employee growth and daily activities.
2. Outsourcing
The ‘outsourcing’ aspect of Hybrid Cloud is a key driver for adoption. It allows businesses to harness the infinite capabilities of the public cloud without paying for the highest capacity scenarios, as you would if you housed all facets of your infrastructure on-premises.
Utilising this pay-as-you-go model is one of the most effective methods of cost consolidation we can suggest. Processes (like staffing) and physical assets (like data centres) can all be outsourced – but the detail of an effective strategy depends on your business.
Partnering with a Hybrid Cloud automation and orchestration expert such as Advent One streamlines this process. Depending on your needs, it can be as hands-on or fully managed as you like.
3. Rationalisation
Rather than adding more systems to your already complicated infrastructure, rationalisation allows you to reorganise what you already have.
IT Rationalisation has become something of a buzzword in the industry – but how do you go about doing it effectively? We have covered this in more depth here, but here’s an outline of how it can be used to reduce your cloud spend.
The seemingly infinite capabilities of Hybrid Cloud are one of its key benefits , but, if used without rationalisation, costs can quickly spiral out of control. Rationalisation is the process of taking a systematic overview of your infrastructure and optimising it for maximum efficiency.
Methods used for rationalisation include consolidation of duplicate systems, removal of redundant servers and automation of processes where appropriate. As with outsourcing, what this looks like for your organisation may vary considerably from others.
4. Negotiation
Alongside the technical updates that keep your cloud-based environment working seamlessly, evaluating your business relationships can also cut costs. As you modernise your IT infrastructure and realise some systems are obsolete, you may also notice service contracts you no longer need.
Negotiate with providers for services like maintenance, data centres and application subscriptions. See which of these services might be automated and address them when you circle back to point 1.
Constant negotiation will also reduce vendor lock-in, keeping market rates reasonable and ensuring your organisation gets the most value out of every investment.
5. Engage a cost-cutting partner: Advent One
Save time, money and resources by utilising the expert engineering capabilities of Advent One. We have strategic cost-cutting processes in place that can be quickly deployed across our customer’s infrastructure, making the optimisation process fast and effective.
Taking an engineering-led approach, Advent One turns complex IT infrastructures into an orchestrated and automated single entity. Whether your business needs Hybrid Cloud training, a fully managed infrastructure transformation or consulting and advice, we have the technical expertise to get the most value out of the systems you already have.
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Speak to the experts by booking a live demonstration. In this session, we will reveal how we use Red Hat Ansible to orchestrate and automate your Hybrid Cloud environment for maximum value.